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Published: April 23rd 2007
Myself with a 'rare' Japanese lady
In front of King Darius' relief in the National Museum in Tehran
It had always been a dream of mine to travel to Iran, for its vast history and art that have survived until this day. After all, where else could you possibly find a great ancient city so famously destroyed by Alexander the Great, a monumental 'piazza' that influenced the design of Lincoln Center in NYC and find the mysterious roots of vital vocabulary in the present Japanese language?
Several searches for tours and trips from NYC to Iran seemed quite difficult, especially when one would log into a world-travel site, click on the 'Iran' caption and get a response, 'Unless you have Turkish, German, Japanese or Slovenian citizenship, this will be incredible hard'. Ah, right. Which suddenly made me realize that indeed, my Japanese citizenship would definitely come in handy, and the easiest solution to venture out to the great Aryan land was to sign up in Tokyo where Iran Air flies to Tehran via Beijing.
The trip started in Tehran and heading south by bus whilst making local stops. Then, once hitting Shiraz, it would be a few domestic flights here and there within the borders to explore few other mystical gems too far out to The rest of the usual bunch
A nice Iranian restaurant, Shehzade, in Shiraz travel to by motor vehicles. The trip ended in Tehran once again, and a flight back to Tokyo.
When it comes to seeing Japanese tourists during your honeymoon, chances are extremely likely, for I cannot comprehend how peculiar it is to see the same tulip-hat-wearing woman shopping at Honolulu Duty Free popping up in front of your camera when you're taking a pic of the stonehenge a week later. Alas, even I have difficulties telling these people apart especially when they are in their travel gear and cameras (but otherwise, no, Asians definitely do not look the same, and if you claim that I look like Lucy Liu there is something seriously wrong with you - although that's quite a jolly praise for me).
I'd signed up last minute, to hear before my departure that fellow travellers consisted of Japanese tourists with an interest in the Islamic world. After meeting these travel veterans, I found it rather frightening to believe that majority of them had already checked out all of Europe and most of the Middle East after climbing Mt Everest and swimming in Victoria Falls. Probably the only nation they had not visited was Iraq, but that's
Kaori-chan, my one smoking buddy
No one else smoked in the group - we bonded as soon as we ran to an ashtray at Tehran Airport. only for now.
However, I did come to learn the very sad fact that most of the married women on the tour (50s+) were just travelling to such wonderful destinations around the world so that they could boast about it to all the women in their neighbourhood and continue conversations. So my advice is, even if you are able to manage to speak japanese, never question a Japanese woman about where they have been to, for they will either yack in your ear for hours or just tell you country names and never any specific places or about the culture behind it. They aren't merely senile, they just don't really care as long as they can shop for Chanel cosmetics at Duty Free somewhere.
But once in a very rare blue moon, you would be fortunate enough to encounter a sweet old Japanese lady who really is genuinely interested in the places she has travelled. These are the quiet types who dress in respect of the individual culture, try everything thats put on their plate and never complains about how one of the little desk lamps in her five-star hotel room isn't working at 5am (an hour before
Stomping away at Abyane
Japanese take-over of a small village...dum dum duuuuum! the bus is leaving the hotel). They always have a nice story to tell, and luckily I had one such lovely woman during my otherwise insane trip.
So please excuse me from here onwards, for the random tales of funny Japanese people which shall occasionally pop up in my blogs. But do trust me, they are quite hysterical and add to the ridiculous humour.
Motesha'keram for reading my jolly entries! Please enjoy them, and if you have time I'd love feedback😉
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Henry Teng
non-member comment
What did you learn about Iran
Iran is a beautiful country with a rich history. From my own studies I learned that Iran created one of the greatest empire in ancient times and one of the Kings of Iran helped in the rebuilding of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and many of the Jews who were captive in Babylon were allowed to return to their land with the permission of the Persian King. Persia, the ancient name of Iran was one of the contributors of western civilization, but they also had inherited their culture from the cultures that they conqueored. Mesopotamia, the "Cradle of Western Civilization" gave birth to the world's first writing had also passed down it's legacy to the Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians. I am interested about their history and want to know more about them. How much does it take to go there and who can I contact?