Leaving the Ship
Today is Thursday. We left the ship on Saturday after 2 extra days at sea on the ship due to the typhoon. It was an easy debarkation with a free shuttle to the train station. There was quite the line at the kiosks to purchase tickets with all the cruisers dispersing hither and yon.
I always feel pressure to be efficient at a ticket kiosk when there is a line of people waiting. Fortunately, there was an employee there to help. I showed him on my phone where we were going (Osaka, which is a 2-hour train ride from where we were once we got to the right station) and he purchased the tickets (with our money), letting me know he purchased general seating tickets. Little did we know that this was a BAD thing.
After initially going the wrong way on the right line, we made it to the station where we picked up the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka. There was a bit of foreshadowing when we were trying to figure out what train car we needed to be on when a helpful American took a look at our tickets and said “Oh, you are in cars 1 and 2 for general seating,” as he looked at us like we were lepers. Little did we know that most of that train had assigned seats and if you did not purchase that option, you were shoved into cars 1 or 2 like cattle. There were seats but since our stop was not the origination of the line, not only were the seats all taken, so was most of the standing area. It took us 3 trains to find one where we were able to push ourselves and our luggage into the car. We were shoved in there like sardines and still more people were pushing their way in. And so we stood for about 1 hour and 20 minutes before the first stop. We could not move and I was sweating the likes of which you have never seen before. If I had balls before that train ride, they would be gone because I sweated them off during that wretched ride. Add to that, I still had my cough and was doing everything in my power not to cough. I was the only one on that train sweating profusely so in addition to being absolutely miserable, I was embarrassed. At the first stop, some people finally got off and were able to adjust with a bit more room.
I think it took us about 4 trains in total and a 20 minute walk to get to the apartment we stayed in. (We used booking.com for this one.)
The apartment was cozy if not a bit different than what we are used to. You walk straight into a narrow galley kitchen that you have to step up into. As is common in Japan, wearing shoes in the apartment was prohibited so there was a little area before you take the step up into the kitchen to remove your shoes, place your shoes in the cubby, and put on the slippers they provided. You walk through the galley kitchen to get to the room with the table, love seat, bed and TV. Before you get to that room, the kitchen counter and appliances were on the right and the bathroom sink and shower room were on the left just as you walked in the front door and the separate toilet room was just past that right before the bedroom area. The bed was comfy and the apartment was lovely and quiet.
I do have to mention the shower room and the toilet because they were different that what you see elsewhere. The bath/shower room was designed to be a whole wet room. It had a bathtub with its own faucet but the shower head was not in the bathtub, but off to the left of the tub with its own faucet so if you wanted to, you could just run that faucet or the shower head directly onto the floor. There was no shower curtain. The whole shower room had its own fancy ventilation system with various options - drying, hot air, cool air, and 24-hour ventilation. We actually used that ventilation to dry the clothes we washed. Not sure if that was the intent, but that’s what we did. The bathroom sink and clothes washer were right outside the shower room.
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| The shower room in our Osaka Apartment |
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| The ventilation controls for the shower room |
The toilet in the toilet room was super fancy and had a wash basin on the back of it and when you flushed, the water in the basin automatically ran so you could wash your hands.
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| The toilet in our Osaka apartment |
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| Look at all the buttons we had to learn |
Observations
We were pleasantly surprised with how much we loved Osaka. We walked nearly everywhere we went, only taking the subway once because the castle was a hour and a half away from where we were staying if we had walked.
Here’s some observations about Osaka and Japan in general:
They are very quiet in Japan. You will see signs in many places telling you not to talk loudly or talk on your cell phones. This is especially observed on the trains. Hardly anyone talks on the the subway and if they do talk, it is in whispers. And most public places were quieter than public places in other countries.
The streets in Japan are crazy clean. You very rarely see litter and they do not leave their trash out by the curb like you see in most cities.
In Osaka, each building has a fairly small bin to place trash into and they pick up trash every day, 7 days a week, not just once or twice a week.
The trash trucks play music as they drive through the streets picking up trash - little electronic tunes. One even played “Camptown Races.” The trash trucks are super clean too.
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| Look how clean this garbage truck is! |
Except for that lady that got so angry when I touched cantaloupe stem, everyone in Japan is so polite.
There is a rule for everything and if you don’t now what the rule is, they will certainly let you know, with most people being much more kind about it than angry cantaloupe lady. It is a rules-based society for sure!
Most restaurant had a QR code for each table. You would then order using the QR code, rather than from a waitperson. In some instances you would pay for your food at the time of ordering while other places you simply used this method to order and paid on your way out.
Most places have automated payment machines, even if they have a person at the counter. For example, at the grocery store, a person checks you out, but you put your money in a machine that will then dispense your change.
If they don’t have the money machine to pay, you place your payment in a tray rather than handing them the money directly. Then they place your change in the tray.
It seems the Japanese have worked really hard to make anything unpleasant, as pleasant as possible - the fancy toilets, the music on the garbage trucks.
The escalator etiquitte is interesting. In Tokyo you ride the escalator on the left so people can run up on the right if they are in a hurry. But in Osaka, you ride the escalator on the right and run on the left. It’s very confusing.
They drive on the left in Japan, so you walk everywhere on the left too but there are enough Westerners in Japan to make that whole which-side-of-the-street-do-you-walk-on confusing.
I love the bowing. They bow for many interactions and I think it’s great. It seems kind and respectful.
Bathrooms
The bathrooms in Japan deserve their own section.
It is always an adventure going into public restrooms. You never know what you are going to find. The restrooms are always clean with lots of instructions in the stalls - “Only put toilet paper in the toilets.” “Set your kid here.” “Flush here.” “Don’t stand on the toilet.” (Whose standing on the toilet?) So many signs in the stalls.
I have been in a public restroom where you can push a button and get water noise. I don’t know if that is to help you potty or to hide that you are pooping. Another public restroom had a button to play music “for privacy.”
Yet another public restroom (actually 2 of them) simply had a hole in the floor surrounded by porcelain and a little porcelain lip that went up on one side. The porcelain was oblong in shape In the Osaka airport, one of their stalls was just one of those porcelain holes. I should have looked to see if that stall had a bunch of instructional signs like the regular stalls.
In many of the public restrooms, they will have a little urinal close to the ground. I am assuming that is for the little boys with their mothers.
It was also common to see nursing rooms. The one in the airport was super fancy with a microwave and other items I could not identify as I passed.
The Japanese have perfected the integrated bidet. That whole separate bidet the Europeans have is so pedestrian and not nearly as useful as the ones in Japan. Except for the holes, I haven’t been in a single public restroom stall that did not have some fancy bidet with miscellaneous features.
It takes a while to learn what all the pictures mean on the buttons by the toilets, but once you do they make sense.
I am sure I am missing other cultural differences but those are the highlights.
Overall, we absolutely love Japan and look forward to returning in the Spring for the Cherry Blossoms.
On to Bankok, Thailand where we will spend a month. I am worried about my tolerance for the heat but you never know until you try, right?
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