ASIA - My Story. Chapter 1 - First Day

DISCLAIMER: Not to cause any confusion, note that the trip I'm going to write about took place in 2009, 22 May through 8 June. It will often sound like I was pregnant then. That's because I was. But make sure you understand, I am NOT at this time. And one more thing, I am not going to edit or exclude any boring stuff, I'm just going to type it straight from my hand-written diary to preserve my genuine feelings and impressions about our Asian adventure. Whatever comments I have to make from my current point of view is going to be in italics.

May 26, 09 - Tuesday

Here is a brief overview of the events and thoughts I got during our journey to Asia.

J A P A N

Flight to Japan. SLC to LA, LA to Seoul, S. Korea, - 12 hours. Smooth flight, tried to walk every 1.5hr -2 hrs to pump some blood through my swollen legs. Mostly slept and read "Аргументы и Факты" (lent to me by Zhenya Ushinskiy.) Got a seat with leg room, but still it was painful. From Seoul we took another short flight to Osaka, Japan. There, they put us on a bus to Kyoto. Kyoto = "capital" of Western Japan (if you have good enough imagination to divide that skinny strip of an island into West and East) with lots of culture but no money. We got to hotel late at night. Exhausted.

Customer Service. Customer is always right (American way). Customer is a king (Brittish). Customer is God (Japanese). We experienced that for ourselves as soon as we boarded the "Korean Air" plane to Seoul. The cute attendants bowed to us and greeted us with a smile as we boarded the plane. In the hotel, passing by the bellboy, we at first felt a little freaky as he'd silently bowed to us, even though we weren't coming at him or looking at him. On a train, ticket guy, and attendant girl selling refreshments would turn to us before leaving our couch and bow to us. Store owners would also bow to us as we pass by their store, no matter if we look at them or not. (Compare Russian sales people, that stare at you as if you are their enemy unless you buy something from them :) One of our guides was so attentive, that every time I sat down or made a frown, she jumped to me to ask if everything was OK. Amazing, how they treat you here. And NO tips are accepted!!! That can, in fact, offend them!

Kyoto. Sunday morning started at 7 am with breakfast at the hotel. Besides cereal, eggs, bacon and sausages (regular American style breakfast) there were pastries, fruit (still regular), japanese pancakes that look like donut bites and taste like Russian пышки, salad, steamed veggies, pasta with mushrooms, some pickled seaweed. . . . . .
At 8 am - Church. It's been canceled in the local branch due to  recent cases of swine flu. So, we gathered in the basement of our hotel in a separate room, just us, 40 some BYU MBA guys + 6 spouses. First talk by Arturo, second - Spencer, third - Ted Christiansen, fouth - Dr. Money. (Arturo and Spencer were Scott's classmates during MBA program, the other two guys are their professors, brilliant and most interesting people, I have ever met!)

After Church we got on a bus and headed to do some sightseeing. Along the way our guide told us some interesting things about Japan. People mostly live in apartments. Apartment buildings are very narrow looking facing the street, but they go deep inside. It's because in old times owner of the house was taxed depending on how wide his house was. Land in Japan equals to gold, because it's so scarce and people are trying to be as self-suficient as possible. They grow rice literally between the skyscrapers (I have not seen that though) but I saw gardens on roofs of apartment buildings and in place of front and backyards. Some richer people own a house to themselves, but the fence seems to wrap up the house, and every place is filled with either bicycles, cars, flowes or vegetable gardens. No lawn! Almost all private houses are 2 or 3 stories high to take as little land as possible. I suppose it's the same reason why 97% of dead people are cremated in Japan. Ashes are kept in an urn at homes for 49 days, then buried. Some buildings are shaped funny at the top, so not to block the sunlight to the previoulsy built buildings (sunlight rule).

Our tour guide told us about shoguns, geishas, and emperor. But I don't remember the whole story. Just understood that shoguns were vain and powerful army generals who were brat enough to show off in front of the emperor (meaning that they could often afford greater temples, palaces, women...)  An average Shogun kept 1000 maids in his temple to serve him and sleep with him whenever he desired so. And those girls were not allowed to marry, or to have a boyfriend, or else they would be killed. Shogun warriors in training had to sleep on their right side, so that in case an enemy sneaked into the temple and chopped their left arm off, they would still be ok and be able to fight with the right. To ensure that all were right-handed, warriors were to carry fans around in their right hand. Floors of the temple are super-squeaky. There was a reason for that - the warriors would hear if someone had sneaked up on them at night and be ready to fight. So, we saw Shogun temples with paper windows and countless Budha statues.

We also saw the famous Golden Pavilion, first floor of which was brown and plain built by poor emperor, and the upper 2 floors are all covered in gold, built by some shogun dude. It's the same everywhere, there is always a shogun-show-off, no matter time period.



We had lunch at a nice restaurant. You have to take off your shoes and put them on the shelf by the front door (same for all the temples.) You sit on the pillow on the floor and there was our lunch. Dinner we were on our own.