A much awaited international trip. The last one was in 2019 - Italy. After that pandemic, personal tragedy, lethargy - all set in, thwarting our vacation plans for almost four years. We had been on vacations but not an international one. My 55th birthday approaching, I wanted a Cherry Blossom birthday and my better half obliged. And so started our one week sojourn to the land of the rising sun.
It was filled with excitement and wonder that I embarked on this trip. Japan with its interweaving of modernity and tradition had always intrigued me. How do they blend swift bullet trains with sumo wrestling or quick-on-the-go Bento lunch boxes with elaborate tea ceremony? Their obsession with discipline and perfection, their politeness, and their adherence to tradition and rituals are legendary. Now I was about to experience all that!
Punctuality and Discipline: It is amazing how people can be so punctual. I pride myself at being on-time for everything even a casual dinner appointment, but this is at a totally different level and that too the entire nation. Trains, sub ways and even buses are always on time. Given the traffic snarls it is amazing how buses can maintain time. We even got to hear an announcement apologising for a delay in the train - by 1 minute! Add to that the discipline. Queues are maintained, privileged seats are kept vacant, lane discipline is followed, traffic signals are obeyed - all without any monitoring. Public places are spic-n-span, no littering despite the lack of garbage bins.
Technology and Convenience: What little I saw of their habits, I realised they believe in using technology to the fullest in simplifying life.
Free wi-fi everywhere - even supermarkets. Life is so much easier when we are connected constantly, I realised on this trip how important it was to stay connected. Not socially but for translations, directions and searches.
Shinkansen - the legendary Bullet Trains - travel made easy and fast. We took a Japan Rail Pass before the start of the journey - along with the flight tickets. All we had to do was activate and start travelling. For long distance travel, we needed to reserve seats else it was as simple as swipe in and out. Another amazing thing - trust. The pass we took was not valid on all train services - something about private lines etc., but with the pass we got access to the station and nothing prevented us from getting onto the ineligible train. Apparently the authorities are relying on our good honest nature.
Everything automated - luggage lockers, coffee/tea vending machines, even change machine. If we travel by bus where our pass is not valid, we need to buy ticket and tender exact change. Where to get the change? From change machines! So convenient. The seats on the trains can be changed to face the direction of the train.
The best application of technology I felt was the toilets - heated seats, bidets with various settings including water temperature and flow control!
Hospitality and Politeness: I found people to be very patient and polite. With so many tourists and so many mundane queries, I found all the officials answering very patiently, no yelling or screaming. Even shop owners, who had little or no English speaking skills, tried to answer our queries very cheerfully. Being vegetarian but eager to try new cuisine, I pestered quite a few of them with queries regarding the ingredient list, always to be met with a smile and eager face. Google Translate was really handy, one vendor had a ingredient list which he scanned using Google translate to help me figure out and wanted to know the answer "Is it vegetarian?" as applied to his wares.
Site Seeing: Coming to the actual purpose of the whole trip:
Cherry Blossoms: Though we did get to see the blossoms, it was limited. A week - ten days later would have been a better visual treat. We were at the beginning of the season, so it was just a tree here and a tree there, instead of the whole street lined with the cherry blossoms.
Shrines: We got to see a lot of those - Hie and Asakusa Shrines in Tokyo, Kinkaku-ji, Daigo-ji, and Ryoan-ji in Kyoto, Kotoku-in in Kamakura, Itsukushima at Miyajima, Todai-ji at Nara. While I was impressed by Kotoku-in and Todai-ji and the Torii gate of Itsukushima, I am a bit perplexed. From my understanding, Buddhism does not endorse idol-worship or at least Gautam Buddha didn't. So what about all these shrines and the rituals there? I need to study Buddhism in detail to understand that I guess. With my limited knowledge all I could appreciate was the architecture and the grandeur of each of these places. There are intricate details like the posture of Buddha which identifies the sect etc etc., all that needed in-depth knowledge of Buddhism and their practices.
Parks: We covered multiple parks mostly for Cherry Blossoms. But one that attracted me the most was Arashiyama Bamboo Forest, at Kyoto. Tall bamboo trees reaching for the skies, hundreds and hundreds of them. And of course, Nara Deer park near Osaka, where we can walk alongside multitude of deer and feed them. I felt they posed for photographs!
Hiroshima: Of course, no trip to Japan would be complete without a visit to Hiroshima and the memorial island of Miyajima. It is an living example of the resilience and the sheer will power and hard work of Japanese people to come out of the devastation and rebuild their city.
Geisha and Samurai Show: This we unfortunately missed. There were many tea ceremonies but I wanted the whole nine-yards which included the Geisha experience. We had planned on it at the famous Gion area in Kyoto. Alas, it needed advance booking and to top it we went there on a Saturday evening when the streets were filled with weekend party revellers.
Mt. Fuji: It was not yet the season for hiking the slopes, but we did plan on a ropeway at Hakone to see the iconic volcano Mount Fuji. But that day it was too windy and the ropeway service was cancelled. We had to satisfy ourselves with a boat ride around Lake Ashi. But we did get a glimpse of the might peak the next day from a train ride, it was awesome.
Overall it was a nice experience. There were few glitches but nothing unsurmountable. Though the people were friendly and everything automated and simple, we did stumble a bit. What was apparent to the locals is not so for a tourist. So there is a steep learning curve to understand and familiarise ourselves with the system, which we didnt experience in any other country we visited. The literature we researched on before embarking on this tour, indicated the same - first timers guide is different from a repeat visitor.
