by Dahni

   Here are but two of the familiar faces at the McDonald's across the street from the apartment where we stayed in Moriyama. I became pretty versed in asking for hot coffee [pronounced - hoe-tah coe-hee] in Japanese, but I was so regular it did not last too long. When I would walk in they would ask if I wanted my usual. After a few days, it got to the point that whenever I walked in, they would have it ready for me by the time I reached the counter. Refills were always free and the coffee was better than our U.S. McDonald's chains.

   Notice the clean floor behind the two lovely ladies. In fact, the whole place was clean, the bathrooms (upstairs), were always clean, the windows inside and out were clean, and outside the store was always decent and in order. Perhaps this was not a fast-food restaurant, but a FRESH-food restaurant? After your order was placed and paid for, you would find a place to sit down and your order was brought to you. Your food was always made to order; ALWAYS made fresh. It was quite often delivered to my table by the lady in the blue vest, the day-time or shift manager I believe. Everyone was always so polite and kind, always cheerful and friendly. They really made you feel like they were honestly and enthusiastically glad to see you.  The food is somewhat different than in the U.S. All fried foods are cooked in tasteless, odorless fish oil and was delicious, non greasy and actually better for you.

   I made a couple of mistakes early on during our first week in Japan. One must be careful when asking a question! One time in the evening, I was trying to figure out how to use my wireless laptop computer to connect to the Internet at their FREE WIFI site. There must have been 6 or 7 people including the manager that tried to help me. The manger even called Yahoo Broadband service just to try and help little ole' me.

Note: If you go to Japan and want to access the internet, you must get something set up before you go and that could take 2- 4 weeks. Wireless Internet sites can be found all over Japan and many are FREE, but they are on mostly secured networks accept for maybe airports and libraries. You still need broadband access (with a network key), even to access a FREE site like at McDonald's or places like Starbucks. Needless to say, I was only able to access the Internet 3 times while in Japan, twice at the airport and once at the home of friends.

   Another time I asked about the beautiful music I was listening to on their sound system and no less than four people got involved to find out the name of the song and the artist, just for me.

   Japanese culture is not a me-society, but a we-society. Did I mention that these ladies and all females working here, dress in high heels, stockings, skirts and clean-crisp freshly ironed blouses? They figuratively and often literally, run to serve.  Even so, as a country, though this is their culture and all benefit from their courtesy, they are often suspicious of and untrusting of foreigners. If they open up to you, you have gained a friend for life! This picture was taken on my final day in Moriyama and in Japan. We all literally cried in departing from one another!