Alone

The Redhead left today and I’m alone in a country where I can’t even ask for a glass of water without pantomime. Lovely. Luckily I’m halfway decent at charades and the Japanese are, on the whole, exceedingly helpful. And I did establish several rather interesting things today:

· I don’t care how cool it looks to have multiple buttons with neat little graphics on your toilet, that’s just wrong. A toilet should have one button and one button only – flush. Not 2 different spray types with adjustable water temperature and pressure (I saw one in a restaurant bathroom that had a 3rd spray type with a picture of a woman sitting there – I’m not sure I’ll ever be adventurous enough to try that one).

· There is a catholic church in Mito. It even has mass in English every other weekend (“for the Filipino population” she assured me – I’m not sure if I understood that correctly or not since I can’t figure out why you’d want to have mass in English if you spoke Tagalog [sp?])

· Mister Donut in Japan tastes almost the same as Mister Donut at home. Just ignore the grapefruit donuts (sorry – I wasn’t adventurous enough to try one so I don’t know what they taste like).

· People will do a double take when they see me at the counter or walking down the street. The kids will even try a “hi” and then laugh and giggle and run away when I say “hi” back. But the stares and pointing and whispers we’d been getting all week were for the Redhead. Interesting in a culture where dying your hair all shades of orange is the current fashion.

Today’s tip: If you are stuck in Japan with no other language skills, the word “sumimasen” is absolutely invaluable. It seems to mean a combination of “excuse me” and “sorry” and “help please” and “thank you for taking your valuable time to help this worthless human being”. Pronounce it with an American accent and doors verily fly open. You even get pulled into the community center by little old ladies who can’t possibly be that strong, sat down on the sofa, given green tea and cracker snacks, and smiled at until you bow and say “samimasen” again and take your leave.