Japan - May 2014
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Being married to a lovely lady from here and now two daughters - I have spent large
chunks of time in Japan over the last 9 yrs . I can speak (horribly ) , read well in hiragana,katakana
and a few kanji characters (complicated Chinese looking ones ). For me Nippon is a modern , backwards at times interesting place .
Been fortunate to do a trip around most of the country by rail and get a feel of the people.Still a lot of cash used instead of ccards or debit ones . No tipping (love that ) and cheaper than Vancouver (since 2005 tax VAT was 5%., went up to 8% April this year ) . Also houses go down in value , land retains a certain yen amount , but the house you buy or flat - will never increase like in the west . Obviously the bigger cities Osaka,Tokyo,Fukuoka etc….are expensive to dwell in .
Most folks reckon here is 10 yrs in the future (folks being my family , friends and co-workers who have barely travelled ) , I counter with "no , Japan is only 17 hours ahead of us ...."
Certainly safe , and extremely conservative not many people break the rules .
Cheers
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It was in amazing condition, leather interior looked like new. Shame Citroen don't do quirky anymore… I mean 2CV, BX, CX, DS, and now all they build are generic shitboxes.
They love their old Mercedes' in Japan though, saw about 10 W124's driving around.This was my regular nighttime view, as of some of the others that were on the trip...
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Funny. I noticed the same briefing at Narita. First they all dusted their counters then the chief gathered them together for a pre-check in briefing
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Streets of Tokyo.
