Our House in Kanazawa

Prior to boarding our Shinkansen yesterday we witnessed an interesting Japanese custom. As we were fairly early, there was another train at the platform being cleaned by some station personnel. Three workers were busy cleaning the interior of the first class car, and finished up one at a time. Before the first worker exited the car he performed the following curious ritual: He stood in the doorway and pointed three times down at the ground, first to the right, then to the left, and finally immediately in front of where he was standing. He then exited the car and stood offset from the door facing away from the train. He may also have made a sign at his forehead with his right hand but we may be mistaken that this is part of the ritual. The second worker repeated this and stood opposite the first worker on the other side of the door. The third worker did the same and stood between the first two. Then all three workers bowed together and departed. We hope to see this event again at a future platform in the coming days.

During our travels yesterday we remarked at some of the positive qualities of the Japanese people. Everything is very clean; even the highway which we walked along was devoid of litter and the train tracks at the platform surpassed the pristine London Tube in cleanliness. The people here are also very trusting. Nobody checked our tickets once we boarded the train, and shoppers leave their umbrellas in racks outside stores here when they go in certain that they will still be there upon their return.  

-Theodore

 

The author and Nathaniel in our first class car on the Shinkansen.

 

Some yen. The rule of thumb we devised for converting to dollars is to divide by one hundred and then subtract ten percent of the new amount.

 

A traditional breakfast of pancakes and sausages. 

 

The upstairs bedroom in our Airbnb. I think there is glass outside to protect the paper screens.

 

The downstairs bedroom. Our host calls these futon beds, which are just thick mats on the floor. Harder then western mattresses, we still slept comfortably after the days travels.

 

The upstairs hallway in our Airbnb. There are few hinges in the whole house; most doors (including the front door) slide horizontally. 

 

It is requested that we remove our shoes before entering. Slippers are provided but are too small for our feet.

 

Ninja costumes provided by our host for amusement. This house is advertised as 'Ninja Cosplay'.

The controls on the washing machine in our Airbnb. With the aid of the Google translate app we got this running.