Bad English

Japan has a special knack for very inappropriate usage of English language on signs. There is a whole website - engrish.com - dedicated to this.

Today I saw a terrible one in the airport. The name makes perfect sense but I am sure they have no idea this is the name of a serious illness.

Narita

My flight to Japan today began with the inter-island hop to Honolulu and on to Narita. The flight seemed to be 99% Japanese passengers, as did part of the Honolulu airport, so it felt as if I had arrived already.

Departing Honolulu I noticed a very Japanese touch - as the jet taxied away the ground crew guy on the tarmac bowed to us and waved.

The 787 is a nice ride and the flight was about 70% capacity so I had an empty seat to spread out into. The coolest feature of the 787 is the electronic window shade - operate a control and the window darkens as if by magic. A few bumpy spots before descending into overcast and rainy weather at Narita.

After a nice sushi dinner I'm sitting in a waiting lounge at Narita airport waiting for a bus to the flight to my destination, Fukuoka.

One detail at the airport that stands out is the over-abundance of staff to help in every possible ways. Walking from the plane toward customs there are people posted to gesture you in the right direction. At baggage carrosel a young lady is there to say the bags are coming soon (and they did) and asking people to check that they have the right bag. At the line for check-in there are people to direct you to the next available counter. And more - this must be how the keep unemployment down. More amazingly these people don't seem bored at all - they are happy to answer a question or point you in the right direction, and none of them were slacking off that I could detct.

Another detail is lots of paper signs - in addition to all kinds of electronic displays. Here at the gate, 19:05 is on the LCD screen and also the flip-card digits 1 9 : 0 5 have been manually set up on a non-electronic sign right underneath. I think perhaps they trust the non-electronic sign more.

Hello

Heading off for the airport to fly to Japan.

First stop will be Fukuoka, the main city of Kyushuu in the west.

Japanese refer to it as "western Japan" though others tend to think of it as south. Since Japan is often tilted on maps to fit the page, indeed it is well to the west and somewhat south, too.