States first, bit pressed for time this morning.
Day trip to Yosemite from San Fran.
It left at 5.30am! I'm nocturnal by nature so that was a shock to the system to start with. But fine, we're used to covering long distances. We had a mixed Nationality group aboard, it was interesting chatting to the various travellers except for 2. They were Norfolk Islanders, which is somewhat reluctantly and kind of, part of, and supported by, and it's population citizens of, Australia. Some well intentioned soul pointed us out as fellow Australians but they said they weren't Australians,
they were Norfolk Islanders!
I refrained from pointing out that my taxes were spent on keeping them from starvation but thought better of it in otherwise polite company.
They're descendants of the Bounty mutineers and consider themselves a species apart it seems. But who cares, they talk funny anyway.
We pulled in for a snack break at a biggish roadside cafe/food hall. It was a massive place and we strolled in to decide what we'd have.
Then a tidal wave hit us! A fleet of 4 other buses (sorry, coaches) pulled up and a horde of Japanese tourists poured out of them like someone just knocked the top off an ant nest.
They swarmed in and before we knew what hit us we found ourselves propelled back from the counter and pressed against the wall!
The Japanese may be polite in small company but enmasse they take on the proportions of charging Rhinos!
We couldn't get out. We had zero chance of getting served. Our driver was pacing up and down to get away but the majority of his passengers were caught in the stampede and none of us could do a thing about it. Over around 20 minutes the crowd thinned, we could breath and see the counter again but by the time we got there all the food was long gone. We settled for a tin of smoked nuts each from the grocery shelf and staggered back to the bus to recover from the trauma. I've never seen the Japanese tourist in quite the same way since.
Sorry, visitors have arrived..... to be continued.