Thursday 29 April 2010

Conichiwa! from my memories of Yakushima to my memoirs of Tokyo Disneyland

I went to Japan for a whole month in July 2008. About half way through my travels I was climbing down the mountainside in Yakushima saying "conichiwa!" to a hundred people all walking in single file behind guides waving small flags. As I was meeting and greeting all these Japanese tourists I was probably thinking to myself "wow! I'm in Japan". I was also thinking about getting to the bus terminal on time to catch the first bus of the day back down the island to the beach. We made the bus and spent all day swimming in the sea. When I was swimming in the sea I was probably thinking, "wow! I'm swimming in the sea in Japan." I was also looking at a volcano in the distance, steaming away in silence. At this point I saw a flying fish, it flew out of the water from underneath my feet and skipped across the ocean away towards the volcano. Then I thought to myself, "This has been the most amazing day of my life." And I was sunburnt all over.


Its nearly been two years since being there. The burn subsided and left a few freckles, I have a small scrapbook of things I collected, a lot of photographs and some unededited DV tapes. I have the happiest memories that make me sigh whenever I remember them. I'm going to try and collect them all in this blog. Because I know that a lot of people love Japan. And on the internet there's a lot of writing about people's experiences, dreams, and adventures in J-pop culture. I want to add my own personal account of Japan to this list, and work out why I've become so obsessed with everything about the country like a 13 year old kid swapping pokemon cards and listening to Miyavi would have been in the late 90's.