Traveling in Japan: All You Really Need to Know

Shibuya crossing, Tokyo

We were relieved to find that Japan - despite its very different language and very different culture - is a surprisingly easy country to visit. This is thanks primarily to the kindness and hospitality of the Japanese people; all you really need to navigate the country is a willingness to ask for help, a little bit of patience, and just a handful of practical tips: 

• Be prepared to pay cash. Yes, surprisingly, the world's most advanced economy operates primarily on a cash-only basis. This includes many restaurants and traditional hotels.
• Rail pass. You want one. It makes you a traveling God. But it's tricky: you have to buy it in advance from a limited set of vendors (see here).
• Stamps. If you are traveling by train, bring a blank book: every station (and I mean every station, even the local JR line stations in Tokyo) has its own stamp. Yes, stamp, as in the rubber and ink pad variety. Supposedly, the Japanese are avid collectors of stamps, but I only saw preteen boys and other foreigners hunting them down. Still, the hunt is a fun challenge - and the resulting collection a pictorial diary of your travels.

A Japanese Welcome

This is a story about hospitality.

First, some scene-setting: Our first day in Japan, jet lag woke us up at 4:30 in the morning.  That gave us enough time to squeeze three days of activities into one.  By 8:30 that night, we had explored Tokyo's early morning fish market, spent four hours on trains and as many hours hiking around the mountainside shrines of Nikko, and navigated Tokyo's subway system during rush hour to meet someone for drinks in one of city's flashy high-rise districts.  By the time we made it back across the metropolis to our quiet neighborhood, our legs were jelly, our brains were fried, and our old friend jet lag was back with a vengeance.  We also had not yet had dinner.

Problem is, our hotel was in such a traditional neighborhood of the big city, there was no English anywhere in sight.   This was one of the few times in Japan where we had to struggle to decipher Japanese characters, and the hand-drawn map from our innkeeper that marked all his favorite local restaurants was defeating our travel-weary eyes.  Add to this that the Japanese, like the Dutch, tend to eat early - so by 8:30 on a Monday night, many of the noodle shops and family restaurants had already closed.

The Yanaka neighborhood

So there we are, on a poorly lit backstreet in the Yanaka district, looking back and forth from our crumpled little map to the name of an establishment as though it would all suddenly become clear to us, even though it assuredly wouldn't.  We were totally spent.

Utrecht Journal: Learning to Travel Solo

This is a story about making myself proud.  

I was convinced, after pathetic days spent alone in London and Amsterdam pre-law school, that I do not travel well by myself.  This has cramped my traveling style in the years since, and also made me feel bad about myself.  But after the partial success of my Morocco challenges, I decided it was time to try again.  My self-imposed challenge: a day-trip to Utrecht, solo.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

8:58 a.m., Utrecht Central Station: Half-hour train ride passed too quickly in whirl of anxiety, both general and specific.  Stumbling onto train platform amidst flow of passengers, uncertain what to do first - go straight to the museum? Find a cafe for second breakfast?  On escalator up to the station hall, notice the lights above create a cool effect in the escalator shaft. Hesitate as escalator comes to an end.  Step back onto down-escalator while digging camera from backpack.  Spend 10 minutes riding escalator back and forth, taking pointless pictures of the light.

Note the yellow train, which I heart.

9:22 a.m., Utrecht Central Station (still): Pointless escalator picture-taking is oddly liberating.  Understand that I should head straight to the city center to find an atmospheric cafe full of university students.  Thinking what I really want is a "misto" at the Starbucks in the unremarkable train station.  Realize the power of choice is entirely in my hands.  

Morocco: Getting over Myself

(I am catching up on old blog posts I never got around to posting. This one dates from early April, after our week-long vacation in Morocco.)

I like to think I know my own shortcomings.  I will never win any awards for tact, I don't volunteer to do the dishes often enough, and I can be unintentionally short with people in a work environment. 

My biggest flaw when it comes to traveling: an endless capacity for timidity. I am afraid to go into places where I might not be welcome, to look lost or uncertain or to otherwise stand out, even to buy things (as that necessitates interacting with strangers).  Thus one of my goals for 2011 is to learn to talk to people when traveling. Easier said than done.

So when we set off to Morocco, I set myself five challenges, all related to getting over myself enough so I could enjoy my vacation.  It did not go as smoothly as planned, but as they say - two steps forward, one step back...  it's not quick, but at least you're moving in the right direction.

The Casablanca train station, our first morning in Morocco

Zoeks, Scooby! That snert is lekker!

This is a blog entry that is long overdue. It was clear to us within a couple weeks of our Holland adventure that Dutch is a fun language. Useful? Debatable. But its amusement factor is high.

Perhaps English speakers find Dutch pleasantly quirky because many words sound like they could be English, if English were whimsical. Like there's just enough foreignness to Dutch to make it exotic, but not enough to make it impenetrable. Plus it has a lot of cool vowel sounds.

Sometimes we walk around saying our favorite Dutch words to ourselves. It's endless hours of entertainment.

Our Top 3:

Alstublieft: an all-purpose word that means "please" but also (in a customer service situation) here you go, thank you, happy to help, and would you take your change already.

Lekker!: Another all-purpose word, always followed by an exclamation point (or else a question mark). This one word sentence means, essentially, that you really really like something (it literally translates to "Delicious!", but is much easier for little kids to pronounce). Jeff has taken to lekker! like a kid to a candy cane. It also shows up in one out of every four ads, and can often be overheard in exchanges between parents and their children ("Lekker?" "Lekker!").

Let op!: Another phrase that must always be followed by an exclamation point, "let op!" means "look out!" but it sounds friendlier and can also be used as a general warning: "let op!" can mean don't forget, pay attention, watch it buster, the tram is coming, or don't touch the third rail.

These three words alone enable nearly unlimited Dutch conversation. But other fun words include:

• Zoek: Meaning "search" and often appearing on websites. Every time I see it, I think "Zoeks, Scooby! It's Dutch!"
• Knoflook: "Garlic." To fully appreciate "knoflook", know that the "k" is pronounced.
• Snert: For some reason, this is the Dutch nickname for split-pea soup. I really don't understand why anyone would want to call anything they eat (and like) "snert".
• Winkel: "Store". Is it cuter as spelled, or as pronounced ("vinkel")?
• Doei: "Ta ta", and like "ta ta", apparently only used by middle aged women. It is pronounced at a high pitch and is often drawn out ("dooooeeeii!"); at first I thought people were calling their children/cats/cows home.
• Potlood: "Pencil". As in, "Jeff, pass me another potlood."
• Kool: "Cabbage". Which is not nearly as "kool" as it sounds.
• Dragon: "Tarragon". As in, "Gee, Jeff, the eggs are really good, but next time I think they could use a bit more dragon."

Dutch or Danish?

From my American-centric perspective, the Dutch and the Danish are easily confused (hey, it's not my fault they sound alike). But as soon as we stepped off the plane in Copenhagen (literally, in the airport), I realized there were significant - if often subtle - differences between the Dutch and the Danish aesthetic and way of life. Which prompted the immediate question (as any good American would ask): which is better?

Traditional sweets: Jeff loves his hot n' fresh stroopwaffel, but I love real "Danish", with raspberry jam. Mmmm. Point: Danish.

Design: As Jeff pointed out, the problem here is that the Dutch are too practical (by which I mean cheap) to invest in the best of Nordic-style design. We love the Dutch frugality, but I also loved the Copenhagen department stores full of beautiful Danish housewares. (Can I register for a wedding in Denmark?) Point: Danish.

Hot spiced wine: The Danish glogg is omnipresent - sold in every restaurant, on every street corner, and at every church bazaar. The gluhwein available in the Netherlands just doesn't have the same punch (and also lacks the almonds and raisins). Point: Danish.

Money: I was annoyed to find that Denmark does not use the Euro. But the kroner is not all that bad. For one thing, it's called "kroner," which sounds friendly. For another, the kroner coins have hearts on them, which is super-friendly. Furthermore, I like any coins that have holes, which makes for instant jewelry. Point: Danish, for friendliness.

Street food: Raw herring or hot dogs served with glogg? Point: Danish.

Language: Neither are pronounceable (for Americans at least) and neither have much re-use potential outside of traveling to Suriname or Greenland, respectively. But Dutch is becoming comfortably familiar, and it also has funnier sounding words. Point: Dutch.

Snow: When it snows, the Dutch are like Portlanders and the Danish are like Bostonians. It snowed most of the time we were in Copenhagen, which translated into a lot of little kids in full body snow suits, sledding down park slopes. Meanwhile, the trains in the Hague stopped running. Point: Danish.

Public transit: Despite the recent inability of the Dutch train system to operate between the Hague and the Amsterdam airport, I really appreciate the coverage and convenience of the Dutch public transit system. The much-hyped Copenhagen metro, meanwhile, does not really go anywhere and also smells like spilled beer. And while kids love the fact that the trains have no drivers, I am merely reminded of how computers caused the deadly Red Line crash in DC last year. Point: Dutch.

I could go on, but I've already lost count. It doesn't really matter, though, because the Danish had me at glogg. Game, set, match.

Why Luxembourg

I have a somewhat arbitrary life goal to visit two new countries every year. Granted, this goal is only three years old, but I figure that's all the more reason not to give up on it yet.

I might have moved to a new country this year - a major life goal in itself - but as we entered November of the year 2010, I had yet to visit any new countries. With time rapidly running out and without much vacation time to spare, I found my solution: Luxembourg.

Luxembourg is a five or six hour train ride from the Hague, is stereotypically European (think church bells ringing through town squares and ruins of ancient castles on the hillsides), and is ripe with amusing factoids.

Luxembourg, like Liechtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, and San Marino, is inherently amusing just for being a historical anomaly that American school children have often never heard of. Luxembourg's mystique is further increased (for me) by the fact that it's actually not all that small - by which I mean, it has a full train system, and the length of the country would take more than an hour to traverse. There are plenty of rural towns in Luxembourg that are entirely distinct from Luxembourg City.

Other interesting/amusing factoids we learned during our 36 hours in Luxembourg: