Adventures in another culture

My blogger is only showing up in Japanese and I can't figure out how to change it to English so I am not sure how you title a post or do a lot of other things!  So please bear with me.
After our wonderful train day, the next two days have been rainy and not as exciting.  Yesterday we had decided we would go on the tourist buses - sort of hop on hop off concept at major tourist attractions.  But we discovered that in spite of the pouring rain there was to be a big marathon that day and all public transportation was stopped.  So instead we walked to the Museum of the Meiji Restoration and spent the morning there.  There were a couple of shows which they gave us a good idea of the historical story and its important characters.  To
I just hit some button and lost two paragraphs - you are probably lucky!  Suffice it to say it rained all day and not much exciting happened.
Today it is Monday we had the morning free before we took the train to Hakata.  Still raining, but not as hard as yesterday.  We have not had a chance to photograph much in Kagoshima so in spite of the rain we walked all over and took pictures of statues of famous people.  Then we dragged all our luggage back to the train station to catch the Shinkinsen to Hakata.  We had a quick lunch at a Ramon noodle restaurant at the trains station - it was delicious!
I haven't talked about being two of the 10 westerners in Kagoshima.  Maybe that is 2 out of the 4 as I have only seen 2 other Westerners here.  Actually it doesn't feel that obvious.  The Japanese are very polite and will not stare at you - except for the children.  Sometimes they just look at you in amazement and cannot stop staring.  It was so fun talking to people on the tourist train as they were so interested in trying to communicate.  One man explained to me that the bell I was in line to ring had significance.  You rang it once if you were a little happy - and many times if you were really happy.  Some people very deliberately rang it one time and other's clanged away merrily - which I did as well!  One lady and I must have conversed for about 20 minutes.  I think she understood about 50% of what I said  - about as well as I understood her.  But it was fun trying.
Ordering food, even if they have English menus is always a crap shoot.  A lot of menus have pictures - but I am seeing it through Western eyes.  So a picture of some food that looks like a fried shrimp - turns out to be sardines in a soft dough that has been boiled in water.  Lots of surprises!  We order a radish salad.  One time it is delicious the next time we order it it is a fishy mayonnaise disaster.
H and I have been talking about all these surprising things - All the mistakes and unforeseen things that happen when you travel in a foreign culture.  Our attitude has changed - they are not mistakes they are just part of the adventure.  There is no way you are going to know what the local trends are.  In Kagoshima everyone ate early - by 6:30 restaurants were crowded.  In Hakata we went out to eat at 6:30 - we were the only ones in the restaurant into 7 or later.  Tonight when we entered the restaurant they were trying to explain to us - using motions - that we needed to take off our shoes.  there were a pair of flip flops on the landing - so I thought we were to put them on.  No, we were to go in out stocking feet.  The tables in the main room were low as you were suppose to sit on the floor, but they must have recognized our old limbs and led us to a table with a sunken floor so you could sit like a westerner.  But you still had to crawl in and out of it.  So we just blunder along, not worrying about making mistakes, and enjoying the adventure of it all!