There's less douchery on the road less traveled

Been traveling around Japan now for 2 weeks and it has really been crazy. With such a short amount of time, I've had to move fast.. and move I did. I've spent 4 nights in Tokyo, 1 night in Matsumoto, 1 night in Nikko, 2 nights in Hiroshima, 5 nights in Kyoto and now I'm off to Osaka tomorrow before catching a boat to China on Tuesday. The Japan Rail Pass makes travel insanely easy and fast (a subject which I'll post a video about soon) and getting to your next destination is as easy as just showing up at the train station. So far there have been a few rough nights (one must plan ahead religiously here because spontaneous travel is rewarded with nothing more than homeless nights or expensive hotel rooms) and many long days but that is not what I want to talk about right now.

One of the first things I noticed when I got to Japan was the sheer lack of backpackers. This is an expensive destination so, of course, it does not attract the amount of budget travelers that SE Asia does but there are hardly any here at all. As a result, all of the "Backpacker's Hostels" are mostly filled with people who are on quick 2 week vacations and travel on a budget that is orders of magnitude larger than mine.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying that whatever I'm doing is objectively better than that but it definitely changes the type of people that I run into on a daily basis. I like backpacker folk... This type of travel definitely attracts similar people and through my experience they are almost (and that is a big almost) all pretty cool. They're open minded at the very least. And what is most convenient is that everyone's primary goal is having the best time possible on the least amount of money.

Money really seems to be the most divisive factor. While I'm extolling the virtues of living frugally and going farther, someone is making fun of me for being too cheap to drop $15 on dinner. No big deal though, everyone travels differently and there really isn't a right way to experience a foreign country. Doesn't really bother me too much and I'm quite proud of my ability to live on next to nothing.

For instance: Though food is astonishingly expensive here, I've gotten my dinners down to $1.50 (from >$8) and lunches (the only meal I eat out anymore) are running below $5. Most hostels here have kitchens which are amazing for making cheap dinners. I boil some cheap soba noodles and combine that with a $1 boil-in-the-bag curry sauce and there ya go. It's not the best thing I've ever eaten but it is filling. It's stuff like this that really brings me back to my life in DC.

So, long story short, Japan is expensive and filled with people who love to spend money but with a little determination and no shame, one can really make it reasonable. And plus, it is a lot of fun being somewhat of an oddity in all these "backpacker's hostels."

I've uploaded tons of pictures to my flickr account so that is the best place to go too get a better idea of where I've been and what I've been doing. Plenty more good stuff on the way as well. It's getting late here and I haven't had a night earlier than 2am in weeks... I'm gonna get to China and just sleep more than anything else probably.