Riley and I are currently in Japan for the week for a nuclear conference. We were busy and did not really research Japan much before leaving. We figured we had already gotten used to one East Asian country, how different could the one next to it be?
Japan is NOT like Korea. The people are different, the food is different, the landscape is different, the numbers are different. Actually, Japan is much more the stereotypical Asian country that we heard about in America. We've been exploring the city the conference is in, Chiba, and there are places where we will go "Oh, this is why we keep seeing canals, trains and cats in anime."
The first night we were here, we went to the waterfront at sunset. There was a flock of ducks in front of us, we could see the bay across from us, to the right was the silhouette of Mt. Fuji, and to the left was a 4 deck boat all lit up. It was amazing! I felt like I was in an anime.
The food here is amazing too! We had a noodle soup that was sooo good and Riley got dumplings with what we think was real Wasabi sauce! We also had fish with fresh ginger and rice with seaweed. the strangest thing is, there was no kimchi! (We found some in the grocery store though.) They also don't always use spoons here, we had to drink our soup (unlike Korea where there is always a spoon with your chopsticks and where you NEVER drink your soup).
We've been taking the train a lot to get to interesting places, and the most amazing thing is the open space. There are not only no mountains in this area of Japan, there are also very few high rises. People live in 2 story houses (we think there are multiple families per house, but we can't really tell). In Korea things feel crowded because there isn't much flat land, but Japan is much more spread out. Things here are also older. In Japan so far, the land feels more like America, but the culture seems more Asian.
Fascinating!
ReplyDelete