What? It's been over a year ago!??!

I was reading a copy of the 'Now Then' and came across this advert which reminded me of my trip to South East Asia... it all seems such a long time ago.

Sapporo, capital city of Hokkaido in northern Japan. It is famous for its seafood, ramen, beer and more. It was also the first city that me and my mate started our 4-month-travel.

Japan, compared to many other countries I have visited, is a very clean and friendly country. Despite many Japanese people do not speak English, many do bend backwards to help total strangers. We have been very fortunate to be helped by many during our stay, but one particular old lady comes to mind every time I talk about Japan.

We met her when we did our 30-odd-km cycling from Wakkanai to Japan northernmost point, Cape Soya, on pootle shopping bikes with no gear.
It was getting late and the weather had turned nasty. We had to race against a constant headwind and this had slowed our progress down considerably, soon it was pretty obvious that if we didn't hitch a lift or something, we wouldn't be able to make it back to Wakkanai station to catch the last train back to Asahikawa. The taxis that we came across wouldn't take the bicycles we were riding, but fortunately this little old lady came to our rescue when we tried to get into an empty hotel to use the phone. She didn't speak any English and despite our best effort to explain our situation using a pocket size Japanese phrasebook, she could see that we needed help but other than that, she didn't really have a clue what we were on about. So she flagged down a police car in the hope that the police could help us... and guess what? The police didn't speak a lot of English either! After a lot of deciphering using the phrasebook (which seemed like an age) the policeman finally realised that we needed to get back to the station quickly but unfortunately the bikes wouldn't fit into his car. The little old lady stepped in again by getting her husband to use his pick-up truck to get us back to the station, and we were just in time to catch the last train! Very lucky indeed. Me and my friend would like to thank this old lady but we don't even know her name.

Other than its friendly people, there are loads of other things that worth mentioning too... Japanese festivals, beautiful and colourful costumes and kimonos, Japanese contemporary and historic architecture, provocative sculptures and idols, toilets with advance technology (they usually have buttons that activate tasks such as squirting/ cleaning your bottom, music to mask the sound when you are pee-ing, heated toilet seat, etc),
onzens and rotenburo, hot springs that help relaxing your body and soul, shopping malls that leave you speechless, musical pedestrian crossings, convenient stores to almost every corner of the streets, vending machines every 10m or so selling everything from hot/ chilled coffee in cans, green tea, beer, sake, cigarettes, magazines, batteries, ice-cream, bread, voucher for ramen, and more,
bright neon lights in Shinjuku and the largest pedestrian crossing you will ever see, bullet trains that run like clockwork (and I mean that, they were always on time and on schedule, spaceous and clean too), budget hotels with tiny capsules for businessmen, fugu fish sashimi that might poison those who dare tasting it, creamy tofu, awesome food raw or cooked...


There are just too much to list, so why not go and see for yourself? We were in Japan for 6 weeks travelling from the northern part to the southern corner. Much were experienced, tasted and seen, but we have only scratched the surface. There are still so much to be seen, so many places to visit and so many things to try. I, for one, will definitely be going back there for more, visiting the less popular places, learning more Japanese, experiencing the cherry blossom/ snow festival and trying more Japanese food.