uyuheartsmicha: Japan!

Anjong/Konitschiwa (こんにちは)!

My friends, I have to tell you about our first impressions in Japan... We are here for just two days and so much happened till now!

I think I have to start where our journey began (or a little bit later....) I have to start during the flight, which was just 65 minutes, so we could not watch a movie or listen to a new K-Pop record. But the most fun thing during the flight was, that every stewardess on the whole plane thought, that John is Japanese... kkk ... and talked to him on japanese! It was really funny, because my western face tells them: "Please talk english" and Johns face tells every asian... "Yeah man, I'm from your country, this guy is my facebook friend from europe.... I'm so proud to show him our country!!!"But this time he can't point at me to help him....

The next thing my intelligent brain recognized is, that there is left-hand traffic in Japan, like in the UK! I was really surprised, because I didn't know... that was one more thing I had to think about while making out where to go.... even which track our train arrives....

The public traffic in japan was in the beginning pretty confusing to me. Marlena warned us before, that there are different train companies. It is not possible to buy a ticket and go wherever you want to... You have to buy a ticket for the train you wanna ride with, because if it is from a different company you are not allowed to take it. But there are also different bus companies.

You can go by "CityBus" or "KyotoBus" or I don't know another bus... So every time you go on a bus or train or even subway you have to figure out how you can pay for the ticket....

In some busses you just take a tiny paper which tells you where you got on the bus. So you have to pay the distance to your destination. In some others you have to pay a defined fee or in other cases you have to buy a ticket by telling the vending machine where you wanna go....there are also maps with the different fees for the different destinations.... So you see, very confusing, but we are doing our best!!!

One more bus story... the first time we went on a bus we wanted to pay immediately, and wanted to pay... the only place in the bus we were able to put our money in was a little machine next to the driver.... but it was a money changer... so we put in there like 10€ to get coins... wuhuuuu

Another funny story is the "Crazy-Girl" story. When we were in a train to our Hostel, which is a little bit like "Jungle-Camp", she asked us if we could speak english.... Just to translate the speaker announcement... it was pretty kind of her... but then she went on talking to us and asked us where we want to go... so she said.... oh yeah, I can bring you.... then I showed her the map I prepared days before how to get to the Hostel from the station... she said this Map is wrong, she has to take us.... But in the end I showed her the way to the Hostel.. the situation became really weird when she asked us if she can come with us... so inside the Hostel... I said okay, because its not forbidden to get into the Hostel... when John and me got the keys to our room she gave us her card and left with the words:" I hope you add me on facebook, it would be very kind!"

Here are some public travel expressions...