It was one of the times where reality never matched the image I had about tokyo. Almost everything that I saw in TV or anime, or in my computer about tokyo was far from what I saw with my own eyes.
It was quite a smooth flight, if there is one thing i would hate in the flight, it would be the time till departure, and almost never had a full night sleep on board, the staff seemed to have alot to offer~
I arrived the next day, Saturday 3rd of july to Narita airport, it was surprising to witness some locals were in the flight with me, at least I still can feel home. One thing I hated about Japan in general is over checking, over-filling of papers that seemed to share almost 90% of the same information. Without mentioning the tons of signatures, whether it is simple of big, there has to be a signature. For the first time i really felt that my signature was far more important than my passport itself.
On my way out of the checkpoint, It was just like checking into wonderland, I felt sick to the mind of the countless people that almost looked the same to me, without mentioning the ammount of adds that contain gazzilion amount of color and also weird styled fonts. They were just all over the place...
I thought I ran out of luck lately, but there was Kayoko-san, an old friend from aikido club in dubai. Took me a while to find her among all of these similar faces, but she seemed to spot me before i even knew it. If there was one thing I would thank god for in my whole life, it would be that Kayoko was with me in that day because without her, I could've given up and went back home.
Tokyo was far from the airport, about an hour and a half by train, I wouldn't know which train train to get on because it was all in japanese in there, not a single word in english, especialy the ticket issuing machine. Unlike any other country I went before, this place was extremely packed with people, people of the same kind, rarely if I could see any tourists, I felt like the only stranger in japan, Kayoko, Get me out of this place!
It was a long trip to tokyo, jumping from station to station, If it wasn't for the big bag that I had, It would have been much easier. My objective in the whole trip was just one thing.... Follow and listen to kayoko. I didn't care where the hell the world would take me to, just follow kayoko. It was madness, It was sick.
I saw the real tokyo when I arrived at Shinjuku region, I got confused if I was really in japan, or beijing. It would be day the whole day, The lights of ads on the streets were enough to cover the light of the sun. Literally, this city can never sleep. I realized one thing regardign the huge crowd in shinjuku.... You can never ever be famous in this city. For me, I never seen anything similar in France, Austria, Britain, Germany, or even Australia.
People never lied about the japanese. They are incredibely helpful and kind people, at least from who I met so far. However, communication is critical, without the japanese, you're lost already. Greetings greetings greetings, everybody just greet eachother under any circumistance, whether you are entering a shop, or even walking in the streets. If I would learn japanese, I would definately start with the greetings.
After the gazillion signatures made in the leasee's office, and the tremendous amount of papers contain the rules of living in that room. I finally got my keys to my room, but It was a hassle to make it to the room itself. Following Kayoko was the only thing that really made that happen, I didn't know how to thank her for what she have done. It was alot of walking!
Finally, ma room! (quite tiny eh!)
It was quite a smooth flight, if there is one thing i would hate in the flight, it would be the time till departure, and almost never had a full night sleep on board, the staff seemed to have alot to offer~
I arrived the next day, Saturday 3rd of july to Narita airport, it was surprising to witness some locals were in the flight with me, at least I still can feel home. One thing I hated about Japan in general is over checking, over-filling of papers that seemed to share almost 90% of the same information. Without mentioning the tons of signatures, whether it is simple of big, there has to be a signature. For the first time i really felt that my signature was far more important than my passport itself.
On my way out of the checkpoint, It was just like checking into wonderland, I felt sick to the mind of the countless people that almost looked the same to me, without mentioning the ammount of adds that contain gazzilion amount of color and also weird styled fonts. They were just all over the place...
I thought I ran out of luck lately, but there was Kayoko-san, an old friend from aikido club in dubai. Took me a while to find her among all of these similar faces, but she seemed to spot me before i even knew it. If there was one thing I would thank god for in my whole life, it would be that Kayoko was with me in that day because without her, I could've given up and went back home.
Tokyo was far from the airport, about an hour and a half by train, I wouldn't know which train train to get on because it was all in japanese in there, not a single word in english, especialy the ticket issuing machine. Unlike any other country I went before, this place was extremely packed with people, people of the same kind, rarely if I could see any tourists, I felt like the only stranger in japan, Kayoko, Get me out of this place!
It was a long trip to tokyo, jumping from station to station, If it wasn't for the big bag that I had, It would have been much easier. My objective in the whole trip was just one thing.... Follow and listen to kayoko. I didn't care where the hell the world would take me to, just follow kayoko. It was madness, It was sick.
I saw the real tokyo when I arrived at Shinjuku region, I got confused if I was really in japan, or beijing. It would be day the whole day, The lights of ads on the streets were enough to cover the light of the sun. Literally, this city can never sleep. I realized one thing regardign the huge crowd in shinjuku.... You can never ever be famous in this city. For me, I never seen anything similar in France, Austria, Britain, Germany, or even Australia.
People never lied about the japanese. They are incredibely helpful and kind people, at least from who I met so far. However, communication is critical, without the japanese, you're lost already. Greetings greetings greetings, everybody just greet eachother under any circumistance, whether you are entering a shop, or even walking in the streets. If I would learn japanese, I would definately start with the greetings.
After the gazillion signatures made in the leasee's office, and the tremendous amount of papers contain the rules of living in that room. I finally got my keys to my room, but It was a hassle to make it to the room itself. Following Kayoko was the only thing that really made that happen, I didn't know how to thank her for what she have done. It was alot of walking!
Finally, ma room! (quite tiny eh!)
Amazing post ... Loved it :)
ReplyDelete(zidani).
im really impressed of what im reading i cant imagine this english could be spoken withan arabic tounge
ReplyDelete