Domo Arigato: Not only for thanking robots

Well I’ve been in Japan for a few days now and although I’ve managed to get my bearings, the place still ceases to amaze me. It hasn’t been long but I could already fill pages about my observations and feelings towards this place so I’ll try to start somewhere logical and break it up over the course of multiple posts.

I’ve been quite fascinated with the culture and country for awhile now. Follow video game or tech news for long enough and you get enough glimpses into what goes on here to spark curiosity. So now I’m here trying to figure it all out but more so than anywhere else, I get 10 new questions for every 1 answered. The culture here is a tough nut to crack as a casual observer but all one can do is just try.

The language barrier is the single biggest roadblock to my understanding of Japan. It is actually a very easy language to speak. I’ve already picked up a lot of Japanese and with just a couple weeks, a phrasebook and some determination, I could get conversational. On the other hand, Japanese is one of the hardest languages in the world to read. And there in lies the problem. There is so little English here that really exploring the culture becomes very difficult.

Food is the prime example. Japanese cuisine is some of the best and most varied in the world. There are so many styles of food and dishes that do not exist in other places and from what I’ve had so far, they are awesome! But, there are hardly any menus in English and I searched for days trying to find an okonomiyaki place without luck. I probably passed 10’s of them and I eventually learned there was one NEXT DOOR to my hostel the whole time but since the words are all in Japanese, there was no way for me to know. In Southeast Asia, trying new things was unavoidable but here you really have to try because otherwise you’ll just go eat at Mc Donalds or somewhere else familiar.

Ok, ok, enough of the bitching… In all honesty, determination is rewarded with new experiences and discovering an awesome and cheap soba noodle shop down a back alley is a real treat. Japan is awesome! The food is delicious, people immensely helpful, sights intriguing and bullet trains fast as all hell. I’m really enjoying myself here and could easily spend months if I wasn’t just hemorrhaging money.

Like I said before, there is so much to write about this place so I’ll try to get more posts up soon. Also, pictures and descriptions are getting added to my flickr account all the time and don’t forget that viewing them by set is better than just scrolling through the photostream. I’ve only got a 2 week rail pass here and any day wasted means I’m losing big money but I’ll try to catch up on the writing soon. Additionally, this being the land of technology, I've decided to jump mediums a bit and start taking more video. I finally got a video editing program up and running on my tiny little computer so there should be more of this hitting the net as well.

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