Bucketing it down outside - cats and dogs. The hydrangea outside my window is happy - hydrangea means water-cup, presumably because they like water, as they bloom in the rainy season.
Just been down the supermarket and was impressed and slightly embarrassed by the checkout guy's over-the-top ingratiating service technique - as if I were the Crown Prince on an official inspection rather than some guy in a pair of grubby shorts buying a six pack and a bunch of bananas. They are an amazing people - and so contradictory. The other day I stayed in a very posh, traditional ryokan - old-style hotel, with the full works - beautiful gardens with Japanese maple dangling over carp ponds with turtles to boot, tatami throughout inside, loads of old wood, including massive 400 year old beams in the restaurant. Great onsen - thermally heated public baths, inside and out.
As we entered and left, a shoe man would bow deeply, greeting us and sending us off with an irasshaimasei! or an iterasshai! (or something along those lines) while banging on a hall drum to let everyone know the honourable guests were on their way - prompting more staff to appear, smiling and bowing deeply. At the very elaborate breakfast we had a personal obaasan (little old lady) pouring our tea, refilling our rice bowls etc as if we were 5 year olds. Japanese meals are very complex in that there are usually a dozen or more small dishes and so the waitresses go through a sometimes lengthy explanation as to how to deal with the unknown item - you have to add this sauce and mix it with that thing, etc. Can you imagine this happening in the UK?
Anyway, I was just thinking about contradictions, here in the most contradictory culture on Earth. A country where people are so convinced of the superiority of their way of doing things while simultaneously bending over backwards to be 'international'. By the way, we ended up the night before last in an excellent Mexican restaurant - or was that a dream? I recall large jugs of margarita... Last night we were sitting by the water's edge while a very convincing samba-type jazz band were performing Mas que nada and The girl from Ipanema and so on, in perfect Portuguese.
As we entered and left, a shoe man would bow deeply, greeting us and sending us off with an irasshaimasei! or an iterasshai! (or something along those lines) while banging on a hall drum to let everyone know the honourable guests were on their way - prompting more staff to appear, smiling and bowing deeply. At the very elaborate breakfast we had a personal obaasan (little old lady) pouring our tea, refilling our rice bowls etc as if we were 5 year olds. Japanese meals are very complex in that there are usually a dozen or more small dishes and so the waitresses go through a sometimes lengthy explanation as to how to deal with the unknown item - you have to add this sauce and mix it with that thing, etc. Can you imagine this happening in the UK?
Anyway, I was just thinking about contradictions, here in the most contradictory culture on Earth. A country where people are so convinced of the superiority of their way of doing things while simultaneously bending over backwards to be 'international'. By the way, we ended up the night before last in an excellent Mexican restaurant - or was that a dream? I recall large jugs of margarita... Last night we were sitting by the water's edge while a very convincing samba-type jazz band were performing Mas que nada and The girl from Ipanema and so on, in perfect Portuguese.
Do you find that if you don't do what other people want you to do, they then tell you you're selfish?
Do you find that the people who tell you you're bad at keeping in touch never call you up or email you?
Or is that just me?
Or is that just me?
