Impressions

The last couple of days were pretty hectic as we covered a large part of Shikoku in two days. Both days were somewhat dissapointing since the things we'd planned to do didn't turn out but were interesting none-the-less because we still had some adventures. The whale-watching trip turned into a whale-waiting trip, but we landed in a fetching little village and met a really nice Japanese couple who rented us their entire house for very little money. The hike in the Iya valley turned into a frantic hitch-hiking adventure, but we slept at a rustic guest house tucked away in the mountains and overlooking the rapids of the gorgeous Yoshino-gawa (river) in the Oboke gorge. The guy who lives there uses the river water, has a goat... and a cell phone.

I'd like to tell you about some of the stuff which has become comonplace for me here, but which you might find interesting. For instance, I'm in an internet cafe right now but they call it a media cafe. There are probably 200 computers in here in various rooms with different music piped into each one. They also have books, blankets, showers, tanning beds, meals and beer... oh and you can buy a 10 hour pass if you want.

Toilets are very odd. They have so many buttons, many of which turn on automatically, that you can't find the handle to flush. The seat is heated, the toilet blows air and can spray water in four different ways, there's even a musical note which plays the sound of water running.

People on public transit are pretty funny. In every case, every bus, plane, train or boat that I've been on, everybody is sleeping... Everybody! One time I swear the bus driver was sleeping too. They don't curl up and lay down either, they all sit with their heads forward bobbing along and almost falling over, it's crazy. The worst part is that I've started falling asleep too!

There's this ridiculous music that's played on public transportation, in stores and at cross walks, It's kinda like the music on kids shows or jingles for chewing gum, which is probably to wake people up (Pawel loves it!).

My favourite is the fake food. In the front of restaurants there's sometimes a display window with dishes of the food that they make inside but it's all fake AND it looks delicious. I still can't figure out who makes this food, if there's a fake-food-factory somewhere in the country side where they pump out tons of rubber food items to be made into complete dishes or if the dishes were once real and have a thick layer of shellac to seal in their yummy appearance.

There's also vending machines everywhere, usually for drinks, and even the bottles on display here are fake!