I'm sure I'm neither the first nor the last person to note that it probably says something about Japan that the ordinary meet-new-people ritual includes asking them "Please be kind to me." But, you know, sometimes you have to be obvious.
Anyway, I'm in Kyoto, typing on a loaner laptop in the hotel lobby. Don't expect a great deal of blogging via this method, because the keyboard is different, and I keep doing something to put it into hiragana mode, which makes a great big mess. The hotel is very nice, though, abd the staff speak excellent English, so I have not needed my abominable Japanese yet, and soon we'll be heading out to look at some cool old temples-- we're next door to ãããããããããã©ã (that would be Romanized to "Sanjuusangendoo," I hope...), so tourism will get off to an easy start...
As for the travel here, only two comments: 1) thirteen hours on a plane is a very, very long time, and 2) jet lag sucks ass. I got a reasonable total amount of sleep last night, but in one-hour chunks, because my body was convinced that it was mid-day, and I shoud get up from my little nap.
On the bright side, the shower this morning was like a religious experience. Nobody manipulates hot water like the Japanese...
That's enough for now. Mata ne.
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I'm jealous! My wife and I got engaged in Kyoto 8 years ago, but haven't been back since.
B-Tard!!!!! (That means I'm jealous, not that I think you are one). I agree with your assessment of the greeting ritual (quite different from some Western greetings, which seem to be challenges) - I've been learning Japanes by podcast (Japanesepod101.com, off iTunes & their own website if anybody is interested) and am learning quite a bit about the culture from the language (both the structure and the phrases - such as the different levels of politeness). It's fascinating, and hopefully one day I'll be able to go over there.
Hiraghana: as a guess, you're hitting shift+space; when you're in conversion mode that is often set to switch between romaji and kana. Which is really annoying if you're used to be able to linger on the shift key when hitting space (after writing words like "I" for instance).
Kyoto is nice; we go there once in a while. Overall I prefer Kobe or Nara, though. Feels a bit less touristy. And Osaka has the best variety of food in Japan. One temple you might want to visit is Kyomizudera in the eastern end of the town. It's fairly spectacular as long as you manage to ignore the hundreds of people crowding the area with you. And Maruyama park, just east of the shopping district, has several temples and formal gardens that are worth a visit, especially since they aren't that famous and thus not as crowded.
My favourite place for a temple visit is the temple district in Nara, but especially fushimi-inari temple mountain right in between Kyoto and Nara, with thousands of red-painted gates creating long tunnels up the mountainside; you'd expect James Bond (or Bruce Lee) to battle bad-guy henchmen around every corner.