Where Is Joey Today?

Things that surprised me about my trip:

1.) The 13 hours flight didn't feel that long and I didn't sleep that much. So if you can somehow sleep (a mask and ear plugs help) you can probably really feel like it is nothing. My metric is flying NY to Amsterdam. It is usually about 7 hours and you are definitely ready to leave at the end of it. While I was ready to jump into Tokyo, it wasn't twice as bad.

2.) The Japanese aren't short. The idea we have of them being short goes back to when they were malnourished. Kids my age were about an inch shorter on average than the average American. What they are, though, is very thin. The older generations are very short.

3.) Tokyo is surprisingly affordable. Our hostel was about 25 bucks, and in London a 6 person hostel is about 40. 7-11 Bento Boxes (if we only had these here...) were about 4 bucks. A trip on the metro was never more than 2 bucks and cost 8 for a city wide day pass.

4.) Sushi is not as common as I thought. Sure you had lots of them but you have lots of everything. I would say Sushi is about as common as a Bennigans/TGIF/Applebees type family restaurant.

5.) Not really a surprise exactly, but I found a city to knock Rome off my list of cities I would be least likely to drive in.

6.) Mount Fuji is a lot bigger in person. It was so big, Em didn't see it (yeah figure that one out) on first approach.

7.) The Japanese are excessively polite. From them asking you if they can go through your bags at security checkpoints to the baseball players ending the game with a bow to the audience, you really feel like everything you are doing is probably rude.

8.) The English spoken is not even close to being on par with Europe. I figured Japan would be like Italy in terms of English proficiency. They are more than willing to try if they have anything at all but often they smile and say Hanasemasen (I don't speak [English])

9.) Despite Tokyo having three main train systems (JR East, Metro, Toei Metro) all owned by different companies, it isn't that difficult to navigate...once you get used to them. The three work really well.

10.) Shibuya was smaller than I thought...sort of. It was crazier than I pictured but I really thought that cross walk from "Lost in Translation" with the Brontosaurus' on the jumbotron was longer. The heights of the buildings seemed about the same.

11.) Getting used to not tipping and bowing was not as hard as I thought it would be.

12.) The vending machines rule (and we didn't even see the cooler ones with odd things for sale). On the ones inside the subway stations you can use your prepaid Metro hard to buy a drink by waving it past the sensor. How cool is that?

13.) Stitch was more popular than Mickey at Disney. The whole setup of the parks was like a dream sequence where you take a familiar place and then change it around a little.

14.) Teaching English is very easy. At one point, a guy meeting someone to finalize teaching plans offered to introduce me to his boss who was desperately seeking a few native English speakers.

15.) Kyoto was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. Even though I knew better I kind of pictured Florence when I thought of Kyoto. Large city but the area of general interest is small. It is more spreadout but still beautiful (and we saw it on a crummy day) and a definite highlight of Japan.

16.) Americans in Hiroshima don't get the slightest harassment. Even the museum points out problems with Japan during the war. Yet Nanking is at times referred to as an incident. (Never saw that, I am just passing along gossip and 2nd hand information)

17.) Japanese of all ages read manga.

More to come...