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Japanese society is very efficient, probably as much as Korean one but they give a lot more importance to quality and details. They are extremely polite, even a bit more than the Korean people. Korean people, as individuals tend to think only in themselves and their family while in Japan, people care a lot more about their neighbors. The two countries have strong nationalistic identities.

The night culture is completely different. In Korea it is completely normal and accepted to be completely drunk at night (even in the mornings) and the people only care when drunk people start fighting with each other or puking in the streets. In Japan people drink a lot but not as much. We only saw one drunk man and the people were completely annoyed with him.

About the language, It was very strange for me to discover that Korean people speak better English than Japanese. Japan has been always more foreign friendly and there are lots of foreigners in Japan but it seems that they are more attached to their language and culture than Koreans.

The cities look completely different. Korean streets are always packed with lots of stores and restaurants in the main floor. Furthermore the Korean streets are full of signs. The Japanese streets are cleaner, don’t have as many signs (only in the trendy districts) and they don’t have as many stores and restaurants. Also the restaurants and stores have a lot more style. Most of the Korean stores are clearly familiar businesses, while in Japan they look like in Europe. The Korean ones are always cheaper.

I start speaking about prices. Japan is not as expensive as it was before. Of course is still the most expensive country in Asia and for example most of the things cost twice as in Korea, but it is still cheap in comparison with the broken Spanish economy.

In Japan the manga obsession is a completely different chapter. There is manga for all kind of people. There is manga for kids, for teenagers, for blue collar workers, for housewives, for executives and I’m pretty sure there is also manga for old people. In Japan manga is considered another form of literature and the topics are surprinsingly various although in the magazines there are always pretty girls with tight clothes on the front covers. It’s interesting that Japanese people read books and magazines starting from what in my occidental perspective is the back cover so they flip the pages from the left to the right. This is another example of why in Japan everything is upside down.

About the language, they use what can be the most bizarre written language ever. They combine 2 different Japanese scripts (Katakana and Hiragana) with Chinese (Kanji) words. It must be a very complicated language to master. In spite of that, the pronunciation is pretty simple and compatible with English speakers. It’s not as easy for me, but all of you know my limitations with phonetics and singing.

After visiting the country I can say that I really like it, and it’s a very nice country to live… if you have the money!

Hiroshima was our last stop in Japan before returning to Seoul (You can also read my Kyoto and Tokyo experiences). We got the Shinkansen in Tokyo early in the morning and we arrived at Hiroshima around 12, so we only stayed there for half a day which was enough to have a glimpse of the city.

Memorial park, at the front the flame that will be on as long as atomic weapons are considered weaponry

We visited the Atomic Bomb museum and we were also sightseeing the different memorials they have in the public park for the Korean people and the children of the first atomic attack in history. The museum is really good and it shows in a very clear way the tragedy this city suffered in August 1945. In the museum there is the famous clock that stopped at the exact time of the attack and other personal objects of the people that were close to the epicenter at the time of the tragedy.

The A-dome

Hiroshima was completely devastated. All the wood based buildings of the city (5km radius at that time) were destroyed and all the earthquake-ready concrete based were in ruins or completely destroyed. It is estimated that 160000 people died in the first months as a direct consequence of the attack but around 5000 people died every year since then as consequence of the radiation effects.

Paper cranes

The most famous case is Sadako Sakasi, which was 2 years old at the time of the attack. She was surprisingly intact after the bomb, but she got leukemia after 10 years. Then she started to make paper cranes because it is a Japanese belief that the cranes can make your wish come true. She wanted to make 1000 cranes wishing to stay alive but died before it was completed. After that, her classmates finished her work. Now the cranes are the symbol of the city and everyday the memorials receive thousands of paper cranes made by people all around the world.

Children memorial

Hiroshima is mainly known because of the bomb attack but there are other interesting sights. In the night we got a ferry to visit the famous flooded Tori in the entrance of the Miyajima buddist shrine on Miyajima island. This is considered one of the most beautiful places in Japan but we got there a bit late and we only had time to see the Tori from the boat, a bit far to make a good picture.

The clock stopped at the time of the attack

The next day we got the Shinkansen to Fukouka just on time to get the ferry to come back to South Korea.

Tokyo is the current capital of Japan and is where you can see modern Japanese culture and society. The first place we visited was the Imperial Palace’s east garden which is very close to Tokyo Station and it’s the only part of the palace open for visitors.

After being in Kyoto for two days we were quite tired of visiting gardens,temples and shrines so next place we visited was Akihabara, the electronic and manga district. Here we started to understand why these people are obsessed with videogames (It’s pretty hard to find other than Japanese games here) and manga. The arcades are also interesting with lots of cloth/catching machines where you can play for weird giant stuffed animals or videogames, or candy or ice cream or the weirdest things.

After Akibahara we headed to check in to our place. In Tokyo we stayed in a Ryokan, which is a traditional Japanese inn. I really loved this place, with the minimalist furniture and decoration concept and sleeping on the floor on Japanese tatamis. I understand it may not be a very practical way to live, but I love this concept anyway.

In the night we visited Tokyo Tower and we could see the beautiful night skyline of the city. After that we had dinner with Yuki, a very nice couchsurfer that helped us a lot providing lots of information about the places and the culture. If you ever read this, thank you for the wonderful dinner Yuki!

The next day we visited Harajuku, the fashion street where the young Tokyo people develop new radical styles. The street is a fashion show of fascinating people wearing shocking styles. There are general trends, like the girls that wear gothic lolita and sweet lolita and a lot of guys dressing with Visual Key style, but I have the feeling that here everybody creates their own style.

After being tired of the shopping, we headed for Shibuya, the famous extremely busy intersection where lots of people cross from one side of the street to another like ants. It’s fascinating to stay here for some minutes and see how the people accumulate close to the crosswalk while waiting for the lights to change color, and see the people moving in different directions sewing themselves with the people that come from the other side.

After Shibuya we went to Shinjinku and we walk around the Kabukichō entertainment and red light district. We went there in the daylight and it was clearly not a good idea because we could not see anything interesting. After that we went to Tokyo bay and we enjoyed the skyline watching the sunset.

Soon, we headed to Asakusa, where we saw Sensō-ji, the most famous Buddist temple in Tokyo. Here I met my friend Ines who is working on an internship in Tokyo. We had sushi together and then we come back to Shinjuku in the night, which was lighted on, and it looked extremely busy and pretty different in comparison with the boring district we saw a few hours before.

Two days in the city. Not enough to explore throughfully one of the biggest and characteristic urban areas in the world, but enough to have a glimpse of this dynamic city. Early in the morning the next day we got the Shinkansen to Hiroshima.

Kyoto is the old capital of the Japanese empire and is still considered the cultural center of the Japanese culture. Is very close to Osaka, merely 30 minutes in a regular train. Other cities in the Kensai province are Nara and Kobe. In this part of the country there are thousands of temples and shrines, 300 hundred of them only in Kyoto.

We stayed in Kyoto two days to have a glimpse of the Japanese traditional culture. In our first day we visited the Higashi and Nishi Honganji Temple and we had lunch in Shosei-en which is a traditional Japanese garden.

Playing in Shosei-en

We were couchsurfing in Kyoto with Makoto, a very kind Japanese guy that offered us to stay in his guest house. In case you ever read this, thank you for your hospitality Makato!

The next day we visited the famous Fushimi Inari Shrine (伏見稲荷大社 Fushimi-Inari-taisha) where the famous tunnel made of thousands of individual orange Torii is. This is considered one of the most beautiful places in Japan and it has appeared in lots of movies. Each one of the Torii represent a wish and you can walk all the way up to another shrine in the top. In the Shinto shrine at the top we ask for a blessing for our future.

After that we went to the Kiyomizu-dera (清水寺) temple, and later on we walk around Kyoto visiting other buddist temples and Shinto shrines. In the evening we went to Gion.

Gion (祇園) is the traditional Geisha district. If you haven’t yet, you should read Memories of a Geisha which I seriously recommend to have a picture of what a geisha duties are and what Gion is. There are only around 300 Geishas left in Japan, out of them 80 are in Kyoto. We started walking through Gion and we realized that nowadays it is a strange place where old teahouses are in the same street of (strip)clubs and martini bars just besides traditional restaurants.

We didn’t want to leave Kyoto without seeing a Geisha so we stayed in front of a big teahouse where expensive European cars were waiting in front of the entrance. After a few minutes, the Geishas started to appear in the streets. We were lucky because we saw 5 of them. They don’t mind the people making pictures but they don’t pose, so at the end we were like paparazzi, pursuing them in the rain of Gion’s streets.

Geisha on Gion district

After seeing the Geishas we felt that we had done everything we wanted to do in Kyoto and the next day we got the Shinkansen to Tokyo.

Today we left Seoul to start our Japanese adventure. We took the KTX from Seoul to Busan, and then the ferry from Busan to Fukouka. Normally the ferry takes 12 hours but we got our tickets for the jet boat (it’s name is Beetle). The beetle is clearly faster than other boats and we were frequently passing them like if it was a race. The boat is surprisingly stable and this has been my first boat experience without getting seasick.

The japanese railpass and the korean-japan pass. The boat is the beetle, a very fast hydrofoil.

Once in Fukouka, we pass customs (Japanese customs are very exhaustive, you need to give them the fingertips and they take a picture your face) and we went directly to the train station. Once there, we got the Japanese Railpass. This special ticket works the same way as the Eurorail, meaning you can get as many trains as you want during a time period. Unlike the Eurorail you can use the JP Railpass on the bullet trains which in Japan are called Shinkanshen. Actually I’m writing this text on the Shinkanshen on our way to Kyoto, 12 hours after leaving home from Seoul.

Shinkansen train entering in the station.

Between the AVE,the KTX and the Shinkanshen I’m starting to get used to bullet trains and I don’t know what I will do when I take a normal train!

We arrived in Kyoto very late and everything was closed. We tried to find a place to sleep but the hostels were closed or full so at the end we got a room in a Hotel (almost breaking the budget of the entire trip but we are too tired to sleep on the street and hey, this is my first time in Japan!)
One good thing about hotels is that they have free internet access and here I am, blogging almost on real time for the first time ever!.