Okay, Japan post part 2 - so after 4 days in Kyoto, we went to the area of Abiko/Tsuchiura for my mom's 2nd marathon. That area was meh. Not a lot to do, it was a pretty sleepy area and rather disappointing after the excitement of Tokyo & Kyoto. We only spent a couple days there though. After that, we went back to Tokyo and spent 2 days in the Maihama area. Maihama is a VERY touristy area, it's where Tokyo Disneyland is, and Disneyland was the only reason we were in Maihama. We wanted to spend our last full day in Japan going to Tokyo Disneyland.
So we did that, and it was actually a lot of fun.
Hey, while I'm thinking of it - if you want to friend me on facebook, I have like 900 photos of Japan on my facebook. Send me a PM. I'm at work right now and can't get to my facebook from this computer, so I can't send you the link to mine, but I can either do that tonight when I get home or if you send me the link to your facebook then I can friend you.
(If you want to - no pressure. I understand that some people only like to friend people that they know "in real life".)
So, the food. Honestly, it all sat really well with me - my belly didn't give me trouble whatsoever, it loved all the food! I already knew that a lot of Japanese foods are safe for me - I can do rice, fish, seaweed, noodles, etc with no trouble. My mother is actually the one who had issues. She's gluten-free by choice and she's also soy-free which REALLY limited her in Japan. It also turns out that she has a legit allergy to raw fish - the few times she tried eating sashimi, her legs swelled up and broke out in a scary rash. So for her, there were very few food options. It turns out that gluten is added to basically everything in Japan - even rice balls apparently have gluten in them, and of course soy sauce has gluten and that's in so many foods there as well.
We found that one of the few things she could eat was cooked shrimp sushi. It's cooked and doesn't contain soy sauce nor gluten - it's just basically rice and cooked shrimp. Some sushi places even had this yummy version of it that was called "ebi avocado" (ebi means shrimp) - it was shrimp sushi with avocado and mayonnaise on top. It was actually really delicious, I ended up eating a lot of that myself. We found that the easiest sushi places to go to were conveyor belt sushi restaurants - you can see the sushi go past you and you can pick which ones you want, and just pay by the plate (it wasn't too pricey, either, usually between 100 and 350 yen per plate which is roughly $1 to $3.50 US). So as a result of my mom's dietary needs, we ended up going to a LOT of conveyor belt sushi restaurants. I'm not complaining about that, I love sushi! It was delicious!
So yeah, long story short - if you can eat gluten, the food should be okay. There are some "western" style restaurants as well, in fact we saw tons of McDonalds there and several pizza places, etc. We didn't eat at any of those places although we did like going into McDonalds to use their bathroom, ha ha.
Which leads me to, the toilet situation. First of all, memorize this phrase: "Toire wa doko desu ka?" That means, where is the bathroom? Or if you can't remember that, just remember that toire means toilet. (If someone tries giving you complicated directions, hidari means left and migi means right!) Most of the toilets are wonderful. In our hotel rooms, the toilets had heated seats and heated bidets with a variety of settings - seriously wonderful! Now I am bugging my hubby to get us a heated seat for our toilet at home. The vast majority of public toilets in Japan have those features, and many also have a feature where it plays the sound of running water to cover up any "gross" sounds you might make while in the bathroom (we totally need that here in the US!).
But, then, there are the squat toilets. And they are horrible. Literally it's a hole in the ground, and you squat over the hole and do your bathroom business. No matter how low you squat, us ladies can't exactly aim our urine streams, so you are guaranteed to pee on the floor as well as maybe your shoes (yes, I peed on my own shoes at one point, so icky). You'll also be standing in strangers' pee while you're squatting and trying not to pee on your own shoes. Throw joint pain into the mix and it's really not a fun time! I had to use squat toilets maybe 5 or 6 times during the 3 weeks I was in Japan, so fortunately they can mostly be avoided, but there are still times when you really gotta go and only a squatter is available. So be prepared.
Oh! I should also mention, bring your own soap or hand sanitizer - I got myself some paper soap which was a lifesaver. Weirdly, for as clean a country as Japan is (there's like no litter anywhere), it's very rare to find actual soap in a public bathroom. In private bathrooms like in hotel rooms there's soap, but if you have to use the bathroom in a train station or whatever, you can count on there not being soap (and occasionally no toilet paper either so bring kleenex or wipes with you too!!).
Let's see, what am I forgetting to mention? I'm sure I'll think of like 10 more things later on but that's the bulk of it for now. It was a really fun trip. Be prepared to walk a lot and take a lot of trains. The train system there is pretty confusing so ask someone in the train station if you don't know for sure which platform to go to or which train to get on (keep in mind that some trains are local and some are express - the very first day we accidentally got on an express and went way farther than we intended to and had to turn around and go back). Fortunately, most people in Japan speak at least some English, and many people there speak very good English. I didn't find much issue at all with the language barrier (I do not speak Japanese). Everyone there was very friendly and helpful to us. Being polite is the main thing, Japan is a very polite place. Always say "arigato gozaimasu" (thank you) and bowing is also polite. (Some of the Nara deer have learned how to bow to tourists to ask for deer cookies, I found a deer who very politely bowed to me and I gave him like 10 cookies, ha ha.) Learn a few useful phrases in Japanese - like how to ask where the train station is, how to hail a taxi ("takushi!"), hello (konnichiwa), etc. Oh, and be prepared for some fairly brutal jet lag both on the way there and the way back. Don't plan anything big for your first full day there, just rest and get yourself acclimated, stay hydrated, etc.
You're going to have a great time! I'm so jealous, I already want to go back. It was for sure the trip of a lifetime. You have to let me know how your trip goes (and the Korea part too! That's going to be daebak - awesome!).
