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Wow, Japan, that is so awesome! I wondered where you were but never would have guessed Japan. (I was in Japan once for about 2 hours on a layover.) Got any piccies? Well welcome back, I am very glad to see you again. International travel is a good experience to have.

Cool! I've wanted to go to Japan for years! Lucky person. What did you do while you were over there?

glad you had a fun and safe trip and that you had loads of fun.. and yes you must share pictures, pictures are fantastic..

I hear the Japanese don't take kindly to foreigners

Woah! Okay, so it looks like I've got a lot of talking to do....

Yes, there was a lot of bowing going on. Every time one accidentally meets the eyes of a stranger (which happens embarrassingly frequently to us uncouth foreigners who don't know enough to keep our eyes down like the polite Japanese do), one must bow at least a little to acknowledge them/greet them. I'm not sure what the exact 'translation' is. Every time one greets someone, even a shopkeeper, one must bow, and bow while saying 'Thank you' (arigato, arigato gozamasu, arigato gozaimashta, depending on who you're saying it to, why you're saying it, and when in the conversation one says it), AND when the transaction is completed (when shopping), when saying hello and goodbye, and just about any other time one can drop a bow in there. I would sometimes get nearly seasick with all the up-and-down.

The Japanese people as a whole were very kind, though of course if we missed some point of their ettiquette they were a bit offended - I think they just kind of chalked it up to our being inexperienced, though, and we learned. Eventually. They appreciated my trying to communicate in their language and taught me some little bits and pieces - despite my absolutely horrible accent. My host family laughed every time I spoke Japanese (and every time I tried to use chopsticks, at first. I was pretty bad. When I finally 'mastered' noodles, they took pictures of me eating). We visited this Buddhist temple in Kyoto, a very big tourist spot, apparently. Our guide (a Japanese) said that since we weren't Buddhist and weren't there to worship, we didn't have to do the ritual hand-cleansing prior to entering. Another Japanese wasn't going to have that, and she pulled our group aside to the fountain, and showed us the proper way to wash. I think that was the most obvious point when we would have offended them, but when we bowed and washed, she nodded, smiled, bowed back, and left. I swear she was thinking, 'foreigners are ignorant, but they can be taught.'

Okay, so I mentioned Kyoto... we actually flew into Osaka, but other than a couple of bus rides and the view from our hotel rooms, we didn't really get to see it. From Kyoto, we went to Hiroshima. For a history buff like myself, this was thrilling. My journal entry from that day was easily twice as long as any other. I was a little worried; I mean, Americans did drop the first nuclear bomb on that city, and we met at least four survivors from that day. I was concerned about how they would react to us being there. But they weren't angry. One of our guides/translators explained why: Americans helped rebuild Japan after the war, better than it had been. Also, the Japanese weren't used to losing (they hadn't lost a major war in remembered history), so they didn't have the negative, revenge-based coping skills that Westerners do, not as a culture, at least. That, and the survivors (that we met, I'm not sure they're what you'd call a representative sample) are more committed to peace than to hate. The whole area around the original target, the Aioi Bridge, has been turned into a Peace Park with a lot of memorials and a museum. There's what's called the Peace Clock, counting up the days since the bomb fell on Hiroshima and a separate counter tallies the days since the most recent nuclear test. When we were there, it had been only two days since the North Koreans had performed their test.

Okay, more places. From Hiroshima, we went to Kagoshima City, in the Kagoshima prefecture. Southernmost tip of the southernmost of the main islands. For the weather, think southern California. Warm. Hot, actually, and I was wishing I had believed my eyes when I noted that the latitude of Japan is roughly even with California, rather than my teachers, who said, "the weather is just like (cold, blustery, it-snows-in-October) Wisconsin." I wanted my shorts. I had jeans and a jacket. *shrug* Kagoshima is where we spent the rest of our trip. It was part of the nursing program, so we were studying the difference between Japanese health care and our own. They're actually quite different, beyond the basic similarities. For one thing, though none of the nurses we spoke to (through an interpreter, we didn't speak enough of the right sort of Japanese to talk healthcare) mentioned it, is that they like to get skin-to-skin contact as part of the healing regimen. We didn't see any gloves anywhere (maybe at the nurses station). In America, we've got them in every room, and in varying sizes. Even while showering patients, or giving injections they didn't wear gloves. Oh, and if you ever are travelling in Japan and you get sick or injured, hop the next flight home, unless you want to stay 21-24 days (average stay) in the hospital. The Japanese are very community-oriented, and they don't seem to mind letting other people help them. Americans? If we're in the hospital even overnight, it's the end of the world for some people. And you know how we've got private rooms, or two to a room in a pinch? In Japan - four. And they're pretty small...no privacy but for curtains. Skully, I'm not sure how England does it, but it reminded me a little of what little I've read of British health care.

They're very clean though. Picture this: American street, garbge cans everywhere you look, and still people drop wrappers on the ground, dead leaves/grass clippings are everywhere, old gum spread all over the sidewalks, and so filthy you get a tetanus shot just for scraping your knee on the concrete (slight exaggeration, but not much). Now, Japan: Not a garbage can in sight; one must actively search for one, and usually one can't be found without asking a shopkeeper if you might use the one behind the counter (or until you get back to where you're staying). The streets are pristine, swept daily, some enterprising persons actually scrub the front stoop. I don't think I ever once saw a faded center line, and if someone dropped something, they would pick it up, or the next person behind them would, pocketing it only to throw it away when they found a garbage. Laundry gets done daily, as are baths. Not just showers, mind you, baths. You've heard of the Japanese bath? They're deep, hot enough to slowly boil a chicken in, and super relaxing. Americans should adopt the custom. They've also got hot springs by the truckload - volcanic country, you know. We visited a couple. When I was out with my host family, we did the hot sand baths - the sand is heated from below by the magma and people pay to get buried in it for as long as they can stand it, usually 10 minutes (I lasted 20). Then they wash off and get in the hot springs. There's one pool for men, and one for women, and everyone bathes together. Naked. And yes, I did it the Japanese way. Another point of culture difference: nobody gawked, and everyone was very careful to keep their eyes averted from one another.

Oh man, there's so much more to say, and I don't even know where to go from here. Well, I think I've given you enough to read for now, so I'll leave it at that for now.

PS. Yes, I have pictures. Yes, I will post a few (total count, 300-odd. I won't make you look at all of them, though. Just half twisted ). No, I don't have them on my comp yet. I've got to find the USB cable that my sister sent (it's her camera, I just borrowed it) so that I can download them. *wails* I've had so many requests for pictures, and no way to get them out of the camera! I will post them eventually, though, I promise!

Wow! What an incredible experience! Sounds like you really just immersed yourself in the culture. What a wonderful trip, I envy you. Perhaps you have a taste for travel now? I have traveled, but it lessened my interest in traveling, mainly because I am such a homebody. Anyhow, I loved reading about your trip thanks so much for posting it!!!

You make me jealous, I want to go to Japan even more now! You sound like you had a great time. As for the health care bit, yeah, it does sound like us. We have wards with beds in them with curtains that can be pulled around them and that's it unless you actually need a room.