My wife Inna and I had been planning a month-long trip to Japan in October for almost a year. She had to visit her aging parents who she hadn’t seen in many moons. They live in Khabarovsk, just across the Sea of Japan, in far eastern Russian.
As our departure date approached, I started to get increasingly antsy. In truth, I got a little spooked at the proposition of traveling to such a foreign land where everything would be different — the language, the food, the customs — it was like no place I had ever traveled. And I pride myself on being an intrepid traveler. So, as October loomed, I started to get pissy about the whole journey and my wife started to lose her patience.
“Stop whining! You’ll love it,” became her steady chant.
So, I spent the first five days with Inna in Tokyo. She then flew home to Russia while I spent the next ten days visiting Shizuoka, along the southern coast of the island of Honshu where Tokyo is located and where most of the Japanese people reside; Kyoto, the “shrine capital of Japan”; and Osaka, a shiny skyscraper jewel that is Japan’s third largest city. Inna rejoined me for the last ten days, starting in Kyoto, with day trips to Osaka and the ancient capital of Nara. And then we spent the last five days in Tokyo and Mt. Fuji.
So, how did it all turn out?
Way better than I could have ever imagined.
Stated simply, Japan is the best country I have ever visited and light years ahead of the U.S. in every respect other that the whole earthquake and typhoon things.
In fact, we loved it so much, we decided that when Inna retires we hope to have lined up part time jobs in Japan — she teaching English as a second language and me leading tours. Because if you don’t have a job you can only stay for 90 days max. In the meantime I will start taking Japanese language courses at the community college. Japanese, unlike most languages, is tricky because you don’t just have to learn to speak it, but also read it because the alphabet is strange and bewildering.
We plan to move to Tokyo because it’s the throbbing pulse of Japan and a great base camp to explore so many other Asian treasures — Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, China, India, Australia, Fiji, Tahiti — they’re all right there and ripe for the picking.
Tokyo is absolutely amazing! A city fourteen million people and, as a young Canadian we met in Fuji said, everything works. There is literally no place on earth like it. Everyone rides a bike and there’s no traffic except on the freeways. There’s no garbage piled high in the street, or trash and ugly cigarette butts, like in New York, a city of only eight million, and it’s virtually spotless. It doesn’t smell, it’s quiet and there are no sirens or car horns constantly assaulting your senses. There’s no crime and you feel totally safe wherever you go. It’s extremely efficient and innovative with all sorts of cool machines and robots. The food is out of this world. And the people are so sweet and helpful that you want to hug them all. Even though I’m back home in America, I can’t stop bowing and clasping my hands together in prayer when I meet someone. The Japanese respect for courtesy and civility is indeed infectious.
Japan is a spiritual place that will spin your head around and severely challenge what you thought you knew. And it’s a big slice of humble pie.
- I will be posting daily snapshots of Japanese life for the next month or so — short little pieces that will hopefully brighten your day. So, please keep coming back for more.
