While Yumiko and her friend traveled as part of a tour, the tour did not come with a restrictive itinerary. The tour agency simply arranged for the travel and hotels, and tourists were free to set their own schedules. Yumiko recounts what happened when their tour arrived at the airport in Paris. A bag was found to be sitting in the terminal unattended; some French people and their tour guide were asking, "Whose bag is this?" Suddenly a middle-aged Japanese woman, a member of their tour group, came running back from her shopping. "This is my bag!" Yumiko recalls her saying, though she didn't seem the least bit concerned that her bag could have been picked up by a thief and never seen again. "I'd heard many Japanese are not real safe or protective, but this was the first time I saw an actual case of someone leaving their bag to go shopping. I had heard there were people that do that kind of thing, but I thought it's not a true story!" She found this particularly surprising since nearly every travel guidebook on the Japanese market warns travelers not to leave their things unattended.

The tour proceeded to London on September 9, via the Eurostar train through the Channel Tunnel. Yumiko had expected that much of the trip would be spent in the tunnel, "but mostly we saw the fields in the Paris countryside." Only about fifteen minutes of the three-hour trip were spent in the tunnel, and Yumiko regrets that she was buying her lunch at the time and didn't get to take a good look at the inside of the tunnel.

During their stay in London, they saw many of the usual tourist attractions, such as Big Ben and Buckingham Palace, the latter of which contained "very gorgeous furniture," and provided guidebooks in numerous languages, including Japanese. Another highlight of their stay in England was their visit to the British Museum, "a very huge, huge building." Knowing that it takes one or two days for one person to see the entire museum, Yumiko and her friend got a brochure in advance and planned which exhibits they wanted to see. Even then, they didn't have time to see everything they wanted to.

"The main thing we wanted to see is that Rosetta Stone. And mummies," she says, and they did manage to see most of what they wanted to see in that area.

The simplest thing can turn out to be tricky when visiting a foreign country-like finding a train station, which was complicated by differences between British English and the American English that they were more familiar with. Yumiko told us that she found a stairway down from the street with a sign over it proclaiming, "SUBWAY". "Oh, I found the train station!" she said, and she ran down the stairs..."but no train station! Only a walking tunnel under the road. And this was 'subway' and the train station is 'underground'! So it's very funny."

Yumiko and Masami's main objective in visiting England was to see a Japanese friend studying in Brighton, south of London. Their friend pointed out that many British feel that British English is superior to its American cousin. "She told me that when an American rode on the bus, and he wanted to know the price, he asked to the bus driver in American English, and the bus driver told the American, 'First you speak English!' " Though her friend didn't recount the American's reaction, it's a sure bet he wasn't pleased by this rebuff. Yumiko says of this story, "I feel very, kibun warui, feel bad."

When they went to Brighton, Yumiko and Masami had to use a train station on London's south side. Their guide had earlier issued a general warning against going to the south side of the Thames River, and Yumiko could see why-especially on their return to London, when they had to walk through a poverty-stricken neighborhood to get from the train station to the underground. "I felt it was very dangerous-I couldn't imagine such a place in Japan. More dangerous" than Japan, which has less income disparity and few slums. "It's dark, and (run-down) buildings, and many graffiti, and I felt very scared to walk," she goes on. "I felt Japanese doesn't, shouldn't go to that kind of place," because they aren't accustomed to it and don't know how to handle themselves in such a place. I asked if she was surprised to see that kind of place, but she said, "No, just scared. And I didn't have much money to travel but I thought, not being robbed of money; it's another crime I imagined." But Masami didn't feel scared, and she advised Yumiko not to look scared, for fear of attracting attention.

I asked Yumiko whether she preferred London or Paris; she enjoyed London more, she says, but probably only because she was able to spend more time there, staying September 9 through 13. "If I had had more time to see Paris, maybe I would have enjoyed Paris more," she told us. However, she went on to note, as many other Japanese have before her, that in some ways British thinking is similar to Japanese thinking, because both are island nations. With this in mind, she reflected, "I thought most Japanese are not very open-minded to foreigners," and that British tended to show a similar feeling. "Comparing people, I felt the French were better. But some French are bad or good, and some British are good or bad..." She found that British people, especially rail station employees, were more likely to be strict and overbearing than the French-while the French hotel would affix stamps and mail their letters for them, the British hotel staff merely directed them to the nearest post office-and less likely than the French to attempt to speak Japanese to them: while a number of French knew a little Japanese, the only Brit who spoke to them in their own language was a female hotel employee-and then it was only "Ohayo gozaimasu" ("good morning").

For anyone planning to visit Paris, Yumiko recommends visiting the famous art museum, the Louvre; in London, first priority should be the British Museum, which, in another case of good timing, she and her friend were lucky enough to visit on the first Sunday of the month, when admission is free.

One of the few disappointments of their trip was when they visited the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Their guidebook had suggested going up inside it and taking photos of the city with a "panoramic" camera, so Masami bought one; but "while we were there, it was closed for repairs, so we couldn't see..."

Oh, well. We can't always have good timing.

(Wait a minute! What the heck is the Rosetta Stone?? Click here.)

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