English (or lack thereof) in Japan

We've been very busy here, trundling around to various temples, wandering through neighborhoods, and generally trying to see as much as we can in our last few days. We've walked a lot, we've ridden public buses, we've taken railways and subways, and we've even rented bikes. And in all this, we've been struck by how little English is here. There are few street signs in English, the subway and buses have almost no English, and we've been in several dining places with no English menus or spoken English (thank goodness for the plastic food in the window; point and you shall receive).

Now, you may ask why we would expect English in Japan. After all, we're the foreigners. And it's not like Seattle exactly rolls out the welcome mat in Japanese. But. We have been amazed at how much English we encountered throughout SE Asia, especially street signs and public maps. I don't think I'd realized just how much, until we got here and navigating became noticeably harder.

This isn't a complaint, just an observation. We're getting the hang of things, and folks here have been very warm and helpful with our butchered attempts at Japanese and our "point and look stupid" method of getting around. We really like Kyoto, and wish that we could spend more time here.