First day in Japan

My first impression of Japan came from the tatami mats that covered the floor, and which have a scent that I suspect I will soon associate with Japan. Tatami mats are used like a rug, with rice straw as the core covered with woven rush straw. They look really nice and are soft. It’s very bad manners to step on them with shoes; I suspect it’s because they’re difficult to clean.

My next impression came in the morning as I was driven to the airport. The greenery here is beautiful—there is a mix of tropical, jungle-like plants (e.g. bamboo and something similar to a small palm tree) yet also small coniferous trees. At least in Chiba, the shrubs and trees are thick and abundant. Before I could fully take in this sight, we turned left out of a little road onto the highway. At the same time, a car was coming right at us. I almost yelled, but it wasn’t a problem because in Japan people drive on the left. It’s going to take me a while to get used to this, but I have to learn fast because I’ll be expected to drive starting from my second week of work.

From the airport I took a train to Sakura, a city with several touristy sights. My primary destination was the National Museum of Japanese History. It was a pretty interesting museum, but I wished that I could read Japanese better. I tried reading for the first few minutes and quickly gave up because it was too slow. I was given an audio tour player, so I was able to understand several things generally. One exhibit was about Japanese schooling, and there I talked to a museum attendant for probably 30 minutes. He had traveled to many different countries, and his English was quite good.

Examples of greenery found on the way to the museum:

I went back to the airport and had lunch though it was nearly 3:00 at this point, and sat down to wait for the bus that would take me from the airport to Matsumoto, near where I would live. While I was sitting down, probably looking something like a zombie (east coast time is 2-3 AM at this point), a TV crew came up and asked if they could interview me. They asked in Japanese, so I responded without really thinking, “that’s fine.” Hah. They asked a few general questions, and then they asked me what my favorite Japanese food was, where I had eaten it, and then what I liked about it. At the last question I was completely clueless (I had told them it was salmon sashimi), so I think they took pity on me and gave up. I hope they heavily edit that footage if they use it at all, because I’m sure I was a terrible interview subject.

It was somehow unsurprising to me when the bus driver didn’t show up in the appointed location at the appointed time. I waited around for 20 minutes, and then called my boss from a public pay phone. I ran out of time three times, but by the third time I had received enough information to be able to find the bus and everything went smoothly after that.