I think I actually had culture shock tonight.
The weather here is ab-so-lu-te-ly gorgeous! But, of course I was stuck at the office. So, I decided to have dinner outside. Very easy, nice food. Or so I thought.
Not thinking, I got salad, bread, cheese and was about to walk out of the shop and to the park when I realized "This is not Japan, I need to buy cutlery and stuff."
I ended up with 20 plastic forks and knifes because of course they don't sell that stuff separately. Plus, there were no handy drinks in the shop, no actual nice outdoorsy food.
In summary: I think Lawson/7.11/FamilyMart/random convenience stores should move into the Netherlands.
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Another thing that I've noticed is that no one keeps in line on the escalator! I'm always confused on which side I'm supposed to stand until I realize that no one here cares.
4 comments:
I know, the escalators are weird in Japan. Tokyo and Osaka are opposite sides. Kyoto seems to be undecided for either. Or at least, I couldn't figure out the proper side to stand on. What's Hiroshima? It would be even stranger if that's the same again as Tokyo.... No logic, those Japanese ;)
Yes, but think of all the trees you're saving by not being given 2 or 3 pairs of chopsticks with every meal.
Got to admit though: Japan is super convenient.
Daniel, so they tried to get Osaka to convert to international standards? Haha, good to hear that didn't exactly work ;)
Jo, just one plastic fork would have been more than enough :) But I guess we shouldn't promote the bad bad side-effect of all this convenience: the enormous piles of waste....
I always wondered if there was a place somewhere between Tokyo and Osaka where there was a dividing line between standing on the left of the escalator and standing on the right, sort of like water going down the drain changing direction (allegedly) at the equator.
But the report that no one knows WHERE to stand in Kyoto, well, that confuses the entire issue -- although maybe that means Kyoto is the dividing line. It's sort of like trying to find the dividing line between where in Belgium one speaks Dutch and where one speaks French (kind of a moot point for me since I don't speak either one, just call it intellectual curiosity).
RichardInSF
P.S. Not nearly as much organization at potential Tokyo pissups since you've been gone, btw.
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