The Land of the Rising Sun Day #1 “Japanese Efficiency?”

Today Patrice and I embarked on our next adventure, a trip to Japan. Patrice is quick to inform you that this destination was my idea. Hmmm, does that mean that she has her doubts? She likes to remind me about our trip to Africa where we boiled during the day and froze at night (“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO WANTED TO COME HERE!” she daintily told me on a regular basis during that trip).

I guess it was my idea to come to Japan. My good friend Fred (who was born in Tokyo) and I frequently talked about a trip together. I finally got tired of trying to plan a mutual time for us and just said to Patrice, let’s go. In preparing for this trip our friends Ginger and Don recommended we read the book “Learning to Bow” by Bruce Feiler. The book was an interesting read and we learned a lot about Japanese culture. It stressed how efficiently everything is run in the country. Unfortunately the book was written about 30 years ago and I assume things have changed a lot since then. It will be fun to do a comparison.

My biggest concern about going on the trip was trying to eat with chopsticks. This is a skill I never even attempted to learn (Isn’t that why we have forks?). I was told that in smaller towns forks might not be an option. At my new workplace (UCLA Palos Verdes) my co-workers have invited me to join them for several lunches at a local Pho restaurant. The first time there I embarassingly requested a fork while everyone else used chopsticks. With our upcoming trip in mind I decided to use this opportunity to try to learn this new skill. With the support of my co-workers and some special tutoring from Dr. Choi I was able to feed myself. I also had lunch with Fred and his wife and they too gave me some tips. Fred did have one very good suggestion for the trip, “Order a lot of soup”.

Our flight from LAX was via Delta Airlines to Tokyo – Haneda Airport (HND). Followers of the blog might remember that we have been loyal American Airlines customers. We had heard a lot of wonderful things about Delta so we decided to switch. In reality the real reason for the switch was that Delta was much cheaper than either American or Japan Airlines. Delta offered a nice choice of dishes for lunch. Check out the menu (see below)

The flight was pleasant (if 11 hours on a plane can ever be considered pleasant). At HND we retrieved our luggage and breezed through customs after which we were supposed to be met by our driver. Our tour agent warned us that our driver might not speak English but he would get us to our hotel in a timely manner. Unfortunately no driver was to be found. We called the local contact for the travel company who found out that the transit company said our flight was early and a driver had not be sent yet. Wait, wait, wait didn’t they read “Learning to Bow”! In addition to the book, many of our friends told us how efficient things were run in Japan. We were cautioned, “Trains are on time, don’t arrive late, you will miss your ride”. Having a driver be a no-show was not what we expected. So instead of a personal driver we went outside the airport and found a cab.

To make things easier this trip Patrice decided to get a backpack on wheels (see below).

The rolling backpack worked quite well but it made it difficult for her to also roll her luggage at the same time. Lucky for her she brought a sherpa (me) who rolled her bag, his bag, and wore his backpack. Definitely great planning on her part.

After dragging our luggage outside to the taxi area we only waited seconds for an available cab. The driver loaded our luggage for us. When Patrice tried to board from the traffic side he immediatedly stopped her saying “Not safe, this side please”. I was very impressed with his concern. There was some heavy traffic on the ride to the hotel, but other than that it was fine.

We are staying at the Gate Hotel. So far things seem very nice. The room is spacious. The shower/tub area is very interesting. I am not sure if this picture is adequate.

Tonight is a free night. Right now all I can think about is sleep. I think it is around midnight back home. Here it is about 4 pm. I assume most of you won’t see this until the morning which will be about midnight here. The next few days could be very interesting until our bodies adjust.