Next Stop…
What country is full of young people drowned in work, awash in money, obsessed with fashion, equipped with the hottest mobile gadgets, consuming excessive amounts of alcohol, sugar and fried foods, and displaying a relentless penchants with all things cute?
The United States? No, actually, Japan.
Nippon Air Flight 723, departing from Beijing, touched down at Narita Airport on the outskirts of Tokyo. As the plane came to a standstill on the tarmac, Erick and I gathered our things ready to sample exquisite sushi, sip fine sake, nap in quaint Japanese inns, tip toe through delicate temple gardens and bow softly to passing geishas—boy, oh, boy, were we in for quite the case of outdated-stereotype shock!
Tokyo is a pulsating and bubbling cauldron of millions of obsessive Japanese preoccupied with the glowing objects of modernity, the city ablaze in radiant neon, speeding trains, shimmering towers, and the occasional glowing lantern—the whole scene awash in modern progress that is not content with bowing to anyone. Leave your images of anything quaint behind, cause baby, this is Tokyo. Temple crawls (complete with sake chasers), tube hotels, all you can drink specials (the infamous 飲み放題 “no mi ho dai”), Japanese saunas, door-to-door love hotel searches, and fish semen. That, in a sentence, sums up our time in Tokyo.
For more explanation, you’ll have to keep up with the next few posts as I begin to share our adventures in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Domo arigato. Welcome to Japan.
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:48 am
Okay Andy … I’ve decided that your blog is Google Reader worthy, you’ve been officially added and now will be tracked by me. With this honor comes some responsibility on your part. I think that I, along with those other Stoll followers, should have some choice in where you go next. I think you should go to South Korea and get the real scoop on what the heck is happening with the Nuke talks – how do the locals feel about it… Then my vote would be for a trip to Thailand to see how they are recovering from the Tsunami of ’04. It’s been over two years now and I would like an update. Alternatively, how do you feel about giving us a list of 5 places you would like to see and letting us vote on where you go? Finally, I would like to see some pictures of your passport stamps – it is a good way for me to track where you have been and to allow me to travel vicariously through you…
Your former UISG colleague.
Brian
March 22nd, 2007 at 8:27 am
Brian- Ok without trying to sound like a politician here (you know a thing or 2 about that eh?) I will agree to the idea in spirit (if only to get Google Reader/RSS Feed votes). At some point in this trip I will let the readers of this blog vote on my next stop—from a list of multiple choices. Yes, you can quote me on it. I’m going to have to build readership though, because if I did it now and included ALL my regular readers, between my mom and you, well I’d have to give a bit more weight to my mom’s vote.
Thailand will be on the trip for sure. Korea is 50/50, but I have a friend now headed there in the fall, so that increases the chances of a stop there. In other news, mongolia’s now got a much better chance after I was enlighted about the country by some new friends of mine from there. I am still trying to weasle someway of getting some sort of glimpse into North Korea…..but I’m told that is not likely. (I would go in a heart beat though if offered the chance.)
Ok, I’ll start working on that multiple-choice llist of places to go for you crazy American’s that believe so strongly in this idea of a democratic vote