Flying into Osaka from Singapore, after a long flight from Adelaide, South Australia, Anya and I were greeted by very long cues at customs. Tourism was back to normal after the years of Covid and evidently the Japanese weren’t prepared for it. It took us two hours to get through customs, after which we had to walk to the adjoining railway station to buy a ticket to Nara, south of Osaka. Late in the day, this was the sight which greeted us:
Standing in yet another cue, we finally got a ticket and discovered we had to change trains on the way to Nara and it was rush hour. At the station where we had to change trains we greeted by another intimidating sight. Amusing how arriving in a strange country, the simplest tasks such as making one’s way on the public transport system, becomes an adventure in itself. Also easy to see how sometimes foreign tourists lose each other at these stations especially during the busy times of day.
So too, the everyday for the people living in the strange new landscape is the obscure for the first time traveller. These drink vending machines for examaple are absolutely ubiquitous in Japan; they can be found in many a side street and even in small villages. Some of the drinks are to quench thirst, others are caffeine hits.
It took us some time to work out how to use them!
Amusing image of a ‘big boss’!
Cash – notes and a bewildering diversity of coins – are commonly used in Japan unlike other modern nations which have become pretty much card economies. At the drinks dispensers to the check outs at supermarkets, from buying tickets at bus and railway stations, it is normal to use notes and coins – which are fed into a machine and the change delivered within a very short space of time.
Rooms in Japan are often very small (unless you can afford a luxury room in a big hotel). Rental apartments, our preference mostly, are few and far between.
This was our first decent sized room in Japan, the only drawback being the bedding – thin matrasses on the floor and and total absence of chairs or anything to sit on.
This place had somewhere to sit ok but….the ‘chairs’ were not exactly inviting, although I must say, after a few days we started to actually get used to them – in the same way we got used to sleeping on a thin mattrass on the floor and having to organise our stuff in a small room.
We went on long walks whereever we were. Invariably, at the outer margins of the towns and cities, there temples…….
Another idiosyncrasy we soon noticed during our walks were the graveyards, often quite small and seemingly scattered about in the oddest places – sometimes in people’s backyards and in this photo near a railway station. Death in Japan involves a complex set of rituals conducted by Buddhist priests and attended by family and relatives. It underlines the prominent role played by tradition in this ultra modern society. Family and extended family graves are commonplace. The bodies are cremated at a lower temperature than is normal in western nations, burning away the flesh and leaving the bones. The ash is unimportant and usually tossed away; the bones are seen as the essence of the departed soul and it is these are consigned to the earth with a column placed on top.
Pedestrian crossings are sacrosanct. When the lights for the crossing turn green, the traffic comes to a grinding halt. It is unthinkable that a driver try to creep over the crossing when a space appears between the people using the crossing. A far cry indeed from Australia (which in any case has very few pedestrian crossings) and The Netherlands (where you have to be very careful before venturing to use the officially designated crossing). It was something we appreciated during our long walks around the Japanese cities and towns and demonstrates all the advantages of a nation with a strong civic culture.
A poster for the latest regional elections in Japan which returned an unprecedented number of young people and women.
The Japanese cusuine is based on fish, noodles and rice. Personally we prefer the spicy cuisines of India and Thailand. Still, eating out in Japan is an experience….
An advertisment for cosmetics. I’m not much interested in advertising, but this one caught my eye…
Whilst the railway stations in the cities are usually frenetic, in the towns it’s the opposite: vault like places, empty, silent and unbelievably clean.
Wandering Pete 