Japan

Well I've been in Japan for a week and a half so I figured it's time for a blog post. As some of you may have noticed I took a one month detour in Philippines before heading to Japan. I won't get into all of that.
If you follow my posts of Facebook then you will know that Davao city in the Philippines was recently bombed. I thank God that I had left a week earlier. The market that the explosion happened at was less then a block from the hotel I stayed at when I arrived at Davao. I went to the market area during the day one time but didn't see much as it's a night market.
The first problem with Japan is that most of the signs are in Japanese. I know, I know, duh Bill but alot of countries have signs in their native language as well as English. I know the Hiragana which kind of like their alphabet. It's 46 symbols representing one or two letters. I'll attach a photo so you can get the idea. If that wasn't confusing enough they also have the Katakana. Also 46 symbols that I need to learn. Plus to add to the total confusion they have the Kanji which is Chinese based character system with over 3,000 symbols. If the sign is in Hiragana I can pronounce the words but have no idea what the heck they mean. However they will mix all 3 together on the sign so I don't have a pray understanding these signs.
I've been studying Visaya, which is the language of the central Visaya region of the Philippines. I've memorized about 250 words but still have a hard time making a logical sentence. So you may be asking " Bill why are a moron and studying Visaya while you are in Japan?". The answer is that my old brain has enough trouble learning one language. As an example I went by myself to McDonald's for my dinner tonight. The person spoke to me in Japanese and I started answering in Visaya. The person had a puzzled look and then spoke some in English. This is the only person outside of Berna who has spoken any english to me.
The place where i'm staying is nothing like I pictured Japan to be. I pictured something like a scene from the movie Bladerunner. It's a very quiet place here in Ojiya. I think there is like 36,000 people here but don't quote me. The building design is NOTHING like I thought it would be. No oriental influence. Just plain square looking buildings. I know that they have a lot of earthquakes and typhoons here but what about some feng shei or wang chung or whatever it's called.
As many of you know they drive on the left side of the road. I'm still getting use to that. It even effects you when you're walking as the cars come out you from a weird direction. Ok it's time for a little confession: When Berna is driving and we round the corner and another car is coming (they will be in our right hand side) I freak out a little bit. Normally rounding a corner and a car in the right hand lane back in USA spells problems.

Hiragana Chart of symbols

Ojiya or Mayberry