Dan's Japan Trip Journal Entry

August 12 - Somewhere over the Pacific

I have never kept a journal, other than perhaps for some class I took at some point.  That didn’t last long; the assignment, I mean.  Amanda has asked me several times on this trip to write in her journal, but I lacked the drive to do so.  Now I wish that I had written at those points so that I would have a more accurate account of things to write down for Amanda.  At the time, I would have only thought of a sentence or two, but that would have worked. 

The trip to Japan was wonderful beyond my imagination.  The country is very clean, but not the spotless clean that one would expect from that description. A lot of things seem to have a sort of dingy appearance, but the cleanliness comes in the general order of life there.  Trash is always picked up off of the ground, but more importantly, people seem to not throw it on the ground to begin with. They have a widespread recycle program with public recycle bins (if you can find them).  Some areas do not have many public trashcans at all, so people carry the trash with them.  In the USA that would not happen. 

It was interesting being in a foreign speaking country for so long.  I was almost expecting a “Lost in Translation” type effect, but that did not happen.  On our honeymoon we were on a cruise ship of English speaking people, where we were pretty much free to ignore the foreign languages of our foreign destinations unless we chose not to.  Here, Amanda was in her element, I was not.  In a way, I still had my “cruise ship” as everyone we visited spoke and understood at least a little English.  I did not ignore the Japanese language though, partly out of need and partly out of desire.  The people I met were incredibly nice, going out of their way for Amanda and I.  There were several new words/phrases I picked up, which slide in and out of my mind every now and then, so I was able to make the slightest attempt at conveying selected thoughts in Japanese.  Just listening to them talk, I was able to pick out the words I knew and along with the tone/situation I was able to follow conversation – somewhat.  Amanda got pretty used to a little nudge or a rub on the side of her leg – my signal of a translation request – and she did a wonderful job.  She had worried that she would not do well translating, citing her parents’ visit, but she did great. 

I remember the first night, the Oshimas and Arais met us at the station and we went out for cow tongue, a new craze there.  I was so tired I kept nodding off, hopefully not too noticeable.  Mr. Oshima kept ordering more and more food.  It was delicious.  Amanda explained a few things to me such as not eating everything on your plate and using the other end of the chopsticks to serve.  The “not finishing your plate” thing was a little odd for me, as in the USA it is generally considered rude and wasteful not to finish.  I found myself with an empty plate a few times, but usually I would serve myself a little more or I would notice everyone’s plate was empty and figure that was okay. 

The Oshimas’ house was great, with lots of wood on the interior and a wonderful garden/yard.  They went the furthest out of their way for us, by far.  We spent 3 nights there I believe, all three the best slept nights of the trip.  Their futon mattresses were very comfortable as were the pillows and I was always nice and cool.  We used the air conditioner in their guest room occasionally, which was nice because air conditioning was not common on our trip.  The Oshimas took us to see several shrines, the cow museum (where we ate Maesawa beef – sirloin steak 100g ~ $45; 200g ~ $75 – I think we had the 100g – most tender and best tasting steak ever), to Ichibancho shopping, and several other things.  Mr. Oshima said he wanted to drink beer with me on the terrace while the sun set.  We did not get to so I told him we would do that next time.  He is a very interesting man, with a laugh that can make Japanese language funny, even if I have no idea what he just said.  I remember fondly his “sake lecture”, as Amanda called it, as we drank sake together the night before we left.  Mrs. Oshima was like a mother/grandmother to us on the trip, always as nice as could be, often translating many things for me.  Judging from her translation and dictionaries that I remember, she speaks at least five languages and I would not be surprised if the number were much higher. 

The Arais were perhaps the most “Western” family, but perhaps I am judging by their house style more than family dynamic.  Makiko seemed to like me a lot, always pleased when I enjoyed Japanese food or used a Japanese word.  Nobuaki did not understand or speak much English, but I gathered that he likes electronics, gambles on the horses, and did not mind chauffeuring us around Sendai with Miho and Kei.  Miho was very nice and I can see why she and Amanda get along so well.  Kei and her seem to be a good couple with intents on marrying sometime in the future.  We went o n a bus trip to the Nebuta Festival in Aomori with Miho and Kei.  It was a lot of fun.  The floats were huge and gorgeous.  On the way home we stopped at an onsen (Japanese hot spring bathhouse).  That was a new experience (public bathing), but it felt really good and was fun.  Then, back in Sendai, we went to Tanabata with them, Yurika, and her boyfriend, also named Kei.  There were a lot of marching bands, dancers, drums, etc.  It was really cool.  Even cool, I thought, was walking through crowded Ichibancho with all of the Tanabata decorations hanging there. 

Then it was on to the Onos’ house.  Their house was much fancier than the other two and very comfortable.  Mrs. Ono seemed to know only a small amount of English but was able to converse very well, as she seemed to understand a lot.  She struck me as the most “mothering” of the sort-of host families we stayed with.  Mr. Ono we did not see much of.  He seemed nice from what I could tell, but was reserved.  He seemed interested in drinking beer with me and even opened a bottle of wine for us to drink. So that was meaningful to me.  Yohei was the one person I felt like I already knew going into this.  He seemed to not have changed much from my memories of him from around our wedding.  He did seem much more comfortable being back in Japan and appeared to be doing fairly well with school.  Ryoko was the person that surprised me the most on the trip.  A really nice, sweet person who was always fun to be around.  I guess the surprise comes from the fact that I already knew her from the wedding and did not know this, but then again there was a lot going on around the wedding.  With the Onos, we all went out to eat at a Japanese-style Chinese restaurant.  It was very good, not as heavy or strong flavored as in the USA.  They are different styles and I would probably say I like the Japanese style better, but the Chinese in the USA still has a place in my heart as we all know I enjoy strong flavored foods.  We then went to see Tanabata again, catching on only the very end. With Yohei and Ryoko we went to Matsushima two days (one day to Matsushima bay and the other to Akiu Falls), both were extremely beautiful.  We saw shrines, old buildings, beautiful scenery, a waterfall, Yodobashi Camera…  

Yeow, the waterfall and the camera store.  Slipped on the rocks at the waterfall and fell on my camera-hand wrist, submerging the camera and sacking it against some rocks.  Immediately I took out the batteries and started to let it dry but, as I found out later, it was history.  Turned out to be a good thing though as we went to Yodobashi Camera (kind of like a Japanese Fry’s although not as big) and got a Cannon PowerShot S1IS.  Nice camera.  Not as much of an SLR as we were looking for but it is more compact, more affordable and does more than we were expecting from the more expensive SLRs.  I fell badly about the old camera, but not because it broke, but more because I fell and broke it. I hate felling like the uncoordinated one, even though the rocks were slippery.  I think II was probably the uncoordinated one as a kid and I hated it then.  I like to think that it is no longer me.  Amanda has claimed the new camera as her own and rightfully so.  She gets the best use out of it and can explain some of the settings to me.  I am really happy that we got a camera that she likes so much even if there is a jingly Hello Kitty dangling from the strap. 

We are about to land in Atlanta and the tray table is up and it is turbulent.  My writing is not neat but not normally this bad.  Okay, landed now.  I want to go back to Japan.  Hopefully finances allow this soon.  I love the people and the culture.

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