The Kindness of Strangers

I have one thing to add... I know we have said how kind all of the people are in Japan, but I am going to emphasize it here.

Older gent at the automatic ticket kiosks at the subway, see's us trying to figure it out (it's in Japanese, and not as obvious as you might think), and notices our confusion, and simply says, "Can I help you?" Shows us to put our money in first, asks which stop we need, figures out what our fare would be, pushes the buttons we needs and points us to the subway line we need, bows and that's that.

 2. We were walking in what we thought was the correct direction to return to the area around our hotel after seeing the castle, (and it was...) but were unsure of exactly how far we needed to go and if the map was to scale, as we were consulting our map, and a map on the street (there are maps and bathrooms, and signs w/ arrows all over which is super helpful in itself) and I saw a man walk by w/ these Uber tight 70's style flared pants on, and I may or may not have made a comment about how they were unfortunate. And then a couple of minutes later who pokes his head in asks if he can help us? And in his broken english and some great hand gestures he guides us in the direction we need to go and told us that we had about 50 mins to go... Bingo. Now we were found.

 3. We were walking out of the castle and looking for a place to eat on our map and a kind older woman came over and asked "Can I help?" (I think this is a standard english phrase that Japanese people learn). She pointed us in the direction of good food and even told us about the neighborhood that we were in. 

4. We were trying to figure our hiking trip for tomorrow afternoon out and asking about some of the bus passes available, since there were a few discount type passes, when lo and behold a friendly Canadian guy came over and said that he had 2 free passes for one day for us. It was a 2 day pass but one day had already been used, but it was 200 yen cheaper to buy this pass than to buy 1 round trip, so they had bought that one and couldn't use the next day anyways, so they just handed over this pas to us, saving us 4000 yen, almost $60. We were really grateful!

 5. As we were trying to find our accommodations in Nikko we found ourselves lost and looking at a map.... Is there a theme here? Anyways, a very elderly couple pulled over and parked by us ( I think we were outside of their home maybe?) And promptly came over and asked if they could help. They looked very intently at our map for a good long time, conversing w/ eachother and then the older gent drew us a map and showed us which direction to go in... (We had started in the total wrong direction!) He also told us how long it would take us to walk, which we find funny b/c no one walks places in Canada and everyone here knows how long it will take to walk to different places! And he spoke a few words in English... Smaller bridge being his best combo. So kind and then they bow to us after helping us!

 And then I must confess, all of this kindness and I did something rude. I think I have mentioned that there are plenty of "inappropriate" clubs and streets and such around. Well another thing that is ridiculously popular in Japanese fashion is shorter than short shorts w/ either thigh high boots or socks. Now generally these japanese girls are quite thin (like no muscle whatsoever, when they try to walk in heels they are knock kneed and they look like they are going to break their ankles! Their ankles are always rolling! Lockey thinks that he could walk better in heels than they do, and I wouldn't doubt it.) but this one girl stepped out of a car w/ her girlfriend, and we got to see her backside, and lets just say that it was not well complemented by her shorty short shorts... SO I said to Lockey "Oh that is SO not a good look".... And all of a sudden the girls friend turned and looked at me, and then this girl starts tugging at her outfit, and kinda did a half glance back.... Which is when I realized that her english is better than I gave her credit for as most Japanese people that we have encountered wouldn't have understood that statement. Whoops! But perhaps in the long run I was doing her a kindness, b/c maybe she'll go home and burn those shorts?