My original plan is this: arrived in Osaka-Kansai airport at 1532, clear custom by 1552, take shinkansei at 1616 and arrived in Kyoto at 1729 so as to get to my dinner appointment at 1600 in Hotel Granvia next to Kyoto station.

The (not) surprisingly thing is that this work out perfectly in Japan : landing exactly on time, clear on time, shinkansai leave exactly at 1616 and arrived in 1729 on the dot. In fact, shinkansei has a reputation for have an error of only 12 sec for a year of operation, an incredible achievement considering Japan has to deal with frequent quakes on top of the operational logistic problem.

I could never get this executed so perfectly if this is US or anywhere else.

Over dinner, I learnt that the power supply in Japan are compensated to keep at 100v at 60khz (almost) perfectly too. At least, it is accurate enough for electronic appliances in Japan to use the electric cycle as a clock. :P

That’s Japanese’s precision and perfection.

btw, most people know the Japanese word “suminasen” which is loosely translated as ‘i am sorry’, ‘excuse me’, etc. Not so many are aware that the literal translation is “not complete (perfect)”; Think in the context when it is been used – “i am sorry, i am not complete (perfect)”, “excuse me for not been perfect” … how truely Japanese.