Japan, land of stangeness

Hello all,

I just got back from the beach in Bali, overhead perfection with off-shore wind, so nice! Spent most of the day buying a surfboard with my new buddy Johhny from Argentina. We are long lost brothers and I will be traveling with him all over. This place is amazing, the smallest streets crowded with an amazing assortment of small cars and a deluge of little scooters trying to run you over, all with surfboards hanging off the sides. More from Bali later, first Japan...

Ok so Japan is very different from the United States, or any other country I have ever been in. People are polite, nonviolent, clean (the homeless carboard boxes had small windows cut in them with pieces of plastic covering them), the opposite of pretty much any country in South or North America. All the trains run on time to perfect stations that are not the resting places of vagrants or muggers , but rather places to meet up and catch up with friends. The "red" zone is clean orderly and the only distractions are these Japanese men who invite girls to bars and the girls pay to be complemented. I guess there were some strip clubs, but they were so far from the perception as to almost not be (we didnt go in one though)

This was just one night there, the next morning was eye opening, I have never seen so many ppl packed into the subway at 8 AM, with not a single sound. And then the stations, I went through one of the busiest in Tokyo, and there must have been 1,000 ppl walking on distinct paths, but all you hear is shoes. Granted I dont take the subway much, but usually it is not that quiet. I then walked throughout downtown tokyo. Past the imperial garden (they wouldnt let me in, weird) through the Ginza district home to upscale shopping, and then to the jewel, the fish market. That was not so quiet.

I walked for literally two hours past giant tunas being carved and readied for sale. Bought a plate of fresh Sashini fr 5 bucks (incredible) and then got lost in the rows upon rows of everything that could possibly live in the sea. (sea urchins, clams, red snapper, cod, Eels, crabs, octupus, snakes, shrimp, tuna, mackeral, flounders, other crazyness that I dont have a name for, and everything in between. Lets just say came out on the complete other side, and didnt get run over by thse awesome little scooters with three wheels that were buzzing around everywhere.

Next I walked back through the center, only taking side streets, and only one block from the market there were these little residential streets with gardens and old japanese women watering them. Through to the electronic district, so cool, you could buy anything electronic there, met some christian missionaries trying to spread the gospel. (I told them surfing was my gospel, and they left me alone) Then I had lunch at the coolest "Maid" bar, where all the girls are dressed as maids and hit on you as you eat. My maid was this brazillian girl who spoke spanish (it was nice to converse in a language I had the slightest idea of after lots of gesticulating and broken english from everybody else). She was very nice and told me about moving to Japan and learning japanese and how she loved it, and so did her kid and husband. It was just a nice part of japanese culture, so I rushed out when I realized I had a train to catch, was forced off at some pt, didnt have enough money, but then made a mad dash through an awesome garden shrine, made it to the airport and here I am.

So. Japan conclusions: I think the fact that everybody works for these huge corporations, the only ambition being to move up in these corporations, keeps them level headed. I mean, 150,000 new companies are started every MONTH in America, which also turns over 15% of jobs every year, and we are all insane. That could explain the calmness and sort of happiness with the status quo that keeps ppl from doing crazy things. However the evidence of homeless ppl, and the fact that they have been losing jobs there could mean some big changes are coming up. All in all, an amazingly different place, so competely unlike anywhere I have been; I want to go back!