Thoughts from Kyoto - January 7
Japan Airlines Food
So I’m in Japan now. So far I’ve felt somewhat overwhelmed just trying to soak everything in, all the sights and sounds. It’s definitely a different country, with its own distinctive feel – it’s still more similar to Taipei than Chicago, but there are so many little details that tell you that you’re somewhere special.
My flight was to leave Taiwan at 1PM – this was a rather new experience for me, because 9 times out of ten, my international flight leaving Taiwan is Northwest Airlines No. #69 at 7AM, which means that I have to check-in a 5AM, which means I have to leave home in Taichung at 3AM, which means I should get up at around 2AM. This time since it was late morning there was… traffic! At any rate, the trip to the airport was fairly uneventful – I basically slept the entire way and woke up at the terminal. However, when checking in, the computers at the counters died. Now, this wasn’t totally unexpected because I had been chatting with some friends yesterday about this freak breakdown in computers at the Taoyuan International Airport, but it was still something fairly non-standard. I suppose this goes to show how utterly dependent on technology we are – the airline literally couldn’t do anything about it, and we were just stuck there in line for some time.
The recommended “get to the airport 2 hours in advance for international flights” is a fairly conservative estimate, leaving lots of “in-case-stuff-happens” time for the passenger and airline to make sure the flight doesn’t get delayed. Well, computer blue-screen-of-death aside, everything else at Taiwan went smoothly. I’ve got to comment about how different airport security is between Taiwan and the US. Now I’m sure that because of various historical and political reasons, the US is more likely to be attacked by terrorists and thus increased security measures seem necessary. Still, compare and contrast – in the States when you’re going through security, you have to empty your pockets and accessories into a box; things like your wallet, watch, cell phone, necklace, and belt. This is why I travel with jeans that are always falling down – because I really don’t want to be taking my belt off and putting it on over and over again. It’s a real hassle. You also have to remove your shoes, and your laptop from your backpack if you have one. At Taoyuan, I walked through with my belt and shoes on, and my computer stayed in its bag. Hell, I don’t even know if I actually needed to remove my necklace and watch, though I did anyway. And that was it, in and out in less than a minute. Now, maybe if someone ever does decide to attack my flight then I’ll be more likely to die, but for what it’s worth, the passengers were still smiling when they finished security.
And besides, if you think about it, it seems somewhat odd that there are still ways to get dangerous stuff onto a plane even after you go through security – there are restaurants and duty-free shops after the checkpoint, and I’m *pretty* sure that in at least some airports there are steakhouses with knives that you could easily smuggle onto a plane if you wished. Of course, other airports or countries may have different policies. I've heard that in Amsterdam they have separate security checks for every single gate, which seems like a ridiculous waste of manpower. One day I should ask the people working past the security checkpoint what they have to go through to get to work every day at the airport, because if it’s fairly lax then the easiest way to carry out your nefarious deeds of terrorism should be to get a friend who works at the airport to bring you the weapons you want. The chef needs a knife, doesn't he?
Here’s an observation about Japanese that I noticed before but never really wrote down – which is that I can’t understand half the stuff they say at airports, despite having taking 2 years and a half of Japanese. Why? It’s not necessarily that I’m incompetent (actually it does reflect on my Japanese ability, but that itself is a reflection of the Japanese program in the U.S.), but rather because the people doing announcements or the flight attendants are constantly using "keigo", otherwise known as the super-polite form of speech that I'm not particularly familiar with - in two years, we studied *one* chapter of it. Now, I know why they do this – obviously it’s not to mess with me, it’s just the Japanese style of being polite. But realistically what it means is that I can’t understand Japanese at the airport, or on the plane when flight attendants are asking me what I want to eat. I’m forced to grunt and point at the menu.
On a side note, Japanese Airlines food is absolutely awesome. They also provide you with real silverware, and everything just feels solid rather than flimsy. In the big picture, it’s a small thing, but something that really does go a long way towards making your flight seem awesome. After I got out of customs, there was a driver waiting who would take me to Kyoto – I’d made a reservation a few days before. That was pretty cool, and probably very necessary too, given that the Kansai Airport is on this artificial island outside of Osaka.
As soon as I stepped out of the airport, I looked the wrong way when crossing the street. Damnit! Why do I keep forgetting that they drive on the other side of the street in Japan? This is definitely going to take some time getting used to – doing things in reverse.
After checking into the hotel I decided to go out and take a look around, getting accustomed to the city that I’ll be living in for the next four months. That, and I was hungry despite having eaten some ramen at the airport and another meal on the plane. So here are some random thoughts.
-The weather’s definitely colder than Taiwan
-The streets are clean. The stuff they pave the sidewalks with is different than they use in Taiwan – it’s some really nice stuff, I like it.
-There aren’t that many people on the streets, compared to Taiwan. Maybe it’s just the timing. However, there aren’t nearly as many shops open 8-9PM at night.
-Two of the people working at the 24-hour curry restaurant that I went to spoke Chinese. What the hell. Way to break my self-held stereotype of Japan being all homogenous.
-Kyoto is bigger than I thought it was. It seems like my daily commute from my homestay to school will indeed be roughly an hour. (which means 2 hours overall each day) Holy crap.
-People are ridiculously polite. This is going to take some getting used to.
-I’m still having a hard time getting used to cars driving on the left-hand side. Maybe if I get hit by one that’ll force me to learn quickly.
-Knowing Chinese Kanji is PURE AWESOMENESS.
-Cars and buildings are all smaller than they are in the States or in Taiwan. I’ve seen cars in places where it’s nearly impossible to figure out how they parked in the first place. The streets are for the most part quite small – you have to be pretty good at driving in order to survive in Japan. Never let it be said that Asians can’t drive – that’s got to be one of the stupidest stereotypes ever. Maybe Asians in America, but never Asians actually in Asia.
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