A Day of Art, Shopping and Politics - Part 1

The history of the United States stretches back for more than two centuries, but that history seems like just a few minutes on the face of time when you consider that the first evidence of culture emerged in what is now Japan more than 13,000 years ago. Today, we had a chance to experience various facets of Japanese culture, both past and present.

We began with a visit to Japan’s national lawmaking body. In the United States, our national lawmaking body is Congress. The legislative branch of the Japanese government is called the National Diet. It is made up of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors. Although the Diet wasn’t in session, we still enjoyed touring the chambers.

As we were leaving, one of the prominent members of the House of Representatives walked up to a couple of us and asked us where we were from. When we said the United States, he said, without pausing, that in the November presidential election we should definitely vote for …….. (Nope, I’d better leave that one alone.)

For security reasons, I couldn’t take pictures inside the building, but I have a picture of me standing outside.

Afterward, we stopped at a nearby restaurant for a traditional Japanese lunch. In a traditional restaurant, guests must take off their shoes before coming inside . Guests are then given slippers to wear, or customers just eat in their socks. We ate without slippers on. In most private homes, people also take off their shoes before entering and wear slippers inside the house.

The basic philosophy is that the soles of shoes are dirt, and so there is no need to track dirt and germs inside. It takes a little getting used, but the idea makes sense, especially when I think of the number of times I got in trouble growing up because I forgot to wipe my feet at the door and got mud on my mother’s carpet.

In traditional restaurants, guests often sit on mats on the floor while eating or sit on small chairs close to the ground, which is what we did today.

We ate Tempura. Tempura is normally some sort of fish or vegetables cooked in a fluffy batter. This was my second meal of fish for the day. For breakfast, I had some traditional eggs, but then I tried a bowl of rice topped with seaweed and cooked salmon. Fish for breakfast might sound a little strange, but it was very good. For me, one of the best parts of traveling is to try new things and to try new ways of doing things. The key is to keep an open mind.

After lunch, we moved on to an afternoon of art, shopping and celebration. Check out the details in part two of today's blog.