I am starting to loose count of days because today was another on the road day. Below are some things I have noticed in no order.
-Heated toliet seats really are quite nice, we miss them now in Hotel 1-2-3.
-Kurishiki is the Garey Indiana of Japan
-Air polution is nil...its probably all in Toyko
-The whole city (no matter what city) the streets are always clean with no trashcans at all on the sidewalks.
-Things aren't cheaper...ever...no matter what
-Japanese have no concept of time.
-Japanese television is either to cute for its own good, or to graphic and needs to be marked N-17.
-Everyone in the tour group but me and several others loathe the cuisine but the handful of us...we go hunting for more no matter what time it is
-We will get our butts handed to us at the music concert
-When you are really tired Kabuki is not the thing to watch
-Sumo season really does exist and people follow it like football in the States
-By American style breakfast they mean bacon and eggs and that is about it.
-The children are increadibly adorable when ever we see one we ask eachother Iskura des ka? (How much?)
-The tour bus is a moving ice cube and watching Spiderman does not entertain us at all, but we won't watch Titanic.
-Hotel 1-2-3 prostitutes check in regularly. Luckily we have a corner room that doesn't smell like smoke compared to our chimmey of our first room.
-Even though you may not know Japanese and they don't know English a transaction may be made by several extravegant gestures and repeating yourself to make you feel better. Eventually you will get it.
-when buying gifts it can either be a tea set, a fake sword, a fan, or cell phone danglies with bells, or hello kitty with bells.
-There are raised sidewalk tiles on the ground everywhere, not for sepearting the sides of the side walk but for the blind people. The tiles at intersections look like legos.
-School kids get back from school really late...like 10:00 we always see them on the train...yes they were uniforms. Apparently they go to school then clubs then a prepitory school.
-All the girls are so incredibly pretty it makes us feel bad, but I am sure the guys enjoy it.
-None of the hotels have slide cards but regular key keys on giant key blocks that could be called keychains. Also you must turn in your key to the front desk when leaving to hotel...even if you are coming back. They also provide you with an umbrella if you need on and don't have one with you.
-Even though you can't read Japanese you think you can by staring at it long enough and coming up with some reasonable explaination with your head tilted to the right.
We went to the Tori gate on the ocean this morning and it was very very gorgeous. We walked around the temple and then had time to venture out on our own around the quaint city on the island. They are famous for these maple candy pastries that are absolutely to die for. Especially the chocolate and the cream ones. Too bad I ate the box I bought! I also had time to exchange money for the rest of the week for the train and food at the University and some shopping in Okayama on monday.
We moved ourselves over to Kurashki to settle into our new shady little home for the next 6 days but we will get used to our tiny little space with our gigantic suitcases. We have to jump over the bed to get around them because there isn't much room at all. We took the bus over to the University for our tour, our first meal at the cafe (pretty much ramen is No.1) and then we had pracitce until 9. Not so bad but the room is incredibly dry allowing virtually no sound to expand making us adapt to a shorter crisper style than we are used to. But we will be better for it!
We don't have rehersal until 3pm tomorrow and it takes about an hour to commute to the unversity with the walking and the train and then walking up a gigantic hill again. Looks like I am carrying my high heels and bringing my walking shoes! But this gives us the day to sleep in and venture a little before having to be back at "work". (it is why we are here though)We might venture to the KFC tomorrow just to say we have been to a Japanese KFC. A bunch of people went to a Mcdonalds in Hiroshima but I did not partake in that venture because I love Japanese food too much. Not to mention I was shopping!
More pictures!!
