Blogs from Tokyo, Japan, Asia - page 210

Once upon a time, right in the middle of an Aussie Summer, Linda (aka Helen) and Jodes (aka Monika) decided to pursue a professional snowboarding career in Japan. As you do when you've only had 6 hours of experience on a snowboard. (We didn't say it was a GOOD decision!) Here is the story of our journey... Our two week grand tour of Japan started off relatively smoothly - perhaps a little unusual for Linda and I! Despite the lady at check-in getting extremely agitated about us having only an E-ticket and no physical ticket with a particularly crucial number on it that she just had to have to make it through her day, we made it onto the flight. We were somewhat amused that noone else at any other airport throughout our trip seemed to ... read more

In an earlier blog I described Tokyo as being overwhelming. You might even say I described the city with mild disdain. Well, in my second visit to the city I was won over! Tokyo was a breath of fresh air compared to my current digs… international, entertaining, creative. My preconceived notions pegged Tokyo as a typical metropolis - huge, cold, and distant. Over the four days I spent there, I found it to be quite the opposite. The people were friendly and helpful, even going out of their way to help a lost looking foreigner. Many Japanese say that Tokyo is a great place to visit, but not a great place to live. I can understand where they are coming from, but for a 26 year-old foreigner, Tokyo is just what I needed after spending four ... read more

Ⅰ arrived in Tokyo intact and still　recognisably human after the long flight from London. Im really enjoying my traditional, "Edo" style, accomodation and the City as a whole. I'm eating, sleeping, bathing and even dressing Japanese，at least within the confines of the Ryokan and I'm making maximum use of the four words of Japanese I know. I've travelled all over the City in the last couple of days and have found the people to be extremely helpful and civilised, apparently without exception. The City itself is a place of obvious and very great contrasts. Towering modern temples are everwhere dedicated to the generation of wealth but there are very many other places where traditional Gods are worshipped as they have been for centuries. Such tradition prevails in the narrow streets which, everywhere, crowd the feet of ... read more

Diassapointment. Blessing. There are those of you that will be massively dissapointed with me. I did not get to a Japanese new years religious ceremony. I did not experience the deep religious feeling I was led to believe I would. I was blessed just the same. I believe that I am an extremely lucky traveller, having been invited to Buddhist blessing ceremony in Thailand, given discounts to capsule hotels, invited into peoples homes in Ecuador, Canada and the United States and shown around those places at the expense of my host and new friend. It is wonderful to meet people that are proud of their country and want to share it with others - I am amazed at the kindness of complete strangers, I can only dream of being able to return the favour some day. ... read more

I was always under what was probably a poorly uninformed impression that Japan was a quiet, understated country. In my few (wasted) years in high school Japanese class I learnt about the culture of a quiet people, who respected tradition and weren’t amenable to the loud, disrespectful ways of us Westerners (hence the trainee Japanese teacher who came on exchange to Maclean High School for a few months and after one period of our Year Nine elective Japanese class she was so shaken by our loud and outrageous behaviour she took off the remainder of the week and steeled herself against any further aural assaults by refusing to come to any more of our classes). Touching down in Tokyo I had prepared to present my quiet, humble self and was certain that I would be unable ... read more