Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Why I love Japan

It seems only fair that I should have a post on the things I love about Japan, since more often than not I talk about what I hate about it. There are two things I love about Japan:

1. Friends
2. Food

I often say that happiness = good friends + good food + good conversation. It's really as simple as that. I've been so fortunate to meet some fantastic people in Tokyo as well as had El Hombre, family and friends visit me throughout the year. Those people, combined with the endless choices of delicious food...well, when I don't hate Japan, I absolutely love it.

Last night I managed to get out of work early in exchange for promising to dial in to a late night conference call from home. For two hours, I ate delicious herbed fries, scallop and broccoli rabe pasta, grilled fish salad and charcuterie while laughing my head off and I felt: alive. Then I had to head home to face 2 hours of inane phone calls and a little part of me died again. However, the two hours of fun time made me more alive than work managed to kill, so net sum for the day was positive.

So those are the only two reasons I love Japan, but there are also tons of reasons why I LIKE Japan:
- awesome toilet technology
- clean
- always on time
- safe
- winter (I LOVE winter in Japan)
- on my walk home from work, there's this one spot that just SMELLS like Asia...kind of like incense, burning leaves and mosquito repellant coil. It's a smell that reminds me of my childhood and I LOVE IT. Everytime I walk past that spot and smell it, I feel a little surge of nostalgia.
- attention to detail in everything
- no obese people (I really dislike looking at obese people, I know that makes me mean and shallow, so what)
- dedication to quality
- delicious creamy milk
- delicious creamy ice cream flavors such as Honey Milk and Green Tea & Cookies
- a wide selection of non-carbonated, non-sweetened beverages
- random only-in-Japan stuff that tickles me (although sometimes also annoys me)

Ah, I will miss this place. But my relief at leaving this place will far exceed how much I will miss it.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

interesting, i see a lot of obese ppl on the trains, surprisingly! have you noticed that a lot of japanese ppl have tree trunk legs? i'm convinced it's some genetic defect. like their ankles are THICK. also, lots of quasi-dwarves (short with big heads). ok, i know i sound totally retarded here.

btw, i didn't know you didn't like obese ppl. i just feel bad / uncomfortable around them.

i miss all those milky flavors too. milk ice cream is the best. but hey, i think you can get some of that at the asian grocery stores in cali?? will take a look.

--g

June 18, 2010 at 3:21 AM
Anonymous said...

so i noticed a few things about japan when i returned, most of which confirms what you've felt:

1. Sense of oppression is pervasive! Walking around in Tokyo, I didn't notice at the time, but I was constantly thinking: am I walking on the right side of the stairs? Am I standing in the wrong spot? Yesterday, I went up the crowded side of the stairs and then realized, wait, i have FREEDOM here, what am I doing!?

2. People in Tokyo can walk efficiently in large crowds because Tokyo does have as many idiotic pea-brain morons who have no sense of their surroundings. Here, you have to constantly dodge people because nobody is paying attention to where they are going. America is basically full of tourists in comparison to tokyo (i.e. compared to Tokyo-ites, NY-ers actually are what we usually think about tourists!).

3. There are no trashcans in Japan. But there are no city-employed trash picker uppers either. I think the world would be cleaner if everyone was required to take their own trash to the dump. Or.. it'd be dirtier... hmm.

HI G, comment buddy!!
-P

June 18, 2010 at 10:40 AM

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