Changing Perspectives

Artist Susan Groce, UMaine:

"Travel involves a change in perspective, perception, and sense of time. Removing myself from my own routines and experiencing different viewpoints are essential to seeing things in different ways. In fact, reorientation of perspective is a major factor in my work."

I find this to be a rather interesting quote because of how true it rings, especially when I look back on my time in Japan. This trip was the first time I had ever been out of the U.S. (except for a few trips to Canada; do they even count?). I had no idea what to expect when it came to spending a significant amount of time in a truly foreign country. In the past I tried to imagined what it would be like because I had been dying to travel to Japan for years, but I had never imagined how much I would have to change in order to really appreciate and embrace the country. It was a huge help to be traveling with such a great group and being led by people who had been to the country before, not to mention all of the preparation we did beforehand. I definitely feel like if I went by myself with no preparation, there's no way I would have learned as much as I did or had as good of a time as I did on this trip.

I found it odd and a bit uncomfortable at first to experience how differently the Japanese think and do things, and it made me really step back and realize how much of an outsider I really was there. It was the little things that I noticed the most. It took a while to get used to walking on the left side of the stairs and escalators, and keeping my trash with me until I finally found a garbage can (which were few and far between). As the week went on, however, I feel like I adapted more and more to Japanese social norms and the culture, making me more able to blend in with the rest of the crowd. By the end of the week, I was very comfortable walking around the city no longer feeling like everyone was staring at me. The hardest thing to adapt to was how quiet the Japanese are. There were plenty of times on the subway where we would be the only passengers talking, and talking quite loudly, while the rest of the car sat in silence. It was certainly a cultural difference that we had trouble adapting to.

In order to truly blend in, it took a change in perspective, a shift in thinking, and a real sense of how different things are in a foreign country. I found myself thinking differently by the end of the trip. I spent a lot of time just trying to absorb and really take in everything I was experiencing. After the first few days I realized that in order to get as much as I could out of this trip, I would have to let go of many of my pre-described notions about how to act and how to think and work on getting into the Japanese mindset. It took a shift in perspective to really appreciate the Japanese culture instead of just passing it off as frustrating or odd. It was only after appreciating and working with the differences that I noticed the similarities, and in the end I found out that we're really not all that different. Japan really wasn't as foreign as I thought.

What I Miss

Now that the trip has been over for a few days, I figured it would be a good time to come back and do some reflecting on what I experienced and learned in Japan over the eight or so days I was there. My next few posts will try and sum up some of my most important findings and revelations.

During the week, we were asked by the professors running the trip to think about 2 things about Japan we wished were in the U.S., and 2 things about the U.S. we wished were in Japan. I actually thought about this a lot during the time I was in the country.

Things from Japan I wish were in the United States:

• Abundance of Useful Vending Machines: I think I bought more out of vending machines than I did out of regular convenience stores throughout the trip. There were vending machines on almost every street corner, so if you were ever thirsty (and man, was I ever, especially when it was really hot in Tokyo) you were never far from a water or, even better, a Aquarious. I ended up with a ton of yen coins, and the vending machines were a quick, easy, and useful way to get rid of them. In the U.S., I feel like change doesn't really have a purpose anymore. People just throw it into jars if they even bother to pay that much attention. And I can't forget to mention the fact that you can actually get beer and sake in vending machines in Japan, though I don't see this coming over to the U.S. any time soon. Haha.
• Arcade Gaming Culture: One of my favorite things about Japan is their fascination with arcade gaming. I checked out several arcades throughout Tokyo, and it really made me wish that we had that kind of love for arcade gaming in the U.S. When you visit arcades in the U.S., they tend to be a bit run down with outdated games and not many customers. In Japan, arcades are packed all day long with the latest and greatest games, and kids are more than willing to spend their entire evening playing friends and racking up high scores. I have a particularly high interest in video games, and this more social form of gaming is something I am already missing here in the U.S.

Things from the U.S. I wish were in Japan:

• Good Old Fashioned Pizza: Now, don't get me wrong. Anyone that read my blog knows that I loved a vast majority of the food in Japan. I tried A LOT of things I had never had before, and for the most part, I was very happy for it. Even so, near the end of trip I started to get burnt out on Japanese food. I wasn't so much burnt out on the food itself, just the idea of going to a restaurant and picking out something that I had no idea if I was going to like it or not, or what it even remotely tasted like. By Friday, I just wanted a good old fashioned pepperoni pizza. There were a few places we saw where you could get pizza, but it usually had a lot of weird toppings, and it tasted almost nothing like pizza back home. I think this stemmed more from a desire to experience something familiar in a place where everything was foreign to me. I've been home for a few days and I haven't gotten one yet, but I will soon!
• Sports on TV: In the mornings and right before bed every night I watched A LOT of Japanese television. Basically I would just flip through the channels until I found a game show because they tended to be really wacky and easy to follow despite the language barrier. Though after the first few days in Japan, the novelty of the games shows started to wear off, and all I wanted to do was watch some basketball or baseball or some kind of (American) sport on TV. We did see some sumo wrestling being televised, and some of the news programs did show some MLB highlights at night, but that was it. There were a few mornings where I would have died for some Sportscenter while I was getting ready, and it was especially hard since the NBA playoffs were going on the whole time we were away. It was tough to have to wait until I could get to the internet to check scores, but somehow I survived. Haha.

There were a few other topics I could have written about, but these were the 4 that definitely popped out for me. Thoughts? Leave a comment!

Day Eight

This, sadly, was our last day in Japan. It was hard to believe howquickly the time went by. We were busy, but it was the good kind of busy, and we were lucky to see as much as we could in the time we were in Japan.

First on the agenda for our last day of the trip was a tour of a sake brewery and museum just outside Kyoto. We had to take a train to get there, and it was an even more rural area than Kyoto. We were told that we were in really old Japan now, and you could tell. The streets were very narrow, there were little shops everywhere (and not one McDonalds or Seven Eleven in sight), and no english to be seen. The brewery and museum was only a few blocks from the train stop.

We were first shown a video on how they take rice, polish it down, press it, and ferment it to make sake. It's an age old process passed down throughout the generations going back hundreds of years. It's hard for me to describe the taste of sake. It definitely has a wine taste, yet there's also a hint of whiskey in there, and there's almost no burn as it goes down your throat. I had it quite a few times on the trip, and I must say I really like it. I did hear that the sake you get in the states is nothing like the sake in Japan, so that disappoints me. Ah well, just another reason to go back to Japan some day!

After the video, we were given a tour of the museum, which housed many of the tools the Japanese used to make sake hundreds of years ago. There were sake labels and bottles, old ads for sake, and we even got to taste the water they use in the brewing process. The quality of the water used to brew sake directly affects the taste, so the water each brewery uses must be as high quality as possible. I had a taste, and I must say it was very, very good. After a tour of the museum, we got to sample some of the brewery's sake. First up was some sake brewed in the 1960's, then some of their best-selling sake, and finally some plum wine that they also brew. The 1960's sake was definitely the best, followed by the plum wine. It was very sweet, and reminded me a lot of soda. It seemed a bit too easy to drink. Heh.

Once we left the brewery and museum, the rest of the day was ours to explore Kyoto. I headed straight to the Imperial Palace and national garden, just a few blocks down from our inn. Kyoto was actually the capitol of Japan until about 1869, when the capitol and Emperor's residence was moved to Tokyo. Although I couldn't get inside of the palace itself, I did get to check out the gates, and there were some very interesting wood carvings and gold designs on them. Apparently, you have to sign up for tours way ahead of time to actually get in. Ah well, next time! After checking out the gates, I walked all around the gardens surrounding the palace taking pictures. There were plenty of people all around having picnics and playing catch or riding their bikes. It was a really nice area, and it's apparently very busy during cherry blossom season. There are about 50 cherry blossom trees on the grounds, and people come from all over Japan to see them. I also stopped in a replica of a noble's residence. Back when the palace was active, there were over 20o nobles that lived on the grounds.

I then walked a few blocks down to a Buddhist temple that was the site of a hermitage in the 1200s by Shinran Shonin, the founder of Shin Buddhism. There is a apricot tree on the grounds of the temple that was actually planted by Shonin himself. After checking out the temple, I went next door to the Okazaki Shrine, one of Kyoto's most ancient shrines. Built in 794, it's believed to hold the god and goddess of easy childbirth. It is one of 4 shrines built on compass points around Kyoto, and these 4 shrines were used to dispel evil related to the four compass points to protect the Imperial court.

After snapping some pictures and reading up on the shrine, I walked a few more blocks over to Eikando Temple. This was another Buddhist temple nestled in the eastern hills of Kyoto. Built in 863, It's most famous for its maple trees and fall foliage, as well as a 30 inch high statue known as the "Turing Amida", a stunning figure made entirely out of gold. I walked throughout the entire temple and saw some magnificent old silk screen paintings and tea rooms, but the most impressive was the massive alter room near the top of the hill. Hanging from the roof were chandeliers made entirely out of gold with very intricate dragon designs, and the room had a faint smell of incense. Inside, I saw a monk chanting and praying while banging on a gourd and hitting a bell. It was extremely fascinating, and I just sat and watched for a long time, taking in every detail of the room before quietly exiting, Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures inside the temple. After checking out the alter room, I walked up about 200 steps or so to the Pagoda, right on the side of the hill. Once I got to the top, the Pagoda offered some beautiful views of the Kyoto skyline. I just stood up there for a while, taking it all in while the sun was going down. I couldn't say as long as I wanted, however, because the temple was closing for the day. Good thing too, otherwise I would have missed our final dinner!

Our farewell dinner was at a tofu place in Kyoto, within walking distance from our inn. Tofu is very popular in Japan, and I was excited to get a chance to try it for myself. Our first course consisted of some cold tofu and vegetables, the second course was hot tofu with dipping sauces and vegetable tempura, and the final course was a bowl of white rice. Tofu has a very strange consistency. It's almost like mush, and it doesn't have much of a taste of its own. It really just takes on the taste of whatever you dip it in. I was a fan of the hot tofu. I dipped it in some soy sauce, and it was good, but it was also very hard to get over the consistency of it. Lot of people in our group really didn't care for it, but I thought it was pretty good. We wrapped up our dinner with some Japanese bean paste sweets, which is actually more tasty than it sounds. It was a great way to experience something Japanese at the end of a wonderful trip.

After dinner we had a wrap-up meeting before heading back to the inn for packing and sleep. We left the next morning at about 7am for a long day of traveling back to the states.

Day Seven

To start off our first full day in Kyoto, we attend a Japanese tea ceremony. After seeing the modern side of Japan and Japanese culture in Tokyo, we were ready to experience more traditional Japan, and the tea ceremony is one of Japan's oldest and most respected events.

We were all led into a beautiful building with tatami mats on the

floor, paper walls, and Japanese art everywhere. We were brought up to the second floor and introduced to our instructor and demonstrators for the ceremony. We were told we had to enter the tea room the

traditional way, which meant getting on your knees and opening up the door with your left hand first, then switching to your right when the door gets past the middle of your chest. After the door is open, you had to scoot on your knees over the threshold of the door before closing the door the same way you opened it. Everyone did this to enter the room, and then we bowed to a banner that the original tea master made over 100 years ago.

After a bit of an introduction, two volunteers showed the rest of the group (with the help of our instructor of course) how to make the tea and then how to receive and drink it. It's a very complicated process with lots of rules and formalities, including lots of bowing. The tea was a green tea power that hot water is added to, then the mixture is stirred with a bamboo whisk. After the tea is ready, the drinker then has a set of actions to

perform before drinking the tea and bowing to the tea maker.

After we watched the demonstration with our two volunteers, we all had a chance to be the tea makers as well as the tea drinkers. It was really tough to remember everything we had to do in each situation, but the instructor and helpers were very understanding and were more than willing to remind us what the next step was. It was very cool to participate in something that's been around for so long and is so much a part of Japanese culture. After the ceremony, we all stuck around for a while and asked a ton of questions.

We were then off to visit Kinkaku-ji or the "Golden Pavilion Temple", one of the most famous sites in Kyoto. The temple was first completed in 1397 and it's top two floors are covered in gold leaf. The temple itself is located near the center of a huge garden and on the shore of a lake surrounded by trees. Despite the rain, we spent the better part of an hour just wandering around the temple grounds and taking in the sites. We went straight from the temple grounds to lunch at a ramen noodle place a few blocks over. I got some pork ramen with rice and fried chicken pieces. It was one of the best meals I had all week!

After lunch we walked to Ryoan-ji, a Zen temple with a famous rock garden built in the 1400s. The garden consists of raked gravel and fifteen moss-covered boulders, which are placed so that, when looking at the garden from any angle (other than from above) only fourteen of the boulders are visible at one time. It is traditionally said that only through attaining enlightenment would one be able to view the fifteenth boulder. After examining the rock garden, we spent some time wandering around and checking out the inside of the temple and the garden around it.

That night we walked to Gion, the district of Kyoto where Geisha come from. We did get to see one at work in a restaurant in the area, but at that point the rain was really coming down, so a few of us grabbed a sushi dinner and others headed back to the inn. We spent the rest of the evening talking and watching Japanese television.

Day Six

Day Six was mostly a travel day for us to get from Tokyo down to Kyoto, the former Imperial capitol of Japan and now considered to be the center of Japanese culture. The city is completely dotted with temples and shrines, and we had almost 3 full days to take in as much of the city as we could.

We were up early to check out of our hotel in Tokyo and head down to Tokyo station to catch a ride on the bullet train down to Nagoya. The bullet train is a high-speed commuter rail that runs throughout the country reaching top speeds of around 300 mph. We all boarded the train with our luggage and enjoyed a very pleasant ride through the Japanese countryside. We got to see rice paddies, some Japanese rural housing, and a pretty decent view of Mt. Fuji. The ride lasted about two hours, after which we hopped on a bus in Nagoya to take us over to Toyota City where we would be treated to a tour of one of the many Toyota plants there. During the bus ride we were all treated to a traditional bento box lunch, which was quite delicious.

After arriving at the Toyota plant, we were led through one of the company's assembly plants, where they put together all of the finished parts to make a whole car. We were also brought through their spot wielding plant, where dozens of robot arms sprung to life every few minutes or so in a shower of sparks, wielding certain spots on each car frame as they moved down the line. It was really mesmerizing to see it all in action, and I really could not believe how much of the car building process was actually automated. We were reminded of Toyota Production System, used to minimize needless inventory and defects, and were given a lot of great details on what its like to work for a company like Toyota in Japan.

After the tour was completed, we had another three hour bus ride to Kyoto and finally checked into our hotel. Our hotel was actually a traditional Japanese inn, or ryokan. There were tatami matts on the floor, and we were required to take our shoes off before stepping into the inn, and if you wanted to sit on the matts, you had to sit on the floor. We slept on bed rolls that were quite comfortable, and green tea and breakfast was provided. It was almost like a Japanese bed and breakfast in that respect. The inn was run by a very nice little old Japanese woman and her family. The room was certainly something straight out of old Japanese culture, and an interesting clash when compared to the rooms we had in Tokyo.

After we settled into our rooms, we ventures out for dinner and

found this great noodle place right around the corner from the inn. They also had tatami matts there, and we had to take our shoes off and sit on the floor. While it did make for an interesting dinner, it did get uncomfortable quickly! (Haha) I had some hot soba noodles and shrimp tempora that was excellent. After dinner we all headed back to the inn to get some sleep after a long day of traveling.

Tomorrow we would be taking part in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony first thing in the morning!

Day Five

Sorry about the delay in posting updates. Internet was hard to come by once we left Tokyo, so I will be bringing everyone up to speed with the rest of the trip while I wait for my next flight out of the Bangor airport back home to Ohio.

Day five was our last day in Tokyo, and I wanted to make sure that it counted. We started the day off by visiting the offices of State Street, a Boston-based investment services company. Their conference room was located on one of the top floors of one of Tokyo's newest buildings in the recently redeveloped Midtown area. The room had huge floor-to-ceiling windows that offered us panoramic views of the city on what turned out to be a very nice, but hot, day. Our meeting at State Street revolved around the financial crisis and State Street's strategies to weather the storm. Although some of the higher finance may have been over my head at times, I really enjoyed hearing a firm as large as State Street talk openly about their policies like they did. It turned out to be quite the interesting presentation.

After our meeting with State Street, we all broke up into smaller groups for lunch. I noticed while walking up to State Street that they were actually located right next to the world headquarters for Konami, one of my favorite video game developers. A small group of us headed inside the building looking for a tour, but we were turned down. After taking a few pictures of the outside of the building, we grabbed some Mos Burger, a Japanese burger restaurant that a few others in our group had tried and really liked. I wanted to see this Japanese take on the burger before leaving Tokyo, and I was fairly impressed. The burger was OK, but the fries were great! After lunch, we stopped in another arcade just down the street and played some Silent Hill Arcade, something that we had never seen in the states.

Everyone met back up after lunch and we traveled to Omotesando Street, Japan's high-fashion street, similar to something like 5th Avenue in NYC. We walked up and down the block, taking in all the brand names and trendy Japanese clothing. There were also a lot of Westerners in the area, and lots of Westerners that live in Tokyo take up residence not too far from Omotesando Street. We also had a chance to check out Takeshita Street, said be a hotbed for the latest fashion trends. It's a pedestrian-only street lined with independent shops that carry only the latest fashions. Numerous fashion designers have been said to wander Takeshita Street looking for the latest fad to take back to the west. Some of the clothing was really, really odd, but also very unique and different at the same time.

We then headed to the offices of Itochu for our last company meeting of the trip. Itochu is a Japanese firm handling everything from food production to aerospace engineering to financial services and more. The scope of their business is almost intimidating in how broad it is. We were privileged to speak with two representatives from the company's canned tuna production division, and they were a riot. We had a lighthearted discussion about the differences between the American office style and the Japanese office style, Japanese work ethic and socializing, and more. It was a great way to end our company visits for the trip.

We then took the subway back to the hotel before heading off to

our evening activity: a visit to Tokyo Disneyland. A small group of us rode the subway down from our hotel just a few stops and purchased discounted evening tickets just so we could take in some of the resort before we left Tokyo. I toured the park with Christine, a girl from our group who had previously worked at Disneyworld in Orlando, so I had the inside scope on all the rides and attractions. We rode quite a few rides like Star Tours, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, and The Jungle Cruise. We also took in a show and got some dinner, so all in all it was a successful visit. I think the most interesting thing about the whole park is actually how little they changed from other Disney parks. A vast majority of the rides were exactly the same as the rides in the U.S., except they were in Japanese instead of English (and thank god I had Christine with me to tell me what was going on!). There were a few minor differences, like some of the food the park sold, the colors used (pink instead of green for Louie's shirt), and the souvenirs offered. All in all it was a great time despite the language barrier, and it was fascinating to see how Disney translates fun despite the language and culture.

And so ended our stay in Tokyo. We were off to Kyoto the next day, but not before a stop off at the Toyota plant in Toyota City for a tour.

In Kyoto

Well, we made it to Kyoto last night after a little detour to Toyota City for a plant tour, but unfortunately I cannot get my laptop to pick up the wireless connection here. Right now I'm using a friend's laptop, and I'll update everyone on the past few days as soon as I can. 

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update!