I have to be perfectly honest when I say I did nothing in Kobe. That night we, once again, arrived too late for me to wander the city. The next day, I was so exhausted from traveling in Vietnam, China, and Japan that I ran out in the morning to run a few errands, and slept the rest of the day away. Shame on me, but my body physically couldn’t handle it any more. You push yourself, and push yourself, and push yourself, and at some point it gives out. C’est la vie.
Anyway, I’ll sum up my thoughts on Japan. Japanese culture is completely different from ours. In some ways it feels intangibly similar, but then you realize that it isn’t at all. I feel as if I have increased my understanding of Japan by a hundred fold, and I still have a 0% comprehension of their culture. I feel I can say with some amount of certainty that the Japanese are the most polite, courteous, and genuinely helpful people I’ve ever met. They will go out of their way to assist you; perhaps because I was an American, but I got the feeling this was true regardless of race, culture, or any other potential barriers. I will also say that Japan is the most expensive country we’ve visited. Traveling in Japan is expensive from hotels to eating. Everything about the Japanese lifestyle is expensive, cheap food is non-existent. It is a very affluent culture, but I have been given to understand the way they spend money is very different. They spend their money entirely on eating out, travel, and clothing, and entertainment. Their houses are very sparse (or so I have been told), and as a result they have much more liquid income to spend on other aspects of life. And that is all I’m willing to say with any amount of certainty.
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