Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better: The Theme Song of Japan

Have you ever heard the song “Anything you can do, I can do better”? If Japan could sing a song to America, this would be it. I kid you not, everything that America does, Japan does better.

Fashion? Ha. I don’t think you can even called the clothes we Americans sloppily piece together “fashion” compared to the Japanese. Every single one of them has a perfect outfit. The men are in suits, the women are wearing boots. No sweatshirts. No hair in messy buns. Everything is perfect.

Toilets? Their toilets SING. Literally. In case you don’t want the rest of the bathroom to year you do your business, you can make you toilet play music. You can also make you toilet squirt water (a variety of different versions, too). And the toilet seats are heated. That’s right. Heated.

Speaking of heated seats, the SUBWAYS have heated seats. I guess they’re not really subways. More like metro systems. But still. Heated seats on a metro system? Or you kidding me? No. Not kidding. Very serious, actually. It’s amazing.

Speaking of the metro system: you can get from anywhere to anywhere. And the trains are always, always, always on time. Plus they have the bullet train. I went 180mph on a train! That’s pretty, freakin’ cool.

Vending machines! Oh my gosh, I love their vending machines! You can get any sort of beverage – hot or cold! – and apparently in some parts of Japan there are vending machines that sell everything from coffee to jeans. I didn’t see those, but I was quite happy with my beverage vending machines. I would choose one with a cool wrapper (I generally avoided the English ones) that was either hot or cold, depending on my mood. And they were ALL good! Hurray! I probably spend $20 in those machines. But it was well worth it.

Let’s see. . . what else do the Japanese do better? An easier question might be what else do the Japanese do?

Oh! In America we have dumb menus that might have a picture that kind of resembles the dish, if you’re lucky. In Japan they have plastic versions of ALL the food on display so you can actually see what you’re ordering. None of this wishing-you-got-what-she-got-after-the-meals-are-delivered-and-you-see-what-it-is-you-actually-ordered nonsense. You know what you’re ordering. And the real food actually looks like the plastic food!

Chopsticks. Chopsticks are just always superior to European cutlery, in my opinion.

Oh! And there is absolutely no litter anywhere. Which is weird, since there is also absolutely no trash cans anywhere. I really don’t understand how the two can go together – no trash cans AND no litter – but it works.

And the Japanese are SO QUIET! I could be in a train car with 30 other people and it would be dead silent. I went to the busiest intersection in the WORLD! Every time the “walk” sign flashes, 1,000 people cross the street. In silence. Weirdest thing ever. But pretty cool.

And they’re all so nice!! They have Americans beat again.

That’s all of the Japanese superiority things I can think of right now. . . I’m sure there are more though.

I’m going to briefly go through my Japan experience. It already seems like such a long time ago. Crazy how time flies like that. Lots of it is kind of fuzzy and blurred together, but I’ll do my best.

The first day we arrived in Yokohama. We went through intense immigration procedures (I got finger printed), explored the city a bit, and then I loaded onto the bus for my “Yokohama & Tokyo Extended Trip.”

We went to some REALLY pretty gardens in Yokohama. If you picture the perfect autumn scene, with falling orange leaves and warm colors, and then you add some small bonsai plants, cool Japanese architecture, and flowers the size of my head (literally!) you get this garden. Bryan and I explored it for a while and followed lots of winding trails through thick bamboo. It was lots of fun! Then I participated in a tea ceremony and learned how to hold and turn my cup correctly. Yay!

From there we went to a cemetery and then to a look out point where we could see the harbor (and our ship!). Then people went to a café for warm food (“World’s Best Cheesecake Café”). Bryan and I didn’t want to spend money so we went back to an orange tree that we saw in the cemetery and . . .

Anyways. From there we went to a really tall building with the fastest elevator in the world (it was REALLY fast), then loaded up the bus again for Tokyo.

In Tokyo we checked into our hotel then a group of us went out to dinner. Fun, normal night. Nothing super eventful. Just enjoyed being in Japan.

The next day we went to temples and . . . temples. Probably some other stuff too, but, honestly, all that stuff blurs together after awhile. Don’t get me wrong, they’re beautiful and I enjoy seeing them, but you can only see so many temples in a 3-month period. (Angkor Watt doesn’t count. Those were completely different). 

Then. . .  LUNCH! Sushi! Hurray! Delicious! Wonderful! Free! Okay, not free. But prepaid, so it FELT free. You would expect sushi to be cheaper in Japan, but no. Still expensive. More so than America, even. But it was really, really good. And the trip leaders bought everyone cake to celebrate Bryan & my birthdays, which was really sweet. His birthday was the 21st, mine is the 23rd.

Then we went to Electric City, which was fun. Lots of (duh) electronics. We mostly just explored. We went to a 100 yen store, which is the equivalent of dollar stores in the U.S., where I bought some Christmas decorations for my cabin. We went up escalators that looked like they were in the little tubes that hamsters crawl through. Went to computer stores and took pictures of ourselves on macs and then set the pictures as the backgrounds. Very successful day, if you ask me.

That night we celebrated Bryan’s 21st birthday. A group of people who weren’t on our specific trip but who we knew through SAS met us at the hotel. They had a horror story of a travel experience; their hostel said they couldn’t stay there anymore, took trains in the wrong direction, so on and so forth. Long story short, I offered up my room and ended up with. . . uhh. . . eight of us girls in a small hotel room? We fit surprising well. Plus we were all pretty close to begin with, so it wasn’t really a big deal. Anyways, back to the celebration.

We went out to dinner, which was fun. Then we went to the ICE BAR. There are only a couple of them in the world. You pay to get in, and your cover charge gets you a drink, a parka, gloves, and boots (The clothes you obviously have to give back). The whole bar is made of ice! The walls are ice, the tables are ice, the seats are ice (covered in fur), the actual bar is ice, the cups are ice. It’s so cool! (Pun intended). The bartender was disappointed when I just ordered a pineapple juice. Not much chance for him to show off his awesome bartending skills. He asked if he could add stuff it it, and I said no alcohol. Again, disappointed. But we settled for pineapple juice with strawberry syrup, so he got to do a little mixing and playing with colors and I still got my alcohol-free beverage. Everyone wins.

I’ve decided on this trip that drinking just isn’t for me. I’ve been allowed to this whole time, but it really just has no appeal to me. I’m quite happy to be the babysitter of drunken friends and remember the stories in the morning. Plus I don’t think my personality really needs any alcohol in order to get me onto the dance floor or to make a fool out of myself. I can run into walls on my own, thank you very much.

And I know that there is a middle ground. You don’t have to not drink or get completely trashed. And I have a lot of friends that choose the middle ground. But I (and my wallet) are quite happy with just not drinking.

Now back to the ice bar.

By the end of our time there, we were absolutely freeeeeezing. I couldn’t feel my fingers. We then wandered around Tokyo some more (some people returned, once again, to Family Mart for some cheap liquor), and then we attempted to navigate the metro system home. You should know that a) We weren’t that great at the metro system yet, b) The signs are not in English, c) the metro closes at midnight, d) taxis are ridiculously expensive, and e) our group ranges from sober to pretty far wasted. Surprisingly (actually, not surprisingly, knowing Bryan), Bryan was one of the more sober ones, and it was HIS 21st birthday. Props to him.

Anyways, he were are trying to get home. Like herding sheep. Herding sheep when you don’t even know what direction you should be herding them, and some of them needs to use the bathroom, and another one can’t find her camera, and another one can’t stop laughing. Okay, we ALL can’t stop laughing. I think Colby sliding down the rail and falling is one of my favorite memories of that night. Ironically, he didn’t even drink that much. But Colby is one of these “cool” people. Not necessarily “too cool for school,” but not someone who would do anything silly. Anyways, we’re going down the stairs into the metro and he’s a bit in front of me. He sits down on the rail, slides down, and then somehow his feet fly over his head and he’s on the grown.

Hilarious.

But I’m thinking it might be one of those things you had to be there for.

Anyways, we do eventually make it home. Cram a whole bunch of girls into my room and go to sleep.

In the morning I’m up early to take a train to Mt. Fuji. We have the whole day free, and this is what I’ve decided to do with my day. There are two adults going with me: Pat and a professor. We take the train there only to discover that you can’t see the mountain. It’s completely fogged in. I’m too not disappointed. I didn’t really care that much about the mountain.

I stay with Pat and Professor Milani for two-ish hours when we wander into a festival of sorts. We get separated in it, and when we meet up again they were ready to go back to Tokya. I decide to stay. I hadn’t had a day to myself since New York.

I had a really wonderful day. I stayed at the festival for a while. It turned out to be an agriculture festival, so I got to try a whole bunch of the foods they grow there, which was awesome. That’s where I had lunch, too. I sat next to a nice Japanese old man and watched a butter making contest where kids shook jars full of milk and the first one to make butter won. The man was really sweet, and we tried to communicate. Not to successfully, but we tried.

I explored the festival some more and the palace grounds that it was on. There were some caged monkeys. Bright red faces.

Then into the town. I wandered around for a bit before settling into coffee shop overlooking a small street. I sat and journaled there for a long time.

I wandered around the town some more. After going from the crowded boat to big city to boat to city, it was nice to have a whole town all to myself. I was the only SAS person there. Sometimes it’s nice to have a break.

I stayed until just before dark, then I got back on the train and headed home. In Tokyo I had really, really good dinner from a fast food Japanese restaurant. Totally hit the spot for me. Then walked back to the hotel.

I was in my jammies all ready for bed when Andrew and Bryan called. We ended up watching the Hangover, which was funnier than I expected. Then when it turned midnight they sang me happy birthday.

What a great day.

They next day (my birthday!) kind of blurrs by. I know I got sang to probably about 12 times throughout the day. We explored Tokyo for a bit in the morning. I forget the exact place we went to, but it’s the area with the biggest intersection. Got delicious lunches, and headed home to the hotel. Then we jumped on the 180mph bullet train to go to Kobe. I slept for all 3 hours except for when people woke me up to point out Mt. Fuji. So I DID get to see it! Hurray!

In Kobe, we loaded onto the ship around dinner. Let me tell you that I was dead tired. Like wanted to take the elevator from the second to third floor tired. (But I didn’t).

So I get into my room and my door is crazily decorated with a  HUGE happy birthday sign. And lots of cards are stuck behind my name card. When I go inside, there is a stack of birthday cards on my bed. You guys, thank you so much. I really, really, really, really appreciate it. I was so utterly exhausted, and your cards were just what I needed. Thank you so much.

 So, having read all my wonderful, loving, awesome birthday cards, I’m still super tired and not up to having a huge birthday.

So I had a small, wonderful, perfect birthday dinner. Me and Allie Hart, one of my favorite people in the world, went out to a sushi dinner. Then we bought socks. Then we bought boba tea-ish stuff from Family Mart (I love Family Mart!) and then we went home. It was really perfect.

Oh! And when we came home we stopped by the purser’s desk to pick up packages I got a note on my door about. When my mom said she sent some small gifts, I was picturing small gifts. A cute pencil. A ring. A hair tie.

Nope. I got handed a huge box! So I brought it down to Allie’s room and we had a little birthday celebration. Inside the huge box were lots of little boxes (SAS had put all my packages into one box), so I had lots of little packages to unwrap. It was a lot of fun. Thank you so very much for all the effort that went into that. I really appreciate it!!

So that was my birthday.

The next day I was still dead tired. Allie and I went to the zoo to see pandas, but there weren’t any pandas. That’s okay, though, we saw other animals. Including a squirrel exhibit. And Californian sea lions.

It was crazy seeing the zoo in Japan. That’s one thing that America DEFINITELY does better. They had two HUGE bears in a cage the size of my cabin. Some of the animals looked pretty sick.

. . . But still a fun day at the zoo. =-)

Then we wandered around town, got lunch, sat at a coffee shop for awhile, went to Family Mart one last time, then back to the ship.

Next stop: America.