Trans-Mongolian trip - Japan

In the 19 hours ferry taking me from South Korea to Japan, I met my Japanese roommate. To my relief, he was fluent in English (and in Korean !). He’s working on a project in Korea most of the year and managed to dumb my enthusiasm after describing me the work life in Korea & Japan (long hours and little holidays). Apparently in Japanese (or Asian culture in general); perception is important so being the first to leave the office is something people try to avoid so it leads to funny situation when everyone leave at the same time at a really late hour or only when the boss has left first.

Having a tour of the ferry, I bumped into the Sauna facilities and gave it a try. Basically, there were 2 warm pools + sauna facing the sea (bay window) where Korean/Japanese men (and I !) were relaxing looking outside at the sea. Later at the dinner, I luckily was sitting next to the only white man in the whole ferry (had a few dreadlocks). He was adopted by a Japanese couple at an early age then grew up between England, Japan, Israel & Korea. He was making a living playing guitar in the streets, earning about 200000 Won a day in Korea (about 150 euros/day) which is more than decent especially that no taxes were involved !

On the next morning the ferry arrived at destination. At the customs, everybody went through apart of the other westerner and I. They seem troubled by the number of visa on my passport and asked me what I was up to in all these countries !! They open my backpack and remove all of the items one by one. Then they proceed to a body inspection, asked me to strip most of my clothes; inquired politely if it was ok if they touched me, but as I did not have my Japanese visa yet; I figured out I did not have a choice. It was the first time I have been touched so closely by another man and somehow gave me a weird first impression of the country.

After proudly receiving my well deserved visa, I went outside to try to get my head around the local public transport system. They have subways and train lines operated by different companies and the price of the ticket depends on how many stops you need to travel + whether or not you need to change lines. That was horribly confusing and somehow at the station near the harbor they weren’t expecting to see much foreigners as the whole thing was in Japanese !

Upon reaching my hostel, my first objective was to get some cash as I’ve heard many stories of stranded travelers who could not withdraw cash in Japan as most of the ATM there do not accept foreign cards. The only 2 locations are the ATM in the 7/11 shops + post offices. It was with a great relief that I withdrew my yen and started exploring around.

Japan is a dense country and the best word to describe the urban landscape would be: messy. There are no rules or standards, you can see pretty much anything from one building to another. I spent the first afternoon at Osaka castle (Rebuilt after the war so did not look that old) which was sitting in the middle if the biggest park in Osaka (not that impressive !). The castle had inside an exposition on some big battle which happen a few centuries ago and led to the fall of Osaka Castle. Seeing the painting depicting the war, massacres and many beheading; I figured out that human nature is the same anywhere in the world.

On my way back in the subway, I noticed some Japanese women giving me odd look and after leaving the carriage I just realized it was reserved for women ! Gender equality in Japan is not a developed concept and it’s widespread for Japanese women to abandon their career permanently after getting married and having their first child.

There are restaurants here everywhere you go, serving delicious food. The choice and quality of food is amazing. About half of the restaurants do not have any waiters/waitress, you can often go to a machine showing you a list of meals. selecting it, pay, get your ticket and seat on the table surrounding cookers at the center of the restaurant where they would be cooking just in front of you to my great delight.

Toilets in Japan are amazing. Even in public places, they will be really modern and among their features, you can push a button to play a waterfall sound so that no one will hear you and you can push another button which would spray your ass at the desired intensity. While it might seem odd for a westerner, after trying it I concluded that’s it’s actually really hygienic as you don’t need to use your hands !

Gambling is a big thing in Japan. Everywhere you walk there are many crowded facilities hosting pachinko machines (some sort of Japanese video slot machine) where Japanese spend hours if not days winning the balls and exchanging them outside for money (gambling is technically illegal). Other places allow you to bet on virtual horse racing !!

The thing that strikes me in Japan is how polite people are. The customer service is the best I have ever experienced, light years away from customer service in China. Taxi drivers here are all wearing suits, white gloves and bow tie. Anywhere you go, you are greeted with a (commercial) smile. Some random pictures of Osaka:

I went out to try Spa world which is the biggest in Osaka. Similarly to Korea, they have a lot of facilities inside and people are walking around naked; the main difference being that Japanese fathers were bringing their daughters to the male baths. One of them, upon seeing my white face waved at me with big smile which was a rather awkward moment as I did not know how I should react or if that’s something I should consider as being normal ?!

After having seen the main sights at Osaka, I went to Kyoto, a mere 30min away by train. Kyoto was the imperial capital of Japan for 1000years+ and has a large amounts of old buildings and the locals there are deeply attached to their traditions. It was absolutely beautiful. I went to Gion (=Geisha Alley ) hoping to spot a Geisha and snap a picture of one of them but to no luck :(

Next day, I went out to Kobe which suffered a devastating earthquake in 1995. The city was rather new due to that disaster so was quite interesting to walk around.

On weekend, a typhoon was closing on Japan and I got a message from my airline that my flight was delayed. I had an outbound flight to take to Singapore, luckily it got only delayed by 10 hours; the worst of the typhoon happening on Saturday.