It's Fall in Japan!
Coming Full Circle
For Fall Break, we decided to head down to Kyoto (our first time since LAST Fall Break, when we visited Japan thinking it might be our best chance to see the country). We also visited Nara and Osaka (Leandra got a press stay at Four Seasons Osaka for Business Traveler, and I didn’t complain). The week provided some nice down time as well as some new cities to discover. Upon our return, we celebrated Leandra’s birthday at our favorite Italian restaurant here.
Kyoto is a traditional, albeit super touristy, city you should definitely see in Japan. It’s quintessential Japan, so if you make it to the country, just do it. It will scratch that itch of seeing something old and authentic but also set in the modern world. We went last year and returned this year, and we weren’t disappointed.
We also checked out Nara, the deer capital of Japan. It’s a place that inspires almost more questions than answers as deer are free to roam a designated park and often stumble out into the surrounding city (and apparently have been for time immemorial). They are surprisingly civil, especially compared to our experience with rhesus macaque monkeys. We weren’t sure if the deer park would be gimmicky or cheap, but it surpassed our modest expectations and immediately became the highlight of our trip.
After Nara, we headed to Osaka for Leandra to review the Four Seasons Osaka. We didn’t get to see much of the city itself, but it’s always fun when we get a chance to enjoy one of her work trips together. Four Seasons is a luxury brand, so of course we enjoyed the top-notch property and its restaurants.
Some good, fun news: the Yokohama Baystars won the Japan Series this week! It was their first title since 1998, so it makes it even more special that we we got to catch a game this season. Although the stadium is over a kilometer away, we can hear the cheers and chants of the crowd when our windows are open. It was cool to hear some noise the evening the home team won it all after 26 years.
And now, some reflections after living in Japan for three months:
Before moving here, we definitely had a “vision” of what life would look like. And as with most new places we visit, we were wrong. It’s fun to be wrong about destinations sometimes though — you get more little wonders and surprises along the way. Some new or freshly confirmed observations since moving here:
Italian restaurants are truly everywhere in the world.
Apparently, I’m fine using a ‘man bag’ [sometimes] now.
Japanese stores are amazing at setting out samples of nearly *everything* in a store. Anything you’d be tempted to unbox, unfold, or touch has a presented example for you, so that you don’t need to go to the trouble of uncapping or guessing or messing up the rest of the stock. It’s like the store knows which things you’ll want to feel or smell, so they just skip that step for you.
There are many subtle ways that blind people in particular are aided in public life. For instance, there are yellow bumps and grooves on nearly every sidewalk crossing and pathway, speech to accompany every movement a train or elevator door makes (every day we are greeted by our elevator sweetly and robotically saying “doors are opening” in Japanese and English), and there are even distinct bleeps and bloops in station stairways and at street crossings, sometimes with different melodies to indicate if you are walking north-south or east-west.
If you’re considering traveling internationally but are hesitant about “the language,” please just do it. For one, people are helpful (and in cities, many speak some English). Two, Google Translate is amazing — so amazing, in fact, that we had a nearly two-hour conversation with a new friend we met in our neighborhood using solely Google Translate this week. You can also scan anything with your phone and read it in real time. Regarding number one, we’ve had more than one experience of simple, transactional conversations at the store when we’re trying to bumble through our ten words of Japanese only for the other person to burst into perfect English. It’s humbling.
Public transportation like subways and especially Shinkansen (bullet) trains are amazing, and the US needs to get on board (pun intended?).
The subways are NOT amazing when you get so confident about your route that you don’t bother to look at the train you’re boarding. Each and both of us have now boarded a “rapid” train that completely skips our station, taking us four stops beyond where we’d like to go (a one hour walk away). Fortunately, it’s easy enough to just cross the platform at the arrival station to go the opposite direction (and doesn’t cost you anything more since the payment is like checking in and out of a toll road).
It’s hopeless trying to figure out which side of the sidewalk/escalator/street you should walk on. Every subway station has arrows directing you either up or down or left or right, and sometimes it changes even mid-station. I can’t count the number of times I have nearly run into someone because there is a sudden urge from one or both of us to switch sides out of civility. In most cases, it’s best practice to stand on the left side of the escalator and pass/walk on the right. There are signs everywhere to remind you of this. But then sometimes you end up in a different city and are told to stand on the the right side. There is even a movement now to stop walking on escalators altogether.
Bottom line? We’re always learning.
Some photos since our last update…
