I put on the news when I arrived. Everything was of course in Japanese but I thought that a weather map could be understood. Finally the weatherman came on starting with bowing and he was armed with a metal pointer. Gesticulating with his pointer all over the map and coming with weird sounds like UH, AH and DES-NE and putting huge sticky waves on the map. I came away from that forecast non the wiser.
Next morning I'm ready to hit the streets of Tokyo. I barely get out of the hotel and loud sirens went off and I was thinking "this must be the typhoon coming". After the siren ended a female high pitched voice came on and she talked very fast in Japanese. Since nobody at my hotel spoke English I thought the best thing would be to observe what the locals were doing. I'm looking around and everybody is going on with their business as nothing was going to happen.
I went back to being a tourist and later learned that the siren was a earthquake/typhoon test.
As one typhoon wouldn't be enough. Another Super Typhoon (Shansan) was closing in on Japan close to my departure date. The day before my departure it hit the southwestern Japanese island of Kyushu and was creaping up the east coast towards Tokyo creating wind gusts up to 250 kmh (155 mph). It slowed down and I got safely out of Japan. I learned later that in Japan more than 200 people were injured and 11 killed in the path of this typhoon.
I did have 2 unusual "bowing experiences". The first day I took the subway to Ginza station. It was a very hot and humid day and it felt very uncomfortable, especially underground. Just before the exit turnstile a young woman came running towards me. She grabed my arm and fell to the ground. She probably was overcome by the heat. Here I am, not speaking Japanese and not knowing what to do. Suddenly I see a train official sitting at a desk. I signal to him to come over and help. He comes over, tries to talk to the women, grabs her under her arms and drags her of to his desk. I follow them to make sure everything is OK. He gives her some water but she is stil very weak and almost unresponsive. The train official makes a phone call and I have no idea whom to. After a couple of minutes I thought that he had the situation under control and to confirm that I pointet at her and made the international sign for OK. The women got up on her feet as nothing had happened, stod next to the train official and they both performed a well executed synchronized 45 degree bow. I was a little chocked but I was reasured that everything was going to be OK and I could return to my touristical duties.
When you're a passenger on the Shinkansen you will experience this, for us westerners, unusuall experiense. The train cars a very long and when the train conductor, dressed in a impeccable beige uniform and wearing white gloves, goes through the train car and checks your ticket, he will confirm that your ticket and your seating is OK with a little bow thanking you for ridding Japan Railway. Nothing unusual about that but when he leaves the car he turns around, and executes a perfect bow facing the passengers. I thought it was overkill and at the same time amussing. I played with the idea that perhaps Amtrack should take up this etiquette.
I meet a old Japanese gentleman on The Imperial Grounds who was walking around and practicing his English on tourists. The last thing he said to me; "Watch out for the bicycles".
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