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Reflecting on Japan
It has been a little over one week since returning from Japan; returning from my first overseas vacation in a long time. I must say it was a wonderful experience. At first, I expected to feel some sort of "butterfly in the stomach" effect, being that it was the first time that I traveled out of the country with out my parents present, but I didn't. I didn't feel nervous at all. Navigation throughout Japan was very easy, no harder than navigating through the United States. This was most likely due to the fact that most of Japan is tourist friendly, with most of the crucial information translated into English. In a pinch I was able to effectively use my 3 years of Japanese skills to ask questions to get around. But I must say that my 3 years of Japanese was pretty dismal when it came down to traveling around Japan. Under the low pressure environment of a classroom, I performed alright. But add push me to use it in the real world, I performed worse than expected.
My first downfall was the lack of practice speaking practical Japanese. All of the Japanese we learned in class was, how should I say, was very textbook. All of the phrases that I was so use to hearing in class, I rarely used. The Japanese that I heard around the various regions of Japan, were all foreign to me; I have never heard them before. Even in simple situations such has ordering food, and checking out at the convenience store I often got hung up on a simple questions such as "would you like a bag". I guess they expected me to speak Japanese since I am Asian. None the less, this didn't hamper my experience in Japan much. The kindness, and politeness of a majority of the Japanese population didn't make me feel all that bad speaking broken Japanese.
After a few days in Japan, I started to understand why so many people develop a yearn to go to Japan. First the people are very polite, and willing to help. Everywhere you go, the shops and restaurants, the employees treat you with the utmost respect. Just about everyone seems to take their job seriously, working fast and efficiently to get you in and out as fast as possible. Food is all about quality not quantity. Take McDonald's for example. The portions for soda, and fries are smaller, but it taste better. The double quarter pounder actually looked appetizing. The meat was not super greasy and gray looking, like an American quarter pounder, and it actually tasted like quality beef. Food in Japan seemed to have a very short shelf life, a bag of chips that I got only had a 4 month self life; born on date and expiration date are printed on the bag. 7-eleven actually had food that you wanted to eat, and looked appetizing, the 7-11's in American could learn a thing or two from the ones in Japan. I wonder if Japanese people that come to America are disgusted by what is available in the convenience stores in America.
Another plus in Japan was the public transport, which was once again, fast efficient, clean, and on time. We stayed in and around major cites in Japan most of the time, so we never had trouble catching a bus, subway or train. What impressed me the most was the Shinkansen (bullet train) system in Japan. What would normally be a 6 to 7 hour car only takes about 2.5 hours. At speeds up to 177 MPH, we were flying, flying on the ground. On the bullet trains, there was also food service, which made it feel like we were on a plane.
The regions of Japan has as much variability as America, except with no deserts. All the mountains were absolutely beautiful. My next trip to Japan will definattly involve more hiking; probably focus on Mt. Fuji, Nikko, and Hokaido.
So do I want to live in Japan, yes, but I am a little hesitant. I'm not sure if the experience that I receive in Japan will be relevant to working in a national laboratory, which is where I would like to end up working. I don't know right now. But hey, I'm still young...I guess. I'll be damn near 30 years old when I finally leave school and start living my life.
We'll see!
...as with everything in life...to be continued...
My first downfall was the lack of practice speaking practical Japanese. All of the Japanese we learned in class was, how should I say, was very textbook. All of the phrases that I was so use to hearing in class, I rarely used. The Japanese that I heard around the various regions of Japan, were all foreign to me; I have never heard them before. Even in simple situations such has ordering food, and checking out at the convenience store I often got hung up on a simple questions such as "would you like a bag". I guess they expected me to speak Japanese since I am Asian. None the less, this didn't hamper my experience in Japan much. The kindness, and politeness of a majority of the Japanese population didn't make me feel all that bad speaking broken Japanese.
After a few days in Japan, I started to understand why so many people develop a yearn to go to Japan. First the people are very polite, and willing to help. Everywhere you go, the shops and restaurants, the employees treat you with the utmost respect. Just about everyone seems to take their job seriously, working fast and efficiently to get you in and out as fast as possible. Food is all about quality not quantity. Take McDonald's for example. The portions for soda, and fries are smaller, but it taste better. The double quarter pounder actually looked appetizing. The meat was not super greasy and gray looking, like an American quarter pounder, and it actually tasted like quality beef. Food in Japan seemed to have a very short shelf life, a bag of chips that I got only had a 4 month self life; born on date and expiration date are printed on the bag. 7-eleven actually had food that you wanted to eat, and looked appetizing, the 7-11's in American could learn a thing or two from the ones in Japan. I wonder if Japanese people that come to America are disgusted by what is available in the convenience stores in America.
Another plus in Japan was the public transport, which was once again, fast efficient, clean, and on time. We stayed in and around major cites in Japan most of the time, so we never had trouble catching a bus, subway or train. What impressed me the most was the Shinkansen (bullet train) system in Japan. What would normally be a 6 to 7 hour car only takes about 2.5 hours. At speeds up to 177 MPH, we were flying, flying on the ground. On the bullet trains, there was also food service, which made it feel like we were on a plane.
The regions of Japan has as much variability as America, except with no deserts. All the mountains were absolutely beautiful. My next trip to Japan will definattly involve more hiking; probably focus on Mt. Fuji, Nikko, and Hokaido.
So do I want to live in Japan, yes, but I am a little hesitant. I'm not sure if the experience that I receive in Japan will be relevant to working in a national laboratory, which is where I would like to end up working. I don't know right now. But hey, I'm still young...I guess. I'll be damn near 30 years old when I finally leave school and start living my life.
We'll see!
...as with everything in life...to be continued...
frustrated
accomplished
bored