(My cousin is coming over from Ireland for a few days. He messages me before he takes off. About five hours later he calls me. I have worried for a while at this point, because it shouldn’t have taken him so long.)

Cousin: “Hey, I’m at… St. Pancras.”

Me: “St. Pancras? As in London?”

Cousin: “Yeah. Where do I go?”

Me: “Mate, I’m in Edinburgh.”

Cousin: “Cool, when will you get here?”

Me: “It’s, like, eight hours away.”

Cousin: “Aww, am I going to have to wait here for eight hours?”

(I ended up buying him a flight from London to Edinburgh, and literally had to talk him through everything right up to getting on the plane. It turns out he flew to Gatwick Airport and took the train to St. Pancras. He had no idea where Edinburgh was, but since it was a capital city, he assumed it would be in London. I’ve decided to visit him, instead, from now on.)

(I read a story about Japan on this site and I remember a story a coworker once told me.)

Coworker: “I was in Japan for a business trip and we went to a cafe of some sort. It was quite noisy, and I thought one of the Japanese businessmen asked me what I thought about Japanese cows. I thought it was weird, but since I was just served steak, I just went with it. I told them I thought their cows were nice and firm, having good meat on them. As a response, the businessmen started laughing. It turns out they asked what I thought about Japanese girls.”

My dad traveled to Japan a while ago from the USA. When he was at a restaurant, he wanted to order fish.

He asked if some fish they had were wild fish or farm fish. In the US, some fish are caught in the wild, and some are from fish hatcheries where they were fed and raised for consumption.

His waitress didn’t know what my dad meant, and after a while she brought her manager.

My dad asked again whether the fish were wild-caught or farmed. The conversation went on for a few minutes.

After a while, the manager smiled and talked to the waitress in Japanese. Although my dad can’t speak Japanese, the conversation’s meaning was clear due to hand gestures.

The manager told the waitress that the stupid American was asking whether the fish were grown in dirt on farms (pretending to swing a garden rake and other farming motions), or if the fish were hunted in the wild by cowboys (as he pretended to throw a lasso)!

The waitress and manager both had a good laugh about that. My dad just ordered the fish.

This story is part of our Japan roundup!

Read the next Japan roundup story!

Read the Japan roundup!

(A colleague and I are travelling to Cocoa Beach, Florida. The nearest commercial airport is in Melbourne, Florida, about ten minutes south. He’s an Australian engineer, with a very heavy accent. He gets the company credit card and arranges our air travel.)

Coworker: “Al ‘ight, [My Name]. Gotcher ticket to Melbourne right here!”

Me: “Melbourne, Florida, right?”

(It’s a busy weekend for tourists in the city, so I’ve already been thoroughly annoyed with taking the subway as I try to get home from a simple trip to the nearby grocery store. Normally, tourists don’t take my local bus line, so I’m a bit surprised when I run up to the bus and find a tourist arguing with the bus driver. I really have no idea what her gripe is, but she’s blocking the door as I attempt to board. The bus driver is trying to get her to take a seat or get off the bus, from what I can gather.)

Me: “Ma’am, can you step aside so I can board the bus?”

Tourist: *to the bus driver* “But I already paid. Can’t you refund me?”

Bus Driver: “I’ve already told you that you can take any bus for the next two hours with that transfer I gave you. I’m sorry you got confused, but just hand the driver of the right bus that transfer and you can get on for free.”

Tourist: “But why can’t you just refund my fare? What if the bus I need doesn’t come for two hours?”

Bus Driver: “I don’t know how to say this any more clearly. It’s not going to be a two hour wait for the right bus. At most it might be 20 minutes, and you can use that transfer to get on without paying another fare. I cannot refund you, but you can ride any bus for free for the next two hours with that transfer. Can you please step aside and let the passengers behind you board?”

Tourist: “I paid for this ride, and I’m going to take it.” *stomps into the narrow passageway between the door and the seats, and I can finally board, but I can’t get very far with her blocking the passageway to the seats*

Me: *swipes my transit pass, turns towards the passenger area* “Ma’am, I have my grocery cart with me. Can you please move into the passenger area so that I can get by?”

(The tourist ignores me, and I am MORE than fed up with her childish behavior and unwillingness to listen and move, so I squeeze past her and run my full (and fairly heavy) grocery cart over her feet.)

Tourist: “OW! B****! Why did you do that?”

Me: “I asked you to move twice and the driver asked you to move even more times. Move or be moved, I guess. I can’t stand in the entry way. That’s ILLEGAL.”

Tourist: “This town and all its people are horrible! Let me off this bus right now! I’ll walk 20 miles to where I’m going if I have to. I’m not putting up with this mistreatment any more! I will NEVER come back to this city!”

Bus Driver: “I will GLADLY let you off at my next stop, three blocks up the street, if you just push that button requesting a stop.”

(The tourist continues to rant and rave, but doesn’t push the button to request a stop, nor does she move out of the passage to/from the entry way. I’m the next person to request a stop, almost a mile up the road. The bus pulls over for my stop.)

Tourist: “WHERE THE H*** AM I? WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP IN THREE BLOCKS LIKE YOU SAID YOU WOULD? HOW DO I GET WHERE I’M SUPPOSED TO BE?”

Me: *rolls my grocery cart over her feet again* “I guess you’ll just have to figure that out for yourself, since you wouldn’t listen to the driver when he tried to help you the first time.”

(She didn’t get off the bus at that stop, so who KNOWS where she ultimately ended up — the bus line terminated deep in the suburbs. Hopefully she DOESN’T come back!)