After the previous mentally exhausting week of Chinese New Year, we shipped ourselves straight off to Japan with the most expensive budget flights you can possibly imagine due to our last minute planning. The tickets weren't that much cheaper than flights to England. Devastating, but we pulled that trigger anyway.
So we drove to Hong Kong and flew over to experience a kind of pseudo-honeymoon, a practice run, in a country I had somehow never visited despite perpetually living next door to it my entire adult life and loving much of the culture about the place.
We were first staying in Tokyo for a short stint of 2 days.
My thoughts about Tokyo are somewhat... mixed.
Coming from a big city my whole adult life, it wasn't exactly dazzling me with tall buildings and neon lights, and the idea of it being some hyper advanced technoland is just a myth, especially given how they still don't seem to have gotten a grasp on digital payment methods.
We had such a short initial stay there that it's not very fair to give a proper opinion on it being good or bad. It would be like saying the whole of USA sucks because you had a bad transfer experience in LAX airport.
That being said, I was often flabbergasted at just how different Tokyo and Japan overall was compared to China, from its people to its culture. they're right next door to each other, and yet couldn't be more different.
Part 2: Observations in Japan
Being there such a short time, I could only really grasp the most immediate. The first thing that practically slapped us in the face was perhaps one of the most renowned stereotypes:
Politeness
The level of manners being executed across Japan is absurd. We got to our hotel and they started bowing at 90 degree angles, yelling at how pleased and grateful they were for our stay. A woman took us to the elevator saying thank you about 7 times before another huge bow.
You might think it's just a touristy thing, but it's not. It's everywhere. You're walking down a regular street and see two business colleagues in their classic Japanese suit/briefcase combos, giving each other HUGE bows as they split up to go home with all kinds of verbal mumbo jumbo exchanging pleasantries.
That being said, it was also quite... suffocating. It does seem clear it's mostly quite forced - to what extent, I'm not sure, but there were moments it was obvious they were hiding their discontent.
It's quiet, so quiet
Continuing with the manners, the next thing that hit us was the extreme quietness. Like, it's not just quiet, it's noise-cancelling headphones quiet. We went to a famous park and felt like we had to whisper wherever we walked. Everything was unnaturally muffled somehow.
They took the quiet signs seriously. Announcements on the metro make it very clear to turn your phone on silent, do not take phone calls! Subways, elevators, streets, hotels... hell, even the Karaoke building we went in. Eerily quiet.
It's such a refreshing change from the free-for-all, every-man-for-himself China, I have to say, but there's a time and a place for both ways - both are pretty difficult to endure for a lifetime, if you ask me.
It's vibing.
The vibe of the place is, well, vibrant. Although the physical colours such as in fashion are very muted in tone, there is clearly great taste in fashion overall, even from my relatively blind male perspective.
All the girls are dressed cute, all the guys are well maintained. Even the old folks know how to dress, and suitably for their age. It's almost as if they're all in communication with each other about what they're going to wear each day and they coordinate accordingly.
The truly vibin' lit no cap places like Shinjuku at night are unfortunately infiltrated by white people trying to get laid and/or drunk, which takes a lot of the local charm away, but it's still clear what it's meant to be, and it's pretty damn cool.
Like Korea, perhaps more so, Japan is seemingly full of secrets. Secret cafes, bars, clubs, shows, things that don't show up online. Sketchy places with no names where you might run into the yakuza if you're not careful. I love this feature.
It's strange to hear the country in recession, a falling population, nobody breeding, losing in the global race to prosperity. It certainly didn't feel like it.
The Food... Oh man the food.
Look, I don't like seafood. Japan is NOT the place to visit for people like me. But I DO get along with sushi, especially the safe stuff like Salmon and Tuna.
We went to a high end, michelin, must-reserve place and I promised to try every single dish from the Omakase menu, basically like a 10+ course meal of sushi of all different kinds crafted in front of you by a master chef, paired with different types of sake (Japanese alcohol). Each gets a bit of explanation by the chef who spoke pretty good English.
Despite my distaste for most seafood, I ate - and ENJOYED - all but one (urchin) which I gave to my wife who was more than happy to oblige (her favourite dish...)
Everything else we ate every day hovered consistently around the 'incredible' mark. Why can't British cooks give a shit about their food like in Japan??
The music, FINALLY
One thing I truly suffer from every day living in China is my exposure to its music. In all public places, you get the same formula copy-pasted hundreds of thousands of times across the landscape, in every chart. If you think Western pop music is samey, try C-pop. It's insufferable. I did an analytical rundown recently about how and why it's the case.
Not so in Japan. I'd say the majority of music I heard all over was very... anime-intro-like. If you know, you know.
But that's hardly a bad thing. In and of itself we're already hitting a very diverse and varied range of music. But even hitting the malls, you hear real jazz. Stores playing The Japanese House was really getting the vibe going. Like, music I legit love already, or was loving listening to.
It felt like malls and other establishments were paying somebody experienced to create a big, stylish playlist, rather than just hitting 'play' on 'Jpop'. It was fantastic. Even the subway station and airport alarms and signals were musically magnificent.
I know it doesn't mean anything to most people, but to me it was like finally swimming up from underwater and taking my first breath of fresh air right before drowning.
Overall, every stereotype of Japan seems to run strongly true, and yet the nuance takes some of the positives away. We will 100% be going back at least twice more.
Now. How did we get all these aching bones and bruises I mentioned previously?
Part 3 incoming (which is what I really wanna share)