{"id":564,"date":"2008-01-03T23:54:41","date_gmt":"2008-01-04T05:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/travelogues\/japan-2007\/apr-01-more-random-observations"},"modified":"2008-01-03T23:54:41","modified_gmt":"2008-01-04T05:54:41","slug":"apr-01-more-random-observations","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/travelogues\/japan-2007\/apr-01-more-random-observations","title":{"rendered":"Apr 01: More Random Observations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Monday morning, we&#8217;ve just had breakfast, and we&#8217;re about to head out for a day of wandering around in Asakusa. Here are some more random thoughts and observations, in no particular order:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tracie read my last posting and pointed out that we didn&#8217;t actually take the subway&#8211;we took the train. Japan has a subway system, a train system, and a rail system. The distinction between the latter two isn&#8217;t readily apparent, and all three share stations to some extent. Yes, it can be confusing.<\/li>\n<li>Tracie also says that the name of the station is Hase Station, but that isn&#8217;t the name of the area in which the Great Buddha resides.<\/li>\n<li>Beverage vending machines are ubiquitous, both in Tokyo and in the smaller areas we&#8217;ve visited. You can find one on just about every block, and several near any attraction. They dispense both hot and cold beverages, including soft drinks, beer, coffee, tea, and water. No, I still haven&#8217;t tried Pocari Sweat yet.<\/li>\n<li>You can&#8217;t predict how much English any given person will speak. There doesn&#8217;t seem to be much correlation to age or gender, although most people seem to speak at least a little. On the other hand, we haven&#8217;t yet had a serious communication-based problem; it&#8217;s actually rather remarkable how quickly we&#8217;ve been able to do what we need to do with only a few words, hand gestures, and fingers pointed into a guidebook.<\/li>\n<li>Japanese kids tend to be so cute that you just want to pick them up and squeeze them. Obviously we refrain from doing so. They also tend to be well-behaved and we have yet to see one pitching a fit in the manner that contemporary American children to do when they don&#8217;t get things exactly their way.<\/li>\n<li>Engrish is everywhere, particularly on T-shirts. (See <a href=\"http:\/\/engrish.com\" title=\"link to engrish.com\" target=\"_blank\">Engrish.com<\/a> if you&#8217;re not familiar with the term.)<\/li>\n<li>We&#8217;ve already started bowing, without any conscious decision to do so. People smile at us when we do it. I&#8217;m not sure whether it&#8217;s because they&#8217;re touched that we&#8217;re making the effort or amused by our inept attempts.<\/li>\n<li>People smile a lot in general. People also seem remarkably relaxed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/?page_id=535\">next -&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Monday morning, we&#8217;ve just had breakfast, and we&#8217;re about to head out for a day of wandering around in Asakusa. Here are some more random thoughts and observations, in no particular order: Tracie read my last posting and pointed out that we didn&#8217;t actually take the subway&#8211;we took the train. Japan has a subway&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/travelogues\/japan-2007\/apr-01-more-random-observations\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Apr 01: More Random Observations<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":534,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-564","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/564\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studionebula.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}