More snippets from Japan

[cjsmith]

Just as I began to order breakfast by name, I stopped being tested on vocabulary because I was now a regular.

We went inside the giant Buddha at Kamakura. Wow. Huge. Its walls were warm from the sun.

I took a spectacular fall at Engaku-ji. Boy do I have some bruises. One's as big as my palm and a deep, deep purple.

We spent the last two days in Hakone, including seeing exactly that view in the first photo, riding that pirate ship, smelling that sulphur, and eating those eggs. (They're a lot blacker than that. They also have their own cable car. I am not making this up.)

Rest stops on the highway here are vast malls of parking and food. Green tea, hot water, and cold water are provided free from vending-machine-like contraptions.

If you ride a multi-story water slide (scroll down), it is possible to get water jammed so far up your sinuses that your brains short out. (Almost, anyway.) I rented a bathing suit. In Japan, I am extra-large.

I have now seen a cherry tree bonsai. Two, actually. Blooming.

Comments

[erikred.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, did you happen to notice if the people you met in Hakone seemed, well, ruder than most other people in Japan?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

It didn't seem so to me, except maybe when the crowds were thickest. Of course, a higher proportion of those were not Japanese, too. Is that the general impression? People are a bit less polite in Hakone?

[erikred.livejournal.com]

When we were there (off-season, not so many tourists), everyone we met was downright rude, which is an amazing shock when you're in Japan. The only person we met who was kind and solicitous was our waitress. After debating it amongst ourselves, we finally asked her if she was from Hakone, and she said, no, Chiba; she was embarrassed that we had been able to guess, but we told it was most certainly a good thing.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Wow. I think we didn't interact with people as much, being "buffered" in a sense by our Japanese hosts. Now I think I'm (guiltily) grateful we didn't try more.

[hosts: people who took us to Hakone. We've been various places with various people as well as by ourselves, but this one couple who took us to Hakone were amazingly helpful and kind and gracious and... we just didn't have enough gifts to give to even come close for these people.]