Report from Japan

Here's an update from Betsy, who's in Japan from this past Monday through next Sunday (or Saturday if she clears standby).

Hi everyone,

Sorry for being so out of touch these last few days. Even though internet access was promised at the hotel in Wakkanai, it turned out not to be the case. Normally the Japanese seem to automatically agree with whatever you say, especially (but not only) if they don't really understand English and so don't know what you're asking -- one guy in our group was telling the story of a previous trip, when he was at the train station trying to find the train to a certain town. So he went by the first train he saw and asked,the conductor, "Is this the train to X?" And the guy bowed to him and said yes. But the problem is that every person he asked, standing next to every train in the station, said the same thing. (Another good Japanese train story: a different guy said he had an unforgettable experience in a train station where they made an announcement to notify people that the train was running late... by one minute. Someone said he heard that train operators who run late in Japan are punished by having to stand in the station for a week bowing and apologizing to the drivers of all the subsequent trains coming through, for possibly making their trains late as a ripple effect. I'm not sure if it's true, but it could explain a lot. As an aside, they did make a special announcement today to let us know that our airplane would be leaving five minutes late.) Anyway, the point of this long diversion is only to say that when they guy at the front desk actually said no about internet access, I believed him...

Well, here goes (well, here continues...) with my stream of consiousness recap of my trip so far... sorry, no energy to be coherent. So the last few days, I was in Wakkanai. This is a port town on the northern side of the northernmost Japanese island (Hokkaido). The coast of Russia is less than 50 kilometers (so less than about 20 miles) away. It is definitely not a tourist destination, so 15 foreigners traveling there got a few raised eyebrows (you're going to WAKKANAI?) The island is quite rural, especially on the northern side, raising a lot of cattle for milk production. I was expecting to see some very traditional looking Japanese buildings, but honestly, except for the Japanese writing, from the architecture and the landscape, it would be hard to tell where exactly you were. Wakkanai itself had the aura of a bad beach town, with lots of videa arcades and a "100 Yen" store (yes, it's about a dollar), but without the benefit of any real beaches. There is a really nice national park on some nearby islands that are accessible by ferry. And the landscape was very pretty, with rolling hills, and cows grazing in the fields. We had an hour drive back and froth from the hotel to the meeting site every day, so I had a good chance to think this over... Did you know that the Japanese drive on the left side of the road? It's a little disconcerting to see all our usual cars (Suburus, Toyotas, Jeeps, etc.) but with the steering wheel on the other side. The roads along our drive had arrows on lightposts all along the edge pointing to the correct side of the road to drive on... or so I thought... personally, I would find it very useful, because it's really disorienting. But it turns out that they have really harsh winters with lots of snow, and the arrows are actually to show people where the edge of the road is so they won't drive off it during blizzards or when there are big snow drifts. yikes. We also drove through a free-standing "parking tunnel" about two blocks long, set over the road in a random flat stretch, where you stop for shelter if you get caught out in a snowstorm.

The meeting I was helping run went well. Did I mention that this is a bunch of geologists? That means it's a bunch of dorks, basically. I mean, two guys were debating what type of rock was used in the little decorative tableau at a restaurant. But they're nice, sociable dorks. We had a couple really nice dinners. The first night, one of our Japanese colleagues took us out to a very traditional Japanese restaurant. The menus had no English, but he solved the problem by getting us beers and doing all the ordering for us to share dishes. We had sushi (great scallops sushi!), grilled pork, crab claws, more stuff than I can remember, but nothing too out of the ordinary for Japanese food except that I did try conch sushi. It's even chewier than octopus, so it took a while to work through, but tasted fine. The real bummer was that I had two slide presentations to write after a few beers. I think it contributed to the brevity of my presentations, but maybe not the clarity. The nice thing was that everyone went out of their way to make me feel welcome, and I got some nice compliments on the meeting being productive.

I'd love to write more, but I need to go to sleep. I'm wiped out... I imagine it's a combination of jet lag and meeting stress. I was thinking of getting up early tomorrow to go see the crazy fish market, but it turns out to be pretty complicated (the women at the front desk couldn't even agree on the best way, and what they finally recommended includes two different transfers -- including from monorail to regular Japan Rail train, to subway -- and then a cab ride at the end. So on second thought, I think I'll sleep late and head into the city later to see some of the gardens.

More news soon. I miss you all,
Bets

p.s. I forgot to mention the toilets -- unbelievable! They have these fancy add-on seats to toilets here, that include a seat warmer, a bidet spigot (adjustable temperature and pressure), and... a butt spray. For... well, you know, cleaning off your butt. And then, they have a button you can push to have faux flush sounds in case you want extra privacy. Even the toilets at the airport had these features. The Japanese must feel so unsanitary when they visit other places and find regular old toilets.