Wakarimasen!

This was a post in December 2006 of my first duty travel away from base.  Of course this needs to make it her :).

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First thing’s first. I’m sorry to disappoint those who know me that I have NOT become a sushi-lover. And, it’s also safe to say that I’ve had more than enough sushi to last me a whole lifetime.

But, you may be greatly surprised to know that, a picky eater that I am, I actually ate eel, while knowing very well it was eel (a cooked one, though, mind you). Yeah, my hunger just overcame all other logics left in my brain.

Anyway, Tokyo was a lovely city, expensive as it was. The people are just so polite that you feel you also have to bow down to them whenever they bow at you. Yeah, it’s like in the movies.

But, let me start from the very beginning.

Leaving my babies to go on duty travel in another country was the hardest thing that I had ever had to do in my whole entire life! By the time I arrived at the check-in counter, I was such a mess that people would have thought I was leaving the country for months, or even years. Little that they knew, I was only going for 3 days.

I took the night flight out. So, I thought I would be able to sleep during the whole 6-hours journey. But, I was wallowing so much in self-pity that even the retrofitted cabin with the reclining seats couldn’t make me sleep a wink during the whole flight. Furthermore, I was sitting in the middle of two men, who had no problems sleeping AND were snoring quite loudly for me to hear despite the noise of the engines.

From Narita Airport, my boss and I took the bus to Tokyo city which was about an hour’s drive. I wanted to savour all the moment while being in Tokyo and see everything that I could, but my sleepiness got the better of me. I was dozing off a few times while I was in the bus.

Once we arrived at the city, whatever self-pity that I had left was completely forgotten. We left our bags at the hotel and did the tourist thing. We took pictures of all possible things that we felt we couldn’t find in Malaysia.

While we were searching for food, we discovered that Japan, as a country, and Japanese, in general, are, in a way, very “unfriendly” to those who do not speak nor understand their language. Most of the signs and all their menus are written in the Japanese characters without any English translation. And, the following is a typical situation that I encountered when I wanted to pay for things that I bought:

Cashier: (In Japanese) Something, something, something… x 10
Me: (Staring blankly at the cashier while waiting for her to stop talking) Hai! (Whatever you say, lady)…
Cashier: (Punching some numbers on a calculator and showing the figures to me)
Me: (Paid whatever amount that was punched on the calculator)
Cashier: (Took the money and gave receipt)
Me: Arigato gozaimasu (yeay, I was finally able to say something!)
Cashier: Something, something... x 2 (most probably “You’re welcome” in Japanese)

Even when we asked for directions for certain places, they were speaking in Japanese when they could clearly see we could not understand whatever it was they were saying. I mean, it’s great that they take great pride in their language and country, but they could take some initiatives to learn English since the rest of the world speaks it. It’s as if they are saying “If you are coming into my country, you must bloody well speak and understand our language, or else, tough!”

But, hey, we managed. Some other things I observed while I was there:

• A sentence in English is 10 times longer when you translate it into Japanese (ok, I might be exaggerating, but it felt that way).
• Taxi drivers are very polite. They don’t weave in and out of the roads and try to run down everyone who is in their way.
• All drivers actually give way to pedestrians to cross the roads.
• Public transportations are super efficient.
• Japanese ladies luuuuurrrrvvvveee boots – you can see all types of boots worn by these ladies.
• Toilets are clean and dry – and they even have a mechanism to keep the toilet seats warm, which is just fantastic!

Hmm… can’t really think of anything else as of now.