It's been awhile I wrote any updates to my website, so I decided to post a story of my trip and meet-ups in Japan. I stayed around one week in Osaka, Tokyo and Kyoto this spring after visiting South Korea. After seeing quite many places, meeting Japanese and seeing how they do Eurotrips, I have to say it was something different I explorer there.
The basic undestanding of Japan is based on the fact that there are over 130 million people living in those Islands, they GDP is the 3rd highest in the world and in Asia the impact of Japan and Japanese is enormous. In Taiwan many companies are Japanese, many restaurants are Japanese (or Japanese style) and Taiwanese people highly appreciate Japanese products. This has the history for sure but still doesn't make sense for me sometimes.
When it comes to staying in Japan, it's for sure quite expensive but the quality of the food and service is uncomparable to other places I've been in Asia. I really enjoyed the foods, around 5 euros you get a nice lunch and if you double, you get even better one. Dinner with free flow of drinks, all you can eat with less than 30 euros isn't so much compared to northern Europe either.
But for working or getting to know people, I bet you must speak Japanese. I do understand the characters but I can't say them in Japanese (the Chinese ones) and I have no idea how to spell or pronounce Japanese. The language itself sounds nice, very soft and polite.
The people I met in Japan were open-minded and friendly. I think they are doing great with foreigners nowadays (especially in Tokyo they have guides and helpful people), they are opening the country for travelers. But I must conclude that to my mind Japan isn't actually very open to invite foreigners to be part of the society. That's what many Japanese would also agree. Or maybe changes if you stay there, speak the language and have locals as a close friend.
Touristic spots I visited in Osaka weren't a lot, I just checked some temples and tried local foods, also some weird coffee shop culture seemed to be interesting way to make a cup of coffee. In Tokyo I wanted to wander around the streets, get to know areas but also saw some geishas, big temples and museum with contemporary arts. There are also a big garden to visit nearby arts gallery. Kyoto was the suger on the bottom of my glass, it was a great place for a traveler. There're so much to see that you stay maybe a week there. I just decided to look around a bit for one day before leavin home. I definately have to go back to Japan, but maybe just for a long weekend to enjoy great food, relax and find something new.