A Quick Japan Update
The opening image is goodbye because to get to Japan I had to say goodbye to Bangkok and all of my friends there. While I'm happy and excited for this adventure I'm so sad to leave them all behind. More on that to come in a later post.
I have scheduled myself a lot of blogging to catch up with the past month or so but I also don't want that to mean that I now fall behind on the current events so here is a quick post about Japan so far. My second Japan post will hopefully have more.
First let me start by saying that being on "vacation" for the past 5 months doesn't mean I have time to "relax" some how. I am feeling like the embodiment of "I need a vacation from my vacation." I am a good tourist, I go places, I set goals, I let myself relax, etc.
Japan is also 2 hours later than Thailand and I feel personally that 2-3 hours later is the worst jetlag you can have. I had a lot of issue with it when I was younger heading to the east coast as well. The issue is that you really don't have that much issue "adjusting" and by adjusting I just stay up late and sleep in late. 1am in Thailand is 3am here so usually I'm up till about 3am. Then 8am in Thailand is 10am here so usually I sleep in until 11... In this way I'm not so off current time as to be "jetlagged" but I'm off enough to be... "inefficient" or maybe even "lazy getting up." Take your pick. So anyway that's why I have trouble with little jetlags. If it were 14 hours like from the US to Thailand I would have no choice but to adjust unless I only wanted to be awake in the night which is why large adjustments like that are easier for me, you really don't have a choice.
Anyway I'll post the photos and brief descriptions right now and I'll update this hopefully tomorrow. It's 2:16am right now and there's still a few other things I need to get to tonight and I'd like to be asleep by 3am but we will see....
Senso-ji Temple at Asakusa - it is perilous to travel alone because then you have to ask random passerby-ers to take your photos and no matter how savvy they look they probably have no clue how to angle a camera or focus on you or adjust the lighting or color... Or they just don't care.
Day 1 - I got to the airport pretty late and it took me 3 full hours to get from landing to my hostel because I had to get a SIM card so I could use data in Japan, take the public express train to Tokyo proper ($12) and then find my hostel. I was also exhausted and barely ate all day.
Day 2 - I ran around Harajuku, Shinjuku, and Shibuya area's which are shopping districts in Japan (starting to think everything is a shopping district actually). I had a really great day and decided to talk all stairs while I'm here so I can try to be healthy, that day I took almost 21,000 steps.
Day 3 - Went to Shimokitazawa friend off a tip from someone at my hostel that I could find warm clothes there second hand (which means new basically in Japan). I found two coats one for $4 and one for about $14. I am so lucky too because they both are so cute and fit me really well. Second hand means new in Japan because the people here are amazingly conscious and respectful of next to everything. Beyond that nothing seems to beat Japanese quality and everything is so nice. I ended up having dinner with a local Japanese person who was the friend of someone at my hostel which was nice.
Day 4 - Temple day! I actually got a really late start that day and only made it to Senoji temple (pictured above) I didn't make it to Meiji Shrine until the next day. I had a pretty slow moving day
Day 5 - Another Temple and a Friend! I made it to Meiji Shrine today and also met with a friend from college who actually moved out here to Tokyo. He showed me around the city and it was a lot of fun to catch up and see a familiar face.We went to Ginza as well as Roppongi and saw the beautiful Christmas lights that are on the trees there.
Day 6 - A Day of Rest - (Dec 24) I honestly just got up, had lunch, and came back to my hostel to blog a bit and get some work done. I really need a vacation from my vacation. I have all intention of spending at least one day doing absolutely nothing and watching netflix in bed which I haven't done in... months? Yeah, I'm starting to get to exhaustion.
When I travelled in Europe last year I was at a hostel in Germany and there was one guy who talked to no one and only watched TV for like 3 days that I was there. I finally asked someone what his issue was, he was traveling in Germany, why didn't he try to make friends or do literally anything, even sight see or eat good food? Yeah the answer was that he was at the end of a 6 month trip and that he was going home in a day or something and was just so amazingly done with everything and didn't care about anyone there or seeing any additional thing... That sounds SO nice right now. I could certainly get into not doing anything for a day or two....
Lots of random and beautiful scenes in Tokyo. No real order here but I would say check out them all in bigger focus by clicking on the photo. They all are something special. And the christmas decorations around the city are amazing.
My experience here has really been like no other. It is like being in a very familiar place except its just a bit different and the rules are all different. Everything in Tokyo is clean, beautiful, high quality, the people are quiet, respectful, and have a very high level deep understanding of what is and isn't allowed. It is an extremely unaccessible place as a foreigner. You can't really get into the "Japanese" places, only the tourist places, also they aren't fond of tourists who come in and are loud, disrespectful, and generally mess up order. With 38 million people in this city, also that eastern view of "society first, individual second" you really can see the difference here between a US city. They are all so respectful because they recognize that "public" belongs to everyone, and here in Japan "everyone" means a lot more people than back home.
Secondly, a surprising thing to me actually because I had actually heard the opposite, not a lot of Japanese people in Tokyo know english and even less outside the city. It will be interesting to see how they handle the 2020 Olympics as English has rather become the "trade language" of the world a la Lord of the Rings. Even if a French person doesn't know Thai or Japanese, they can usually find a basic common ground in English.
My friend told me that companies are already gearing up for it and starting to implement working from home as the city is well aware that they simply don't have the subway (or traffic) capacity for everyone to get to the games and work at the same time. It will be a huge event here and the city will be so packed. Real estate is also going up as a result.
This city really is just stunningly gorgeous though and I feel so lucky to be here. The first few days that I was here I only had a bright pink rain jacket and everyone here in winter apparently wears black, grey, and dark blue winter coats and wool long coats so I stuck out like a very sore thumb. Buying my two new jackets really made a difference in making me feel not like such an outsider...
Of course there will be more food photos here than in Thailand because Japanese food is so varied and so amazing and there is such an emphasis on quality of food as well as presentation here that its all beautiful and delicious. There are dishes here that you probably can't even guess what is in them!
Japan's food just blows me away really. It's so delicious and because the city is so packed they have Very strict health codes. They are also really aware that in a city as densely crowded as this that if one person gets sick the entire city could get sick in the span of one day. For that reason going to school or work with the flu is a punishable offense and many offices require flu shots as completely mandatory. If someone is sick they wear those little medical masks 24/7 when in public so as to protect the health of others. I think its wonderful and very thoughtful, Thailand does the same thing and I think its a shame the US does not.
This is such a wonderful country and I'm so glad to be here. More to come in the next few posts.