Japan and Japanese Culture - The conclusion

Happy New Year everyone. I hope everyone had a great start into the year and will continue to be great (and if not, I hope it gets better).

I returned now from my holidays back to good ol' London. Back to work and nearly back to normality. Looks like a good time to write about my final thoughts and observations about Japan.

Overall I enjoyed Japan a lot and hope to be back one day to see more of this beautiful country. It might be small compared to others like Australia, but rich on diversity and beautiful scenery.

Doing research on a country brings certain expectations and hopes to maybe experience certain things (even though some are related to certain seasons like the cherry blossoms). I was even afraid to a certain degree which is usual when traveling to an unknown country, but none of my fears were actually confirmed or came true. An example would be the Tokyo Transport System, I really didn't understand how someone would not be able to understand the system, but then again I live in London where there are similarities (e. g. Oyster Card) so I knew already how it works. I would understand if someone barely travels and never experienced a similar system to be scared.

What I have learned and experienced in Japan



- People and Bowing
I am a person that is distant and only hug close friends and family. Also I am not really into cheek kisses, so the change of greeting and distant was very much welcome and I felt respected. Of course I bowed as well to show respect. Once you do it, it will just happen automatically after a while.

The people were in general very lovely and not as grumpy as I had expected (at least in Tokyo). Some tried really hard to understand me, sometimes they spoke to me out of the blue. I never felt ignored and when I asked for help I got it without hesitation. 

- Male and females in Business suits
Not only the man are running around in a black suit, black jacket, black scarf, black umbrella  but also the females have a certain style that defines them as Office Ladies (even though they do vary sometimes). Compared to the Western World, where people wear colorful clothes and mixed styles, you could clearly see that a certain outfit is standard and by all means you don't want to stand out.

- Following the rules
They do that with perfection, at least what I saw. I am sure like everywhere else in this world there are exceptions.

- Being respectful in nearly every way
They ensure to show respect, whether they mean it or not is a different question.

- Everything is packed with cuteness and animations
No matter where you go or look at. The supermarket, convenient store, all shops you have everywhere little animations from mostly Manga's. Hello Kitty of course was everywhere.  All very colorful and bright. Go to the Berlin Suburbs and I bet you would start to cry after you have been in Japan about the grey sadness.

- Great food
That of course is a no-brainer. Maybe some knew that already, but Sushi is actually not a everyday meal for Japanese people and actually fairly expensive. Sashimi as well is served in small portions and not on the table every day. But chicken, veggies, fish sausage, eggs are all daily intakes.

- Recycling
I thought the Germans were already mad with recycling, but Japan is bringing this to a whole new level. They even separate the lid from the plastic bottle.

- Ads
There is a surprising large amount of ads with Caucasians.

- Consuming
I did get the impression that despite the small places the people buy all kind of junk, whether they need it or not. And knowingly even small things can turn into a large collection.

- Religion
I think I have never been to a country where no religion was thrown into my face. Nothing against it by all means, but usually Religion is present no matter where you go. No so in Japan, it was more like that they believe in what they believe and didn't care about the outside world as long as you have respect. The shrines and temples of course are always present, but more in a quiet none threatening way. Difficult to put this one into a certain place or give it a name, but I felt comfortable with how they treated their religion and traditions.

- No scam
There might be dodgy places, however I did not come across it. I started to simply trust the people and wasn't suspicious if they might want to sell me a overly expensive deal like the agencies in Cambodia or Thailand would do just to get some extra money out of me. The treated everyone the same, no matter if you were Japanese or foreigner you paid the same price.

- Traffic light music
I enjoyed the fact that there was music instead of a beeping when the traffic light was switched to green for pedestrians.

- Train Stations
All stations in general were clean, trains always so on time (at least mine) you could adjust your watch to the correct time. I also liked the fact that they queued and let people out, in and outside the rush hour.

- Bathroom and Toilet
I never thought I would actually like the heated toilet seats, but not sitting on a freezing seat was such a relief!  They also keep their toilet paper warm. Additional to that I loved the construction of a build in sink into the flushing tank, so that you could wash your hands with the water that runs into the tank and will be used later for flushing. Genius!

There were more impressions on a small scale and of course I had also some not so pleasant experience, but the good ones outweigh them heavily.

I hope you enjoyed the little read and read you next time again with some random entries :)

Happy Travels!