My Life in Words

Hello Again Firstly, I want to say that I am glad to see that people are reading this blog.   The page viewer on my blog showed 74 views in the 24 hours after I made the last post.  Surely, my parents didn't read it more than 5 times, which still leaves 69 views.....maybe I have a stalker. Anyway, I thought I would write one more post from Japan before I leave  this evening. We spent 4 nights in Kyoto after Takayama.  As I mentioned before, I was quite surprised at how different the city is to Tokyo.  It's much more laid back and as a result, seems like a more fun city.  You see more people in unusual and interesting outfits and far less traditional practices.  I spoke about the nice neat queues in Tokyo..... It's much more of a free for all in Kyoto. Kyoto is known for it's temples, and I can understand why.  There seems to be thousands of them. Everywhere you look is another temple.  We visited a few, but we are not really temple people.  Honestly, we went mo

Alright - post number two from Japan. This country continues to be extremely interesting. It's such a weird mix of traditional and extremely modern. The trains and technology is scarily efficient, however you often see people using old fashioned brooms, or wearing kimonos and wooden shoes. Previously, I had always thought that it was a bit strange how the Japanese tourists in Canada and Australia always seem to be taking photos of absolutely everything. Having been here now, however, I completely understand why they do it; because even the little things are very different. I realize that I've been just as guilty of taking stupid pictures as they are....they must look at western tourists and think we are the crazy ones! Speaking of western tourists....there aren't many. We have not run into many other Canadians or Australians. We have seen a few white people with cameras at some of the sites, but even they are far and few between. I'm not sure if it's the eart

こんにちは (which I think says konnichi wa) I am currently on holiday in Japan with my aunt. It is my first time here and over the course of 12 days we will visit Tokyo, Takayama, Kyoto and Hiroshima. While there are some 'sites' to see (temples and museums), it's really the cultural differences, food and vibe of each city that are worth talking about. So, rather than take a day by day account, I decided my first post will be a summary of some of the more interesting observations thus far (and there have been lots). I find that Im saying "what is that?" about 50 times a day. Everything is just so strange and different; weird and wonderful. So, here are some first observations from Tokyo: 1. Queues - one of the first thing I noticed when I landed was how civil the Japanese are when it comes to getting in line. Not only does everyone form a queue without being prompted, the queues are perfect straight single file line ups and no one dares budge. For example, while com