Japan

Eep, time has flown by again. I spend my last week in Japan, mostly exploring Tokyo, it is an utterly massive city, I think you could spend a few months just exploring the city and not see everything, with all the urban areas between Tokyo and Yokohama, it is nearly 40 million people, so the same population of Canada within a 30 minute train ride.

I did do a day trip into the mountains to see an onsen, which is a natural hot springs, it was quite spectacular, it was so large compared to the hot springs I have seen before, pumping out 15000 Liters a minute of nice smelly hot sulphur water. I went to a public bath, which is just a big hot spring pool, segregated between males and females, and you enter naked, fortunately it wasn't too busy. As I was getting dressed again to Japanese girls came into the change room, luckily I had my pants back on, and I explained to them that they were in the wrong room.

I also ventured for a Kobe steak lunch in Tokyo, Kobe Beef is supposed to be world famous, the cows are fed beer, and massaged, the meat is very marbled with fat. For $120cdn I had 6 oz's of beef, 2oz's of Kobe, and 4oz's of another Japanese beef. Preparation was quite nice, cooked in front of you, it is cut up into little cubes, and then fried, which was a little disappointing, but the end result was a pretty tasty lunch, is it better than a nice Alberta beef bbq'd steak, I don't know about that, but I had to give it a try.

Went out a couple nights as well, and finally found some busy areas in Tokyo for nightlife, unfortunately the busy areas are also expensive, and electronic music, $40 cover charge, and $10 drinks, a fry cry from the foreigner bars where it is $35 to get in, and all you can drink. However it was still a fun night out.

I also was able to go to a Brazilian festival, there are a lot of Brazilians in Japan, and it was a great afternoon party, kind of reminded me of Carnival in Brazil, and I miss the exoticness of South American women!

Now I am back in Singapore with Tan, it was a happy occasion seeing her again after a month! We are now in the process of finding a condo here, it will be nice to have a place to call home again, as living out of a suitcase does start to get a little tiring, as surprising as it may sound

Posted by Jason Willock

Well I must say Kyoto was not quite what I envisioned, I had pictured a nice little city with lots of temples, and great scenery. As the train pulled into Kyoto, all I saw was concrete, a huge sprawling city, of mostly unimpressive buildings. I soon found out that all the "scenery" was mostly located outside the city, and required bus or train rides to get there. So I set off each day to see some of the sights, and there is a lot of nice things to see in Kyoto, just hard to get to, and not so enjoyable trekking around in the heat and humidity. And after you have seen a couple temples, shrines, and zen gardens, they all start to blend together. I also hiked up a small mountain to a monkey reserve, it was nice to just sit and watch the monkeys do there monkey things all around you. I just sat on a bench, and they were running all around, paying no real attention to me, that is until I bought a bag of sliced apples. It was only $1 for a bag, and I was almost tempted to eat them myself, since I usually have to pay $2 or $3 for an apple. But there were too many cute little monkeys about, so I fed them, they just gently took the apple from your hand. Even the wild life here in Japan is polite, a stark contrast from the monkeys in Gibraltar who will steal whatever they can get there hands on. I do think Kyoto would be nice in the winter, and I think if you had a car, it would make life a little easier.

Now that I have been in Japan a while I have started to make some generalizations. Japanese are not a flashy society, hardly anyone wheres jewelry, or any 'bling' , there cars like the Koreans are generally white, black or silver. Almost all Japanese like to have a variety of charms and toys hanging off there cell phone, which would drive me mental! There are exceptions to this of course, and there are some outrageously flashy people, I find it more common in the younger Japanese men, some who must spend an hour each day on there hair, I guess they have to try to stand out as much as possible to attract the females. Japanese females tend to wear a lot of makeup, have terrible teeth, but still are insanely cute.

The trains here are great, in fact I am typing this on the train right now, I left my razor at the hostel in Kyoto yesterday, so I decided it was worth the 6 hours of train travel, rather than buying a new once, since I have my Rail Pass that provides unlimited travel. There trains are fast, spacious, and very clean. In Europe if you got on a train during the middle of the journey, you would often find your seat littered with the previous occupants lunch. Here no one would dare to leave anything at the seat, except for well the European tourists, I have spotted Japanese people sitting in the next seat take the garbage to the trash bin after some foreigners left it there, so it wouldn't bother the next passenger. I see that a lot, if you do something that isn't right, they don't really tell you that you have done something wrong, they will just correct the mistake themselves, even if it is inconvenient for them.

Last night I spent the evening walking around the electronic district, as it is close to the hostel I am staying at, I played some video games, and realized that my reflexes are very slow compared to the average Japanese person. I didn't stay to long as it was to smokey in there, I really dislike how you can smoke just about anywhere here in Japan. Strolling around the area I found a few interesting shops, lots of Anime related stuff, like movies, toys and dolls, then in the back or on another floor is where the 'adult anime' is located, 1000's and 1000's of videos, cramped into little shops, with loads of Japanese men perusing the selection. Then there is the porno shops, these are massive with more Japanese porn than a human could possibly watch in a life time, consisting of every thing you could think of and things you wouldn't even want to think of. For such a conservative polite society, they are very kinky, to the point of almost being disturbing!

Space is at a premium, so most shops and restaurants are very small, and cramped, with the exception of Pachinko parlors, these are like casino's with slot machines that pay out in little silver balls, these huge places are everywhere. While gambling isn't really legal here in Japan, they get around it somehow, you win these little balls, and then the Pachinko parlor will give you a ticket saying how many balls you won. You then take that ticket to a shop down the street called a TUC Shop, and then they pay you out, not sure how it all works, but it must be big business as these are usually the biggest stores around.

Well thats it for now, I could write more, but I will save it for next time. I am going to relax and watch a movie for the rest of my train ride. I am looking forward to tomorrow in Tokyo as there is some big Brazilian festival, could be fun!

Posted by Jason Willock

Well the last week certainly went by quickly, I quite like Japan, it's very efficient, and organized, not to mention clean. The food doesn't excite me a lot though, it's rather bland, and lacking vegetables, but it is fresh and pretty healthy for the most part. I have even taken a liking to some Sushi, it's available everywhere, and is pretty cheap, even 7-11 has good Sushi for just a few bucks. One thing that surprises me here is the price of fruit, $4-5 for a single apple or peach! The fruit here looks very nice, but the stuff I have tried doesn't taste that great, I certainly miss Thailand for the fruit!

In the last week I have been to Hiroshima, Osaka, and a day trip to Nara, I enjoyed it all, went to a baseball game in Hiroshima, that was great fun even though it was pouring rain (It has rained everyday since I have been in Japan, except for today which was nice and sunny) The rain isn't to bad though, at least it keeps things a little cooler, as today was quite hot. Hiroshima also had a very good memorial about the nuclear bomb, which was quite emotional and inspirational, I really enjoyed that city. Osaka is another big city, I partied it up pretty good this weekend, the night life here seems way better than Tokyo, everyone I have talked to agrees that Tokyo just doesn't cut it for the nightlife scene, but Osaka was good times and both Friday & Saturday night I stayed out until 6am. Saturday I went with a bunch of guys from the hostel to Nara, which is a great old city with wild deer roaming the streets everywhere, and huge temple.

Tomorrow I will be heading off to Kyoto, which should be a nice relaxing spot, I will write more later, and get some photos up as soon as possible!

Posted by Jason Willock

Well it took 24 hours from the time I left home, until the time I arrived at where I was staying in Tokyo, needless to say I was a tad bit tired, and jet lagged. I dropped off my bags, and explored the area near my hostel, and had some dinner. It wasn't quite what I thought Tokyo would be like, it is a rather quiet area I am staying in, still it's very busy, and tons of restaurants and pubs, but it wasn't what I had in mind when I pictured Tokyo in my mind.

After exploring various area's around Tokyo I quickly realized how massive Tokyo is, it is HUGE, there is no way the whole city can be bright lights and cool area's but there certainly is no shortage of things to see and do here!

My first attempt of going out a night wasn't to exciting, I went to the Shibuya district, which is famous for night clubs, and I went to one that was supposed to be a fun hip-hop club, it was $35 to get in, and then had an open bar, which didn't seem like a bad deal.. It was pretty small place though, and it was smokey, as they don't have any real no smoking laws here, and the music wasn't to exciting, but I met some other travelers and had an all right time. I was getting tired though around 2:30, so I decided to head back to the hostel. Surprisingly the subway closes at midnight, for a huge city that is always on the go, that surprises me, so I had to take a taxi home, which set me back $45 ouch! I won't be doing that alone again!

Last night I went to a traditional dance festival, the weather was very wet, but it didn't stop all these people dancing in the street in traditional garb, I quite enjoyed it, everyone was drinking and eating great street food, nothing like grilled squid! Getting by with no Japanese isn't to hard, they are so friendly here, and will go out of there way to try to help you, that it's not a problem, I get a chuckle when I see some Japanese people parting ways, it is just a long series of bows, it's like no one really knows when to stop bowing, and doesn't want to be the first to stop.

I will write more on Tokyo later, I will be coming back here, I have 2 more nights here, and then I head to Hiroshima, and then will work my way back to Tokyo. I just hope the weather gets a little better, as it has been a tad wet here, at least it's not insanely hot like I was worried about though.

Posted by Jason Willock