The day without a night
You ever get that feeling that your doing something your not supposed to, and yet you keep on pushing yourself further and further into it? Well I just did that for about 26 hours strait.
I somehow survived the planes, though I must say they where some of the worse experiences of my life. I vow to myself to never get in another small plane. They just seem to expendable... the 747 on the other hand was alot nicer, though I honestly thought the flight would never end. When it took me only 3 hours to fly across the U.S.A., and I was looking down on the Great Lakes, I thought to myself that the world must be alot smaller then I thought. But when I was on my 12th hour of my flight towards Japan, going along the Russian coastline, I was seriously wondering why people travel at all to put themselves through this misery.
But now I'm in Japan finally, but honestly it still hasn't really hit me fully yet. I think its starting to seep in though, specially when I walked outside and saw a mountain. The dozen Pachinko buildings on my ride to the house I'm staying at was another clue too.
I hate Houston because I always felt it was so cluttered and nasty with all the signs everywhere. Japan has about 10 times as many signs, but for some reason it really doesn't look bad. I think maybe because there's so much more room vertically, or the layout is so much more organized, I can't really tell. But walking from station to station, I'm kinda reminded of the inside of a nice decorative mall. The style they have everywhere is very subtle with the exception of the showy street business sections. Even the places that aren't highly developed with skyscraper apartments are great in their own way. I have a hard time describing this really... The best I can come up with is a clean industrial grunge. I saw a little alley that I wanted to take a picture of that would have shown my words perfectly, but I didn't really want to stop in the middle of a train station and pull out a camera. Something about a little too touristy. But a low built wooden building with a loan street-light down an old road, traveled by only one person with an umbrella as it rained... it was a great sight.
Japan is definitely different, specially in the suburbia area. It reminds me of alot of the 1950's Americana you see on TV... like Leave it to Beaver or whatever that show is. Except you know, there's Japanese people everywhere and I can't read the street signs. Everything is so active here too. Just listening to the sounds as I slept. The house is opened up alot so I could hear families cooking breakfast, people heading to work, dogs barking, delivery drivers going door to door. I've really never gotten that effect in the U.S.A. where everything is alot more spread apart.
I will admit though its already hard being here. Not knowing enough of anything to get around and having to rely 100% on other people to get around and do anything. Its a bit testing on the nerves. But I'm glad to be here... mainly because I am so glad to be off of that plane where I went for 24 hours without ever seeing the night because we where going faster then it.
I'll try to get some pictures later, but have to get going as of now. I just feel impolite sitting on the internet the whole time.
I'll leave y'all with a few noted commentary on my opinions of Japan and flying:
*Yelling there's snakes on a plane doesn't get a good response from a plane full of Japanese people.
*A fun game to play when on a flight all the way across the world is called the "Never use the restroom the entire flight" game.
*Japanese girls are the smartest people on Earth as they all have hand-held Nintendo games on flights.
*Jet lag and getting accustomed to the new time zones isn't an issue when you don't sleep for 3 days before getting to your destination.
*A good excuse to not telling Japanese people my weight when they inquire is that I don't know metric.
*Japanese people love neon lights.
*Japanese school girls do exist.
*Japanese tubs can be lethal when they are 4 feet lower then the shower area next to them. Don't fall.
*A good way to not have people like you is to carry 2 suitcases and 2 bags onto a extremely crowded train and/or bus.
*Japan makes you sweat alot.
*The only thing that beats the number of McDonalds in Japan is Pachinko joints.
*Pachinko is expensive.
*When you loose all your money playing Pachinko, they kick you out.
*They will not give you train money if you loose it playing Pachinko.
*Gaijin good luck powers work as the royal family had a son like I said they would.
*Japanese toilets are indeed the coolest things in the world.
I somehow survived the planes, though I must say they where some of the worse experiences of my life. I vow to myself to never get in another small plane. They just seem to expendable... the 747 on the other hand was alot nicer, though I honestly thought the flight would never end. When it took me only 3 hours to fly across the U.S.A., and I was looking down on the Great Lakes, I thought to myself that the world must be alot smaller then I thought. But when I was on my 12th hour of my flight towards Japan, going along the Russian coastline, I was seriously wondering why people travel at all to put themselves through this misery.
But now I'm in Japan finally, but honestly it still hasn't really hit me fully yet. I think its starting to seep in though, specially when I walked outside and saw a mountain. The dozen Pachinko buildings on my ride to the house I'm staying at was another clue too.
I hate Houston because I always felt it was so cluttered and nasty with all the signs everywhere. Japan has about 10 times as many signs, but for some reason it really doesn't look bad. I think maybe because there's so much more room vertically, or the layout is so much more organized, I can't really tell. But walking from station to station, I'm kinda reminded of the inside of a nice decorative mall. The style they have everywhere is very subtle with the exception of the showy street business sections. Even the places that aren't highly developed with skyscraper apartments are great in their own way. I have a hard time describing this really... The best I can come up with is a clean industrial grunge. I saw a little alley that I wanted to take a picture of that would have shown my words perfectly, but I didn't really want to stop in the middle of a train station and pull out a camera. Something about a little too touristy. But a low built wooden building with a loan street-light down an old road, traveled by only one person with an umbrella as it rained... it was a great sight.
Japan is definitely different, specially in the suburbia area. It reminds me of alot of the 1950's Americana you see on TV... like Leave it to Beaver or whatever that show is. Except you know, there's Japanese people everywhere and I can't read the street signs. Everything is so active here too. Just listening to the sounds as I slept. The house is opened up alot so I could hear families cooking breakfast, people heading to work, dogs barking, delivery drivers going door to door. I've really never gotten that effect in the U.S.A. where everything is alot more spread apart.
I will admit though its already hard being here. Not knowing enough of anything to get around and having to rely 100% on other people to get around and do anything. Its a bit testing on the nerves. But I'm glad to be here... mainly because I am so glad to be off of that plane where I went for 24 hours without ever seeing the night because we where going faster then it.
I'll try to get some pictures later, but have to get going as of now. I just feel impolite sitting on the internet the whole time.
I'll leave y'all with a few noted commentary on my opinions of Japan and flying:
*Yelling there's snakes on a plane doesn't get a good response from a plane full of Japanese people.
*A fun game to play when on a flight all the way across the world is called the "Never use the restroom the entire flight" game.
*Japanese girls are the smartest people on Earth as they all have hand-held Nintendo games on flights.
*Jet lag and getting accustomed to the new time zones isn't an issue when you don't sleep for 3 days before getting to your destination.
*A good excuse to not telling Japanese people my weight when they inquire is that I don't know metric.
*Japanese people love neon lights.
*Japanese school girls do exist.
*Japanese tubs can be lethal when they are 4 feet lower then the shower area next to them. Don't fall.
*A good way to not have people like you is to carry 2 suitcases and 2 bags onto a extremely crowded train and/or bus.
*Japan makes you sweat alot.
*The only thing that beats the number of McDonalds in Japan is Pachinko joints.
*Pachinko is expensive.
*When you loose all your money playing Pachinko, they kick you out.
*They will not give you train money if you loose it playing Pachinko.
*Gaijin good luck powers work as the royal family had a son like I said they would.
*Japanese toilets are indeed the coolest things in the world.
posted by BrookieDragon at 9:29 PM
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