He says : Day 1

First off. I cannot believe she blogged about the biday.

That aside. Some random things that occured to/fascinated me.

A nation that drives on the left side of the road would tend to walk on the left side of the hallway/sidewalk. This makes perfect logical sense to me in hindsight, but I still had to learn the hard way by trying to figure out why basic navigation in a hallway lead to so many close encounters. Thank heavens I'm not driving. We would not make it back alive.

I ruined a perfectly good shirt trying to eat noodles in a bowl of broth. It was an excellent lunch. I'd do it again as it was likely worth the cost of the shirt. I got the 'spicy meat' in my noodles and broth. I didn't ask questions. I do find myself wondering whether or not the noodle houses sell t-shirts on the side though. It's great synergy. I wonder if anyone's written up that business plan.

We seriously need to get on with inventing commercial teleportation so I can get here again without the 14 hour plane ride with no circulation in the lower half of my body. The plane and the crew tried hard. A dozen movies on demand on a personal video screen for each seat, some truly excellent Japanese food and very attentive flight attendants made a good effort. Seriously though, whatever warehouse the U.S government is keeping the crashed UFO from which they slowly leak it's technology out to corporations if we could move the teleporter pods higher up on the queue I'd appreciate it.

The Elephant in the Room: Yes, they are kinda concerned about H1N1 here. To a degree it's understandable. I'm not here to judge so I'm going to let them do their thing. I wish I was aware of the genesis of this though. I've seen 4 gray haired, high powered business people walking down the street 1 of them has a mask on. Did anyone say to him "You know Steve (I'm translating) maybe the client might be a bit put off if it looks like one of us is so concerned he might kill them he's got medical gear on". Or on our walk from the train station to the hotel I saw a couple, clearly on a date, walking hand in hand. She had on a mask, he did not. I suppose that's a better excuse than a headache anyway. No one looks twice at them though.

In my trying to understand I think I've come to the conclusion they see this as the opposite as I (and likely most people) did. When I saw someone wearing a mask I used to think 'Wow, what do they have?" And they're keeping it in. Instead they see it as "Wow, what does the world have?" and they're keeping it out. Therefore, it's not so much a comment on them, but on the world in general. And let's face it, there's some odd stuff out there, so maybe that's more understandable.

I will say though - and no one will get this reference but that's okay I amuse myself - the next Silent Hill game should not feature killer zombie nurses with knives, just 14 hours of flight attendants wearing masks is creepy enough. Although, I guess the bright side for them is they don't have to fake smile at the drunk guy in first class. Seriously, you wake up on a plane, you're sore, you're not quite sure where you are for a second and you look up and there's a woman in a surgical mask coming at you with a bottle of apple juice. Yeah....I couldn't get back to sleep either.

Tonight we try sushi in Japan. Wish us luck!