Things that made me say...Wow :-)

Finally managed to get out of Tokyo last weekend!

We headed to Nikko World heritage shrines and also to see its splendid natural and scenic beauty..
Anyways this post is not about "things to do at Nikko" or "what to see" at Nikko..i am sure there are better resources out there.
This is more about my fascination of the Japanese sense of service which never ceases to amaze.
I mean every shop you go in Japan, you are always greeted by the "irashaimase" or the "ohayo Gozaimasu"and when you get out of the store the arigatoos follow from all the salesmen.Even if you don't pick up anything ie. :-). I have not come across this kind of hospitality in any big shops in India .

To illustrate, we all started on the Saturday morning and had to take a train from a place called Asakusa at 10.29 AM. However as luck would have it we took a train to Akasaka instead of Asakausa( I know..How lame!! ) and by the time we realized our folly,we were almost sure about missing the train...so finally we ended up going to Asakusa and we had just about 2 mins to get on the train, by which time we had to buy the tickets, figure out the platform and pick up the Nikko passes.Well, a 1 hr wait for the next train was staring at us..But nope!

We reached the Nikko Sightseeing service centre, told them about our predicament, half-expecting a blank NO, but guess what..the helpful rep immediately dialed a few numbers, gave us our tickets, and took us to the compartment through a interior shorter route..So thanks to this amazing sense of service, we were happily on the train..the rest as they say is history:-)

Awesome isn't it?

On a similar note, i saw a Korean restaurent which had used the power of "word-of-mouth" to great effect..Check out this picture..Ask a user for his/her review, take a snap..and put it out for the world to see..hmm..well i almost stepped in..if only i was a little bit more adventurous.