Rude and obnoxious tourists

I've heard many times that Americans are hated abroad because of their behavior and unwillingness to learn the local language. I resent that stereotype as an American, but I am about to make the same one about people from another country.

First...I traveled around Japan for two weeks. I found everyone to be very polite and helpful. The only behavior I encountered that was odd was how the people in Tokyo would stare at us. Perhaps they were judging? Or maybe just curious about us large blond people.

I've encountered many Japanese tourists in my last few weeks of travel. They are loud, rude and act as if they are the only people on the planet. I was physically pushed twice so one of them could get ahead of me in line. Do they realize or care about the reputation they are creating?

It could, perhaps, be said that Americans don't act differently abroad. If they are rude at home they will be rude elsewhere. And I do know plenty of loud and obnoxious Americans. But the Japanese tourists I've encountered are very different from the gracious people I met in Tokyo and other cities in Japan. Maybe their culture is so rigid at home travel is their escape from being polite?

Or is this all evidence of people struggling to understand people from other places, or people who look different?

A change in plans

I like frequent flier miles. I use them to take international vacations with my family. By international I do NOT mean Canada. (Love my neighbor to the north, by the way.) I save my miles for as long as it take to get tickets to Europe and Japan.

I cashed in 180,000 miles nearly one year ago for three tickets to Tokyo. A friend woke me up Friday, March 11th (my birthday, by the way) to tell me there was an earthquake in Japan. I rolled over and went back to sleep. Japan has earthquakes - no big deal.

I woke up 30 minutes later and turned on the tv to watch the news. It was a huge deal! Narita airport was closed and tsunami warnings were issued for Hawaii.

I was sad. Sad first and foremost for those affected by this tragedy. And sad for me and my family. What was going to happen to our vacation? A trip we planned for nearly one year.

I've never tried to plan an international trip on short notice. It isn't as stressful as I anticipated. I checked major cities in Europe to see where we could go with the minimum number of Delta miles. I came up with London, Paris, Nice, Venice and Athens. I then checked the weather forecasts for all cities. I really wanted to go to Venice, until I learned it was supposed to rain every day. Every day.

We are going to Nice! The French Riviera isn't going to be warm enough for beach and swimming time, but we will still have fun.

Andy is very sad we aren't going to Japan. We made him watch the news to help him understand why we made the right decision to go somewhere else.

The Book

I am referring to my travel bible, not the real Bible. (No disrespect meant to The Book.)

Yes, I still have a goal of getting to 50% of the places featured in "1,000 places to see before you die." I leave in two weeks for another trip - spring break in Tokyo. This will be my second, and probably last, visit to Japan. So....out comes the book to see what I missed during my first trip.

Dang, nothing! Been there, done that. It will still be a fabulous trip; and I will blog about what I do and see. Maybe I will find something worthy of being included in the book.

There is a slim chance the weather will be warm enough for cherry blossom viewing. I've seen them in DC, but it would be super cool to see them in Japan.

Japan - July 2005

Another past trip to document. Most of the details will be missing because my memory is getting fuzzy. This picture is from Hiroshima. There is a flame in the memorial that will be extinguished as soon as there are no more atomic bombs left on Earth.

A survivor of the bomb approached us as we were walking along the river. Her English wasn't very good, but she wanted to say a prayer with us.

Japan is still one of my favorite trips with Andy and Jill. We were gone for two weeks - the longest trip we had ever taken at that point - and they were awesome.

Japan was one of the most tiring trips I have ever been on, but I would totally do it again.

Old Kyoto

Climbing Mount Fuji and restoring the soul - this was the primary reason for taking the trip. We didn't make it to the top though because it was cold and freezing rain. We made it very close. We climbed over night hoping to see a great sunrise, but we were enveloped in clouds.

We sprinkled some of Lew's ashes on Mount Fuji. Lew is DH's father.

The Park Hyatt Tokyo - featured in the "Lost in Translation" movie. We didn't stay here, but hung out in the bar and checked out the view.

Tsukiji Fish Market