Home » Japan » The top half of Japan… and the decision to head onwards alone

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair” (Robert Frost) .

The top half of Japan… and the decision to head onwards alone

Rob Lilwall
2007-12-01 14:32:32

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Needless to say, they took us straight to the train station and told us to sleep there, rather than in our tent. (i met a welsh cyclist the other day who had persuaded the police to let them stay in their empty cell... my future
ambition perhaps?)

On Christmas day I eventually stumbled into a Church service, and sat in a pew, straining to understand what the sermon was about. I think I missed the more profound meaning, but I understood the words Bethlehem, Jesus, present, and Jerusalem. The friendly congregation fed me noodles and cake... a slightly alternative Christmas lunch!

It has proved hard to communicate at times (one slight flaw in the plan of my learning Russian and Al learning Japanese, is that i am now without Al, and hence without any Japanese)... i have ended up buying salt instead of sugar, of receiving a thermos full of cold water rather than hot... whilst many of the people I have stayed with have an excellent command of English, the same cannot be said of the average person on the street... I am told that the Japanese spend several trillion yen (thats tens of billions of pounds) on trying to learn English each year, but the overall result does not seem to be that great... perhaps it is because it is a culture which does not like to make mistakes... and trying and failing and trying again is so important in language learning. (i am currently staying with EFL childrens book author Patrick Jackson - do check out his new (and very cool) potato pals series if you are involved in TEFL)

I have fortunate indeed with kind invitations to stay with people through Japan. Eating all sorts of exotic food (octopus tentacles with suckers still attached are actually quite tasty), skiing, karaoke, sitting in hot baths, visiting Japanese schools to talk to friendly (if bemused) students about our exploits in Siberia (and raise money for Viva Network).

In this highly motivated and hard working culture (sometimes described ...