s0me0nesmind1
Lifer
First, just wanted to thank everyone for the suggestions on the previous thread: Link. If nothing else many of them provided for good entertainment as well 😀
That said, it's not often that I blog about things, but figured I should at least follow-up on everyone's suggestions.
Pics Here: http://imgur.com/a/kZpt9
List of Places we visited:
-Tokyo (~5 Days)
-Kyoto – Stayed the remaining Days here, but did side trips to other cities
-Osaka (Side Trip)
-Nara (Side Trip)
The Food
Okay, so I freaking love food. I just want to say that. The coolest thing about going to places like Japan is an entirely new menu of things to choose from when eating. I loved all the suggestions, and I tried my best to take up all of them. See pictures for examples.
Tons of exclusive Japan beers,
Okonomiyaki… twice,
Ramen x2 from Kyushu Jangara… it was that good
Chicken Wings @ Yamachan - was semi disappointed. They weren't as good as I had hoped, but they weren't horrible.
Also, I tried Black Black chewing gum – what the fuck man? Why were you guys all over that? It’s no different than Ice Breakers gum to me /shrug. I was thinking it would be a crazy flavor or something.
Mitsuya Cider – Tried the Candy and Soda, it wasn’t bad, but wasn’t impressed
People & Culture
The people… Holy shit the people… I don’t know how to express the words for how awesome the people and culture are in Japan. The people are amazing – they hold such high standards and are very proper. For example, if it’s rush hour and we are riding the subway and a bunch of people are getting off at once, we all head towards the escalators to go up. So everyone bum rushes the escalator, right? Nope. The Japanese people clearly form a single file line for people waiting to get a ride up. Also, EVERYONE keeps left, so anyone that wants to walk up the escalator quickly can do so on the right.
The streets are ridiculously clean. Although I felt like I couldn’t find a trash can to save my life sometimes, somehow the trash always makes it there. No one liters for the most part. There isn’t shit all over the side of streets, etc.. Also, most Japanese knew some degree of English. If we were ever stuck and didn’t know what to do (occasionally in the subway system of where to go), they were VERY helpful and awesome at trying to communicate.
Overall, people in Japan are just in a higher class than anywhere else I have seen. I don’t know how to describe it any further than just that. These are the ideal citizens most countries WISH they had.
Public Transit
The public transit overall was awesome! I’m from a big crowded city that drives everywhere, so being able to just get up and take a quick subway to an underground connection of a mall – or the airport – is awesome. The parking is what turns me off from going to every mall these days. If you eliminated that it would help tremendously with business.
We did have some troubles though with the transit system. It is very confusing as a tourist. Some of the ticket machines didn’t have any English (depends what city, Tokyo was very good for English tourists). But more so, it’s hard to tell which direction the subways are going sometime. Each subway goes both ways, so it’s critical to know which direction it’s going or you could pay a ticket for a subway you don’t want. This happened to us a few times, but luckily we went on day passes so it didn’t matter for us most days. Also, there are “JR Passes” to use in Japan, and it is often not so easy to know ahead of time which subways/trains apply to your pass and which don’t. It’s not a pass that applies to all of them, only certain brands.
That said, as a tourist it is EXHAUSTING. Every day for 1.5 weeks you get up and don’t lay down until the end of the day. We get something like 25,000 steps per day on the step counter.
Temples
We went to a lot of the temples, and honestly, I was a bit unimpressed. Then again, I’m not much for scenery when I travel. I like to experience culture differences (Hint: Food).
I don’t mean to turn this into a political debate, but one of the funniest things I found there was hands down their religions. It’s a joke. At all of their temples, you have to pay to get in…. you have to pay to “give a prayer” AT said temple, and there were plenty of other parts where you tossed money around. Don’t forget to add a bunch of souvenir shops! It eliminates any and all significance and turns into a marketing ploy. Pay 100 yen for a fortune from the temple, etc… I feel bad for any Japanese people that are poor and want to have a prayer.
The Technology
I’ll be honest, I set a high bar for knowing Japan as a master of creating technologies and such. As well as all the cars we drive here. I kind of left a bit disappointed overall because I was hoping to see things that I didn’t see elsewhere. There were a few things, but when I visited Akihabara, all I really saw were a bunch of corner store Newegg’s with Motherboards, Videocards, etc… sold on the street instead of online like in the US.
Also, I was completely surprised that many stores didn’t accept credit cards. In today’s world it is becoming more and more a staple instead of carrying around cash. I honestly don’t even carry cash anymore in the US.
Japan did seem to have some things that I wonder why we don’t implement though – A few examples:
1. Electric Toilets… friggen electric toilets. Why are they a standard in Japan but not in the US? Everything from automatic flushes, heated seats, and spraying warm water
2. Lighting – Simple things like having the switches for your bed lighting attached/integrated with the headboard of your bed. Seems simple, no? It’s just awesome to be able to move my hand and be able to control the lighting (turn off, on, or adjust with a knob) without having to get up. Again, why don’t we do this?
Disappointments:
-Prices. I was hoping for cheap & cool electronics while in Akihabara. Hell I would bring home a new rig if the price was right. The food was definitely well priced though.
-Technology. Nothing different than in the states really….
-Living Standards. I see some of the clumped together housing nearly falling apart with tons of people living in tiny living spaces with clothes hanging out on wires. No dryers? Sorry, I guess I just had the wrong image of decent standards.
-Didn’t have time to see a Robot show or Sumo wrestling… will do it on my next trip in the future.
-Porn Stores…. I was hoping to find crazy shit, but all I really found were tranny posters posted everywhere in a lot of them.
That said, it's not often that I blog about things, but figured I should at least follow-up on everyone's suggestions.
Pics Here: http://imgur.com/a/kZpt9
List of Places we visited:
-Tokyo (~5 Days)
-Kyoto – Stayed the remaining Days here, but did side trips to other cities
-Osaka (Side Trip)
-Nara (Side Trip)
The Food
Okay, so I freaking love food. I just want to say that. The coolest thing about going to places like Japan is an entirely new menu of things to choose from when eating. I loved all the suggestions, and I tried my best to take up all of them. See pictures for examples.
Tons of exclusive Japan beers,
Okonomiyaki… twice,
Ramen x2 from Kyushu Jangara… it was that good
Chicken Wings @ Yamachan - was semi disappointed. They weren't as good as I had hoped, but they weren't horrible.
Also, I tried Black Black chewing gum – what the fuck man? Why were you guys all over that? It’s no different than Ice Breakers gum to me /shrug. I was thinking it would be a crazy flavor or something.
Mitsuya Cider – Tried the Candy and Soda, it wasn’t bad, but wasn’t impressed
People & Culture
The people… Holy shit the people… I don’t know how to express the words for how awesome the people and culture are in Japan. The people are amazing – they hold such high standards and are very proper. For example, if it’s rush hour and we are riding the subway and a bunch of people are getting off at once, we all head towards the escalators to go up. So everyone bum rushes the escalator, right? Nope. The Japanese people clearly form a single file line for people waiting to get a ride up. Also, EVERYONE keeps left, so anyone that wants to walk up the escalator quickly can do so on the right.
The streets are ridiculously clean. Although I felt like I couldn’t find a trash can to save my life sometimes, somehow the trash always makes it there. No one liters for the most part. There isn’t shit all over the side of streets, etc.. Also, most Japanese knew some degree of English. If we were ever stuck and didn’t know what to do (occasionally in the subway system of where to go), they were VERY helpful and awesome at trying to communicate.
Overall, people in Japan are just in a higher class than anywhere else I have seen. I don’t know how to describe it any further than just that. These are the ideal citizens most countries WISH they had.
Public Transit
The public transit overall was awesome! I’m from a big crowded city that drives everywhere, so being able to just get up and take a quick subway to an underground connection of a mall – or the airport – is awesome. The parking is what turns me off from going to every mall these days. If you eliminated that it would help tremendously with business.
We did have some troubles though with the transit system. It is very confusing as a tourist. Some of the ticket machines didn’t have any English (depends what city, Tokyo was very good for English tourists). But more so, it’s hard to tell which direction the subways are going sometime. Each subway goes both ways, so it’s critical to know which direction it’s going or you could pay a ticket for a subway you don’t want. This happened to us a few times, but luckily we went on day passes so it didn’t matter for us most days. Also, there are “JR Passes” to use in Japan, and it is often not so easy to know ahead of time which subways/trains apply to your pass and which don’t. It’s not a pass that applies to all of them, only certain brands.
That said, as a tourist it is EXHAUSTING. Every day for 1.5 weeks you get up and don’t lay down until the end of the day. We get something like 25,000 steps per day on the step counter.
Temples
We went to a lot of the temples, and honestly, I was a bit unimpressed. Then again, I’m not much for scenery when I travel. I like to experience culture differences (Hint: Food).
I don’t mean to turn this into a political debate, but one of the funniest things I found there was hands down their religions. It’s a joke. At all of their temples, you have to pay to get in…. you have to pay to “give a prayer” AT said temple, and there were plenty of other parts where you tossed money around. Don’t forget to add a bunch of souvenir shops! It eliminates any and all significance and turns into a marketing ploy. Pay 100 yen for a fortune from the temple, etc… I feel bad for any Japanese people that are poor and want to have a prayer.
The Technology
I’ll be honest, I set a high bar for knowing Japan as a master of creating technologies and such. As well as all the cars we drive here. I kind of left a bit disappointed overall because I was hoping to see things that I didn’t see elsewhere. There were a few things, but when I visited Akihabara, all I really saw were a bunch of corner store Newegg’s with Motherboards, Videocards, etc… sold on the street instead of online like in the US.
Also, I was completely surprised that many stores didn’t accept credit cards. In today’s world it is becoming more and more a staple instead of carrying around cash. I honestly don’t even carry cash anymore in the US.
Japan did seem to have some things that I wonder why we don’t implement though – A few examples:
1. Electric Toilets… friggen electric toilets. Why are they a standard in Japan but not in the US? Everything from automatic flushes, heated seats, and spraying warm water
2. Lighting – Simple things like having the switches for your bed lighting attached/integrated with the headboard of your bed. Seems simple, no? It’s just awesome to be able to move my hand and be able to control the lighting (turn off, on, or adjust with a knob) without having to get up. Again, why don’t we do this?
Disappointments:
-Prices. I was hoping for cheap & cool electronics while in Akihabara. Hell I would bring home a new rig if the price was right. The food was definitely well priced though.
-Technology. Nothing different than in the states really….
-Living Standards. I see some of the clumped together housing nearly falling apart with tons of people living in tiny living spaces with clothes hanging out on wires. No dryers? Sorry, I guess I just had the wrong image of decent standards.
-Didn’t have time to see a Robot show or Sumo wrestling… will do it on my next trip in the future.
-Porn Stores…. I was hoping to find crazy shit, but all I really found were tranny posters posted everywhere in a lot of them.
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