I was thinking ...

I like the fact that people pronounce my name correctly here. Japanese people take one look at my name and say it right on the first take without me saying it out loud first. Aah ... the small joys in life ^^

There are other things I do not like though. The Japanese is a apologize-first people but it doesn't stretch to their manners on the street, they walk into each other and even knock people over and keep going. I've had people turn around and stared at me like I was the scum of the earth after they've hit me with their umbrella. Very odd. Maybe the street is one of those places where they can get a couple of aggressions out that they can't other places, heh.

And I occasionally see people forget something on the train or drop something on the street and, being the gaijin that I am, I of course pick it up and return it to the owner because nobody else does it. I'm big, noisy and do not speak Japanese ... but is luckily forgiven for these traits because I'm not from Japan.

But it is hard to say really bad things about Japan. The attitude towards animal welfare is the biggest in my book but I'm sure others would disagree.

I wish it was easier to be vegan here but I'm getting by. I lived on rice and sugar to begin with but have now gotten good enough at recognising the kanji for meat products and I found out that you can go to a lot of Buddhist temples and get vegan/vegetarian food, WOO!

Would I be able to live in Japan for a year? Hm ... yeah, I think so. It couldn't be in a place like Nagoya or Osaka though: Too soulless, too much concrete, too stiff. Kyoto is a beautiful choice. Tokyo is weird enough. One of the south island is probably a better choice for me though; I could kayak, surf, dive and trek when the culture wasn't enough.

Anyway! I haven't made it to Tokyo yet. I'm at Mochan's place in Shizouka. I got very drunk on Halloween and needed some serious downtime (I'm getting old) so I've been hanging out with Mochan's recent set of couchsurfers today. We're all heading to Tokyo in the morning.

Hope you all had a great Halloween ^^