I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so

Let me give a example of why I love coming here.  This trip our flight arrived late, so we had missed the last bus to our hotel. We had to instead take a bus to another hotel, and then take a taxi onwards.  We had a lot of luggage.  The doormen from this hotel, that we weren't staying at, carried all our bags from the bus, loaded them into two taxis, instructed the taxi driver where to go, and happily waved us on.

When we got to our hotel a message was waiting from us from the previous doormen.  They had forgotten to load a bag and had packed it into a third taxi, and wanted to let us know it was on it's way.  No worries.  About 10 minutes after we had been in our room, there was a knock at the door.  Our forgotten suitcase had showed up.  It was accompanied by one of the doormen from the previous hotel, who had ridden along to personally apologise to us for the delay in receiving our bag.  Naturally I slapped him across the right cheek with my leather glove and told him never to let it happen again.  I like to appear authoritative in these kind of situations.

I'm on a roll now...bear with me...Once I didn't have enough money to buy a train ticket to work when I lived in Japan about 8 years ago, and was panicking about being late (a huge error in the Japanese workplace).  Who should come to my rescue, but a ticket collector who lent me 10 000 yen (about $120) and told me to bring it back in the next day or two. He told me to ask for "Beckham" - the Posh and Becks phase really took off here......

Furthermore, I have left my handbag in various public toilets and on park benches and gone back an hour later to find it waiting for me.  Lost wallets with entire contents (10 cents in this case - look times were tough dam it), have been posted on to me by police as well.  Once, I even saw a train conductor rubbing the back of some drunk teenager who had vomited over the train platform, after which, he uncomplainingly poured sawdust over the chunks.  It now occurs to me to wonder what he was doing with a bucket of sawdust on hand in the first place.......

Look, basically, as you can see, on a one-on-one basis, I like most Japanese people more than members of my own family.  They are just incredibly nice, caring, kind people.  Southern minke whales might not agree I guess - a harpoon to the left flank isn't what you would call sharing and caring.  But for the most part I promise you, your average Japanese person is not downing much whale at mealtime, let alone harpooning our treasured sea-life.  Tuna, sure (apart from the harpooning bit), but nobody gives a rat's arse about fish really do they?  Not even "vegetarians".

The point is that I don't swim in the sea - therefore, I am a recipient of Japanese altruism.  Having two blonde blue-eyed children is also an asset that has seen my popularity sky-rocket when kicking around here.  Nice to know they're good for something (it's been a tough day ok....).  As soon as you walk off the plane at Tokyo Narita Airport, there's some serious welcoming going on.  Bowing, smiling, helping with bags, waving to the kids etc.  I don't care if they are sincere or not, I just want people to be nice to me....especially when I've just rolled off a long flight (see previous entry) and could possibly have a small spot of liquid diarrhea on my jumper - I'm unsure, and don't want to get too close just in case.

This was meant to be a post about fitting two children into your hotel room without having to cough up for a bigger room.  I got carried away....stay tuned......