Is this city, this nation for real?

Did the cashier at Family Mart convenience store just bow fairly deeply to me more than once?

Are these tiny, winding streets always so quiet and so dang clean?

Do numerous employees of a large bank actually all immediately drop what they are doing as you walk upstairs and literally RUSH to assist you?

Is the Japanese national motto “Adiagato go zai mas?” (Thank you very much and said at every turn)

Or, am I Truman in a bubble, this stage all set just for me?

I mean, check out Kyoto (population: 1.5 million) and how incredibly, fantastically inviting their storefronts are, among other things…

Why don’t our storefronts in the U.S. look like these do, dammit?

In Kyoto National Garden…

Kyoto Imperial Palace gate

Kyoto Guest House just opened to public tours for the first time last Wednesday. This is where foreign dignitaries and heads of state stay when visiting Kyoto. I’ve read about it before so it was cool to see what the public hasn’t really seen before…

Super clean, peaceful streets–although not many sidewalks on narrow streets–

And tons of bikes in Kyoto! I may ride tomorrow!

Kyoto is home to thousands of Shinto and Buddhist shrines and temples.
More fantastically welcoming spaces…

Fans strategically placed for  you to use as you wait outside. Japanese attention to detail may outdo Disney’s!

Sanjo Shopping Arcade