Great trip report, thanks for the effort and detail. Some great details and destinations for future visits.

I finally had some time to read your enchanting report, and add my thanks to those of so many others. Your evocative descriptions brought back some wonderful memories and inspire future travels. Thanks so much!

Many thanks for your report. Enjoyed it so much. It reminded me that our best memory of our trip to Japan was the helpfulness of the Japanese. When we got off the train at a wrong stop and there was nobody anywhere around, nothing open, we walked till we found a man in his yard. We tried to speak to him...no English...no Japanese. He used his cellphone to get a friend who spoke English to help us. Wonderful!

I enjoyed reading your TR very much. It was both informative and entertaining. Thanks so much for posting.

Greetings Kathie, kalihwai2, kja, and elainee, And Reading4, and encore to hawaiian, Don Topaz, and Craig, and everyone else...

glad you enjoyed it. I have just been reminded we did goof once with the trains - in Tokyo. A Suica card only covers local trains within metropolitan Tokyo; en route back from Mitaka (the stop nearest the Ghibli museum) we started to get on one of the JR Chuo/Soba lines; it was packed, whereas a train on an adjacent platform was practically empty and moreover, due to head to Shinjuku earlier than the train we'd just boarded. Without stopping to think why so many had crowded onto the later train, and thinking mainly of a chance to sit down and rest our feet, we jumped off the Chuo, ran across to the other train, and jumped aboard to gratefully settle into seats.

As our 'new' train started to pull away, up comes a conductor, looking for tickets. This should have been our first clue that this was no ordinary commuter train...that there was a conductor. We show him what we've got - Suica cards. He patiently explains they are of no use, we're on an express train (not sure, but I think we wound up on the limited express Kaiji train, originally hailing from Kofu - well outside western Tokyo. ) He informs us the extra fare is 500 yen each - but he kindly waves off payment when I start opening my wallet. (I do not recommend one assume leniency will invariably be the policy of JR staff, but it was this time.) In any event while we pull into Shinjuku faster, we are bound for Ryogoku for the Edo-Tokyo museum and still had to switch trains back to the JR Chuo/Soba local - quite possibly back to the train we were about to take in the first place! Anyway, we arrive at Ryogoku no faster in the long run - although it was nice to sit part of the way. The experience reminded us: don't leap aboard a train until you are SURE you know what it is, a) and b) if it looks too good to be true that there are untaken seats on a train in Tokyo, it probably is.

So what happened next???

Hi Sue, finally got around to reading this great report! I do have answers to two of your questions about Japan. (Well, maybe you didn't have a question, but I have an answer)

You mentioned the lack of ovens in the BIC appliance section. That's because most Japanese don't bake. Stovetop cooking and microwave warm-ups are used for most all dishes. When someone does bake, they will usually get a small countertop convection oven.

You also wondered if Japanese kids ever see stars. We had many Tokyo exchange students over the years, and going stargazing (especially during meteor showers) was a always a huge hit with them, mainly because they rarely see stars at home.

I've grown up in London and we didn't see many stars either -- same for any densely populated metropolis. I was blown away on my first Namibian safari when we looked upwards the very first night!

:-)

Kavey,
Or any other person who can't see the stars at night. If you have a smartphone there is an app called "night sky" that you can download for free and position up even in your bedroom at night to see what stars are out that night.

Aloha!

Sorry, I didn't mean not to acknowledge these replies, I was asleep at the wheel.
Ah, lcuy, so my speculation wasn't far off, which was that most Japanese must buy their baked goods from bakeries as opposed to baking those goods themselves. It makes sense in a way, since my guess is that the cost of electricity is high.

Even in North America, it is getting hard to find places dark enough for good night viewing. The best place I've found for viewing the Perseid meteor showers in my own area is well out of town. But in Japan, getting 'out of town' is very hard.

kavey and hawaiiantraveler, I'm told that during a blackout a few years ago in the NYC area, many people called up the meteorological office, puzzled by what they were able to see in the sky for the first time, ever (the Milky Way.)

Fun trip report, Sue_xx_yy, thanks for topping it.

I am in awe of this report. Thank you!!!

Fantastic report. Thanks so much Sue!

Than you Russ and Kathy, always glad to get the cards and letters, money too is always appreciated. ;)

Okay, a bit of time to be serious.

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Some time ago Hawaiian asked: "Do you think you would have interest in a return to Japan to answer some of your questions?"

Hawaiian, I read today (January 17, 2014) in the NYtimes, an article entitled:

"Hiroo Onoda, Soldier Who Hid in Jungle for Decades, Dies at 91" (Robert MacFadden for the New York Times)

The article reminded me of a question on which I had hoped to do some research during our trip to Japan: what prompts a people (any people, anywhere) to go to war? I eschew putting people into categories: I neither subscribe to the victim nor to the villain theory, where the average civilian in a modern conflict is concerned.

It turned out that I had very little time to do research on military history in Japan, especially since, unlike our trip to northern France in 2007, our trip to Japan wasn't specifically designed on a 'military history' theme. I would have liked more time in the recent history section of the Edo museum in Tokyo; I would have liked to have visited the somewhat controversial Peace Osaka museum in Osaka. I would have liked a lot of things, and came to realize that with the time I had, I was not going to find any answers.

Anyway, now you know of my reluctance to discuss my questions; partly, because the questions concern a very controversial subject, and partly because despite much reading on the subject of war in general, I have never found any answers that really satisfy me.

Right now I'm reading Margaret MacMillan's "The War That Ended Peace: the Road to 1914". It's the 'prequel' to her 'Paris 1919', the book which discussed the degree to which the failings of the Paris peace conference laid the stage for World War 2. Like Paris 1919, The War That Ended Peace is long (645 pages plus notes) and needs to be read slowly and carefully (as was Paris 1919) so nobody hold their breath waiting for my reactions.