Japan in general. Adventures, thoughts.

After almost two weeks that I am in Japan I can share some of my expreriences with the reader. In the first week I had the feeling, that I am not on Earth. This is another planet. It is so different.
Japan is a very clear counrty. However there are no rubbish-bins on the streets at all. An everyday task can be to figure out how can you get rid of the small piece of napkin which is left back form your icecream. The streets are clean, noone throws away anything.
Japan is a very traditional country. They keep the religion(s), the traditions and they are very proud of it. They love their country as well. They tour around all the time, and take photographs of every single object on their way. A funny habbit is making group-photos. If there are three people or more, this is a must to be photographed in a group-photo in every site they go. Accordingly there are group-photographer masters next to every site. They take their place for the photo with a very high discipline.
They also find western style people very interesting. Some young didn't miss the opportunity to get photographed with us.
Language: funny for us. Mostly they do not understand English, but the fact that I don't speak Japanese doesn't disturb them in speaking their language to me. Magically we never had a single language-related misunderstanding.
Another phenomenon is the English-menu effect. English menu is actually a Japanese menu with an English title, and subtitles. However the individual items are in Japanese... ;) The effect is that once you see an English menu you might enter that restaurant, but once you did it, you will not leave just because they don't really have a real English menu.
The same with information. A huge board: INFORMATION is the title. But below... everything is in Japanese. Very informative indeed.
Habbits: One very bold habbit is making a deep bow to each other. This is ritualized tradition and it must be done more than one time. In the subway one person asks the time from someone. After getting very polite answer, the bowing ceremony begins. Both of them make deep bows to the other. This can take even an entire minute or so.
High-tech: This country is highly developed in terms of technology. Their superannuated GSM cell-system is dead, they have only a newer technology and all phones are 3g. Also no room without high-quality LCD television.
Railways, subways are on the highest level I have ever seen. The Shinkansen scuds with at least 300km/h, you sit inside, and don't even feel it. In the trains and subways all the information is also in English. They are very accurate. On a three-hours ride the Shinkansen arrives exactly on time, not even one minute later.
Food is essential on the train, everybody eat, so do we. In every station they sell prepacked dishes, which they heat in a microwave in about 20 seconds. This box contains fishes, rice, and vegetables. It is super-fresh and tasty. To eat on the Shinkansen is an unintended reflex.
It is a little hard to get used to IE and blogspot.com in Japanese, the luck is that I remember which button links where.
ATMs are rarely used in Japan, so are credit cards. Cash is the best thing that a tourist can bring with him.
All these are just a small taste. Picures will come sometime...