Travelogue / Tokyo-Osaka-Niigata
Clean. This is the overall impression of this Japan trip.
Japan isn't clean everywhere. This corrects a previous stereotype. It seems keeping things clean in crowded, high-traffic places is extremely difficult for any city in any country; but deep in the countryside of Niigata, it can truly be described as "spotless."
Learning Japanese doesn't necessarily make the experience of coming to Japan better. You can easily hear the unfriendliness of Tokyo shop staff toward foreigners; but on the other hand, you can also hear the kindness and warmth of Niigata people toward guests. I think, for those who see Japan as an ideal place to live, small and medium cities are the true ideal; the rush, anxiety, and excess consumerism of big cities know no national borders, not even cultural ones.
——August, 2023——
About to depart.
Tokyo's Akihabara & Osaka's Shinsaibashi. These two shots are perhaps many people's stereotype of Japan's big cities: crowded high-rises, huge signs covered in text, endless consumerism.
The whole Senso-ji area is small, and the entire street outside sells Yiwu trinkets, no different from back home. Perhaps its distinctiveness is that, compared with domestic ancient architecture, Japanese-style ancient buildings use more white as a main color or accent.
Compared to the SKYTREE, the old Tokyo Television Tower looks a bit insignificant nowadays. The whole building is much shorter than expected, and even less noticeable than some of the newer buildings in the neighborhood. But there is no doubt that it is still a symbol of Tokyo.
Even though Japan is known for its tidiness, you can still see bottles and cans scattered and men lying outside the Akihabara subway station. They may have just missed the last subway.
Tokyo's sky is laced with the blue color of the sea breeze. The city's overall cleanliness is emphasized by the large number of white buildings, bridges, steel frames.
The TOKYO SKYTREE is a place I think one must visit in Tokyo. It can be seen in many places in the city.
From Tokyo Skytree you can overlook the whole of Tokyo. This shot is rather special because it caught a helicopter.
What makes Skytree impressive is not only its own height, but the Tokyo it overlooks. Tokyo's building density and degree of development are unmatched by Beijing.
Tradition and modern. I had an overwhelming desire to see the RX-78 Gundam in Tokyo Odaiba. And now the RX-78 has been replaced by Unicorn Gundam.
Niigata, and the economically weaker Northeast of Japan it represents, is my favorite place. The traffic and pace of life here are equally slow. Vast fields and over-sized parking lots make it hard to believe Japan is a land of many people and little space. Like young people in Northeast China, most of them are no longer here.
What shook me most on the whole Japan trip was the unending string of tombstone shops along the rural roads of Niigata. In a severely aging place, this is probably the hottest business. Northeast Japan is so much like my hometown in Northeast China.
