Japan endnotes: many in haiku.

No English menu
Mike tries out his Japanese
He orders "children"

Morning fish market
Fish still alive. Oops! No more.
Sushi for breakfast

Japanese breakfast
That guy has the Western one
I covet his eggs

Japanese toilets
some have warm seats, others are squat
either way, crap shoot

Miso grill with beef
Should it be smoking like that?
Great, no fire alarm

What is that street treat?
Fish shaped pancake with red bean?
I will have two more

Japanese school kids
Blue uniforms at all sights
Peace signs in pictures

Deer in Nara Park
"Ack, the deer ate my homework!"
It did. We saw it.

Cherry blossom tree
one bloom, three cellphone cameras
old ladies, push hard

Rain in Kyoto
Tokyo and Nara too
And Takayama

Rain rain go away
Come again another day
Really? Tomorrow?

Seriously though, despite some rainy days (like today), we had a marvelous time in Japan. The temples were awesome, the shrines were fun, the street snacks were incredible and the people were super nice.

Japan is an interesting combination of very traditional and very modern, without a whole lot in between. That doesn't mean that people can't pick and choose (the most trendy women still politely laugh behind their hands, and the most traditionally dressed woman still has a cell phone with 9 charms hanging off of it). I was serious about the toilet thing too... many public restrooms here have traditional toilets which are essentially pretty holes in the ground, and then a few 'western' toilets... that have flushing sounds (for politeness), bidets, ahem... rear-end dryers and HEATED SEATS. It's an interesting juxtiposition.

Culture here is also really interesting. There are things here called 'maid cafes' where girls in costumey maid outfits serve you and put on little performances, you can pay to play table games with them (like crocodile dentist) or have your picture taken, and at the end we got souvenier cards that looked like amex that said 'license of your majesty'....

We also did literally see a deer eat a girl's homework (there is a herd of small wild deer in Nara's main tourist area), it was hilarious. We also saw them spot a group of school kids together, and all of them went running like they knew that they could get food out of them. We also saw great temples and stuff in Nara (including the Giant Buddha), lovely things in Kyoto (including the famed 'Golden Pavillion', rebuit in 1954 after a crazy monk consummated his obession with it by burning it to the ground...), and crazy things in Tokyo (oh also, two Japanese tourists approached me at the Imperial Palace and I thought they wanted me to take a picture for them... but no, they wanted to take pictures with me? I'm still unclear why). Also, the other day in Takayama, we got home ready to call it a day (we walk a lot...) and then we heard about a crazy festival in the town next door (Mike didn't want to go, but then the like 75 year old monk was like, why are you guys here, everyone is at the festival... and when you get called out by a 75 year old Buddhist monk...) So we went, it was absurd! We aren't actually sure what it was but it involved men in loinclothes getting drunk, climbing poles and banging on giant taiko drums..we definitely had a bit of a close call when where we were standing turned in to part of the route... but it was all good. Not bad for an accidental festival attendance.

Overall, it has been a really interesting, tasty and fun 12ish days, and we are excited to head on to China (where we think we are going to spend a night camping by the Great Wall and hopefully go to the world expo!)