Naoetsu Warnings Or Dangers

Not so much a danger but a warning to foreigners travelling in places like Naoetsu. This is a really small town and they don't get quite so many gaijin (foreigners) travelling through here as places like Tokyo or Kyoto. Be warned that people WILL look at you here and that you ARE strange :-)
This can have its benefits too, although I speak Japanese pretty well the people I met all assumed that I couldn't. Normally this can annoy me but on my little holiday it didn't. I let them indulge me at the restaurant with whatever the owner deemed I might like to eat (I didn't let on that I could read the menu!). I met these lovely people in the pic who were sitting next to me. The man spoke to me in broken English but I think it was fun for them to communicate with me and as I was alone it was nice to have someone to talk to!!
Sometimes it IS nice to be a gaijin in Japan :-)