All good things come to an end, and so did our trip to Japan…
It was an amazing experience and we couldn’t wish for more. During 21 days we had only 2 days without sunshine. We managed to do 95% of things we have planned. Almost all the accommodation we had was very nice and comfortable. People were very helpful and there were no big issues talking to Japanese. We are taking home many beautiful memories and, if life allows us, we will definitely come back.
I would like to list some things that I didn’t mention before, but they’ve stuck in my memory:
- All around Japan, in every place we went to, it was spotless - you can’t find a piece of rubbish (or even a leaf from a tree!) on the road or sidewalk. Despite the fact that there are almost none bins available people take responsibility for their public places and carry the rubbish with them.
- We loved small bakeries with huge variety of sweet and savoury pastries. Everything was yummy!
- Majority of people we saw on the streets were dressed nicely, even elegant, and were fit and skinny.
- Famous Japanese toilets - almost every time I had to spent few seconds to figure out how they work:-) In general the bathroom units - small but comfortable.
- People. I remember an elderly lady in the doctors clinic who noticed how much I was suffering and gave me a green tea candy! Small girl - age maybe 4, when she saw that we are looking at her, said to us ‘Hello! How are you?’. And all those people, when asked for help or directions instead of pointing the way, were just walking us to a destination.
- Even though there are 13 millions people in Tokyo somehow we have managed to meet the same group of Polish tourists 2 days in a row in 2 different locations.
- When we bought beers in a grocery store, non English speaking sales guy ‘asked’ Michal to put his hand into a box and take out 2 coupons. Apparently there was some sort of lottery and we won a bottle of alcohol :-)
- And the deer that was chasing me in Nara park and another one that almost ate my map.
- There was a small earthquake when we were in Tokyo and it was a peculiar experience…
I will definitely recommend Japan to everyone as a holiday destination! It is a place where phrase ‘culture shock’ has a very positive meaning. I haven’t seen much in my life yet but as far as I can tell the rest of the world could learn a lot from Japan.