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Japan, I’m infatuated . . . with its culture, its history, its art, and its women. I LOVE JAPAN.
I’m leaving tomorrow for Greece but I am sad to go. I've had a blast.

Im in love

Andy Wunder
2007-04-19 23:20:08

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the relative authenticity of travel. There are hardly any other tourists (at least non-Japanese) so you don't feel like you're at Disneyland like I often did in Thailand. I mention in a picture that Jeff and I spent the weekend in a city with half a million people. We saw three other white people and they were probably English teachers. With Japan being a rather homogeneous ethnic population, the small number of white people makes us a novelty. When we go into a bar, everybody wants to talk to us and take a picture with us . . . it's really cool. Jeff and his friends have created a saying, "the gaijin smash." Gaijin means outsider in Japanese. Let me provide you with an example of when this would be used. Five of us white guys went to an onsen on this rural island. There have probably never been five white people in that onsen at once, ever. That was a gaijin smash.

Some other noteworthy things of my stay in Japan:
+My first weekend in Japan Jeff took me out drinking. I ended up drinking all night with this girl and then took her out on a date the next night. I found out that this girl was 35 years old . . . and divorced . . . except for I think she was married. Whatever, I had fun.

+Helping Jeff teach English at his high school was a cool experience. It's really quite amusing to have a class of over zealous teenage girls telling you they love you and that "we make perfect couple."
+One of Jeff's friends and I went to an onsen and ended up receiving a ride home from a member of the Yakuza (the Japanese Mafia). They have amazing tatoos all over their body, which were of course on full view at the onsen.
+One night I had the opportunity to stay overnight in a temple in am mountain town, Koya-san (see pics). I had a great time. The two girls and I dressed up in these heavy robes and took some pictures. We then went out in search of a bar in another temple . . . yet for some funny reason, we remained in our robes. So, there we were, two foreigners and one Japanese girl strutting around town in long robes and eventually knocking on the big wooden door of the temple that supposedly contained a bar. A monk opened the creaky doors and then stood in shock . . . picture this, three kids in robes knocking on a temple door and asking a monk where the bar is. Well, to make a long story short, we got sent away, picked up some wine and headed to the cemetery where we wandered around until we got creped out enough to leave. The experience was then topped off by participating in the monks worship at 6 am the next morning.

+The hardest thing that I have had to do in Japan is refrain from hysterical laughter when a Japanese person says "really." It comes out as "rearry" and they cock their heads back and make an amazed expression. Pretty reminiscent of Scooby Doo.

Well, enough rambling. After nearly three months in Asia I'm off. Surprisingly, I'm really going to miss chopsticks. There is something to be said about not stabbing your food. However, I'm not going to miss taking off my shoes every five minutes.

Take care everyone.
Sayonara
Andy

Andy Wunder
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/adub/