as you may know I visited japan recently and here's my consumer report:

- japan is not expensive. the flight may be expensive, and maybe your tour is expensive, but the food, lodging or travel isn't. eating traditional japanese food in a restaurant there is less expensive than eating traditional belgian food in a belgian restaurant. even fucking mcdonalds is cheaper.

- japan is not populated by compulsive bigots. the people there are kind and friendly and curious - just stay away from the places where tourists make asses of themselves. japanese people, even the nice ones, are not used to unshaven, long haired westerners.

- the food is spectacular. i don't like rice, but the rice there is phenomenal. especially if you like fishfood, you're in for a treat. there are plenty of meat dishes but they're not spectacular. imitations of western food are just plain awful and ridiculously expensive. but then if you go to japan to eat burritos, you deserve to be ripped off.

- if you're in any way interested in history, popular culture, art or fashion, you won't ever forget visiting. That said, the idea of experiencing "japanese culture" is ridiculously overrated. i went as a complete tourist idiot and to me the place seemed like a united states colony without americans. there is still a bizarre, ungraspable element playing in the background, but overall japanese culture is being bulldozed away a mile a minute.

Japan summed up in a word: "weird"
visitable by all means
i rate it 4 out of 5 stars.

some photos:

Japan I (nagano)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7836...55&l=e6bbb5d213

Japan II (koyasan - matsuyama)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7907...55&l=3031f99a53

Japan III (beppu - harmonyland)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7918...55&l=8e9997dc1d

Japan IV (kyoto)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7925...55&l=8a7463b954

Japan V (tokyo)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=7934...55&l=aaa75a9edf

I didn't know you'd been - glad you had a good time, look forward to seeing the photos. I agree, it's not expensive as long as you don't to 'western' things, and there's a lot of unforgettable stuff still burnt into the brain years later.

:applaud:

That's really interesting, it never occurred to me that that might be the case (maybe Perfume are simply imitiating The Andrews Sisters after all?) While there I felt the exact opposite, that everything was very much its own culture, save for the McDonalds which seemed like a kind-of virus, and when I found myself taking photos of a building site and its workers on scaffolding, sheets of white cloth up to stop dust but making them look like a tableau of shadows, I realised why Japanese tourists take photos of everything - it's just that little bit different, alien - and I'd never take the piss out of them again.

I wonder whether it's more a case of doing what they did with the transistor radio - take an already-existing device but put there own spin on it and make it much 'better'.

My friend who spent 3 years living and working in Tokyo forthe British Council summed up Tokyo in two words: It Works. Which I thought made sense.

Anyway...

Japan's about the only country I'd like to visit, for its own sake (or sake). I really like the Japanese shops in London - the welcome cat, all that.