Japan Trip 2010

My first trip to Asia was completely amazing. Although we only stayed in one country, we visited many cities: Tokyo, Kyoto, and Hiroshima. We had a good group going, I got to meet up with some good people there and even Mai and Chris!

Things I already miss: nice people, really good food, cherry blossoms, public transportation, and especially the amount of history/culture that exists in Japan. If I had to summarize how the Japanese culture, there are two experiences that explain it all. Keep in mind that you don’t leave tips in Japan.

Eight of us went to a restaurant for a dinner with a variety of dishes in Kyoto. Afterward, we walked a good two city blocks from the restaurant and waited at an intersection. Running behind us was one of the waitresses. She caught up to give us a ¥100 JPY coin (about the equivalent of $1.00 USD); I guess we just forgot to pick it up. That completely blew my mind.

The morning we left Hiroshima, we decided to leave our luggage at the hotel so we could venture out around the city. After all the excitement we came back to the hotel to pick up our luggage. One of the ladies gave us a piece of paper with a dime taped to it. Again, we forgot to pick up after ourselves – dirty Americans. Even though they might not know what the value of a dime is, they made sure it got back to us. That completely blew my mind.

Just so you get an idea of who was in our group and where we were each day, below is the calendar we used to identify who needed a hotel for each evening.

I have a ton of pictures and videos to process, so please be patient. This is just a table of contents that will be continuously updated with links as I blog each city’s activities, events, pictures, and videos.