Details

In the last few blogs, I've made a weak attempt to explain all that we learned and observed in Japan in only a few days. There's just so much to cover that it was hard to cover in a few blog posts, so I'd like to add in a few more details now.

It seems as if every person in every job that we interacted with in our time here did their job without complaint and to the best of their ability. From a customer perspective this is an amazing treat too often missed in the US.

Tourist Expenses- I heard many complain about how expensive everything in Japan is before we came. I suppose Tokyo is probably a bit worse than Narita, but Narita is about on par with LA from what I saw (except gas-but there are plenty of buses to get around that expense). I think one key is that everything is priced to include tax and tip, so there's no getting $50 in food, paying $5 in taxes, then tacking on another $10 in tip for a total of $65. $50 is $50. It can be shocking when you see your first 3600 yen bill for lunch, but if you account for the exchange rate that's $47 total: for 6 people, way better food than Applebees (which I'd probably spend the same on) and it includes a beer...... really not that bad at all.

And since we had to buy baby formula while there-even that was the same price as the US. It's not the brand we normally use, but it works well and the baby hasn't reacted to it at all. One of the few things on the can in English is that the company has been around since 1917. Figured that was a good sign of a good company.

Avoiding the real tourist spots can have it's advantages. The kids got to see tradesmen cleaning eel in Narita (a popular and common food in the city), see local markets, try random things along the way and interact with locals. There's so much to be learned and gained from that. Also, places that cater to locals and not tourists tend to cost much less. Of course, you have to be willing to try new things and eat what the locals eat, but there's a lot to be gained from that as well.

Preparing eel

Some drinks we bought off a street vendor. Tasted good,
and the kids loved the marbles that had to be popped down into the
bottle to open it.

Babies are a universal language. The baby was well loved on everywhere we went. Everyone we met was quite friendly and loved all the kids, but of course the baby was the star

He crawled right over to her. She was so excited to hold him

Just sitting and watching Japanese TV is a good time. There was one channel that gave calculus and computer programming lessons, which we thought was crazy, but watching their shows and commercials gave an interesting look into the culture.

Picture menus are great, and how we ordered everything we ate. They serve as a great way around language barriers.