Planet Nihon

If the western world was Amber, Japan is a Shadow quite near it, where the usual and regular are distorted slightly, bent askew with slightly different colors. Parts of it feel like our the future, other parts the past and still others shards of some bizarro world where the sun burns grey and the trees sing show tunes.

Quite a bit of this remixed world is actually better than the original, which is very intriguing. Part is due to technology and infrastructure, but most of it is due to the Japanese people, who are exquisitely polite, delightfully helpful and incredibly ordered. The trains run on time because the people are on time, and queued efficiently on the platform. The trains are clean because its passengers are fastidious to a fault, always taking their rubbish with them and never making a mess. They're quiet because the people are naturally reserved and quiet, and even though you can drink alcohol on the train, no-one ever plays "see who can vomit on the ceiling first".

It's a fabulous place, and I'm having a wonderful time. I do have a number of advantages, the main one being an excellent guide and translator in Beck, and a place to stay in Osaka. She's been superb, and we've both gone hardcore seeing sights, eating out and breathing in the many flavors of this amazing little planet. Eight days is not nearly enough to see everything though, so I'll have to return in the future sometime. It'll either be for another short jaunt or in a few years' time, when my itch to live in exotic countries has returned. This feeling might fade if I get a hot Japanese girlfriend or become an Onigiri ninja back in Australia, but that's all fairly unlikely.