Japan: Final Impressions

Things I miss:
- the very kind and polite people
- organization
- engrish

Things I won't miss:
- the lack of public trashcans
- the massive amount of paperwork / intractable beaurocracy
- raw egg

Things I still don't understand:
- all the bowing
- AKB48
- the lack of wifi
- where all the robots are at

Other observations:
- they like blonde haired women just as much as you like asians
- an entire population has been trained to carefully separate their trash into over three types of bins, even in mcdonalds
- you can purchase almost anything from a vending machine

One summer is definitely not enough for Japan. A post-doc for two years would be a good way to take in the country and learn the language while at it. I definitely hope to return to the land of the rising sun someday.

Making the Most of your Japan Rail Pass

The last week of travel was done almost entirely on the Japan rail pass. Purchased from Vivre Le Japan it cost about 250 euros. Here's the breakdown of the major train travel I used the rail pass for (all in yen):

Tokyo -> Kyoto           13,020

Kyoto -> Nara                   690

Osaka -> Himeji             3,340

Himeji -> Hiroshima      7,870

Hiroshima -> Tokyo    16,630

Total: 41,550 yen

Rail Pass Cost: 26,408 yen

Or, I paid about $350 for $550 worth of travel. Not bad. A round trip ticket from Tokyo to Kyoto is enough to justify the price, and Hiroshima just made it that much better of a deal. The real kicker was using the rail pass for the overnight train from Hiroshima to Tokyo. This only works for a few select overnight trains, and you end up in the lowest grade seats. However, as long as you board the train before midnight on the last day of your travel, it still counts the following morning until you exit the train. So for my 7th day of rail travel, I boarded the sleeper at 10:30 and arrived in Tokyo at 7 am on the 8th day of travel, without having to pay any extra. This effectively replaces a half day of travel with more time for sightseeing, and allowed me to see Sandan-kyo. 

The Sunrise-seto sleeper was almost like being in a capsule hotel

I like experiencing sleeper trains in different countries. My first week in asia I slept on the dirty unreserved floor space of a train from Beijing to Xi'an, only to return to Beijing in a comfortable soft-sleeper. My last night in Japan would be spent in their most uncomfortable of sleeping cars, but still better than an isle floor in China. The compartment wasn't much better than a pod hotel, and if you sat up  you could see everyone sleeping from one end of the train car to the other, except for those bunked above you. I was inserted between a mother and her child, and quickly motioned that we could switch so she could be next to her son, which she seemed grateful for. The train had one more surprise: it was one of the few trains in Japan I had been on that was unusually late. Instead of arriving in Tokyo at 7 am, it arrived at 9:50. I got last minute souvenirs from a shop, headed to campus to get my luggage, and then to Narita airport to get my 5 pm flight back to the states.