Well I should be asleep now it's nearly 7am and I've slept 3 hours I reckon, my pattern is totally fucked up because of different sleep times everyday.
Anyway as you have my attention....
Most impressive thing.....I've loved the old Japan, the wooden streets of Kyoto and the small food/beer places, seeing the girls dressed old school in Kimono's, THAT is what asia is about for me, old school. Tokyo was enjoyable, but it could be London, New York etc with its local slant obviously.....ohhhhhh and the girls, well I'm not single these days but if I was.......
Because of that the more modern places in Asia like South Korea etc have dropped off the radar for me now, I'm Deffo an old Asia guy, would much rather visit places like Myanmar again than trawl around big new shiny cities in Asia, hence I hate soulless places like Singapore.
Cultural surprises? Nothing really as I was pretty well read up, but there are some things that would surprise others coming here if they weren't.
The food can be hard work, there aren't many English menus and just going into a random restaurant is a challenge as little English is spoken. Also you will get turned away from some restaurantss/bars, don't know why, maybe because they don't speak English they can't be arsed having us in there or maybe they don't want foreigners, no idea. No skin off my nose, would rather spend my money where I'm wanted so no sweat. Reckon I've been turned away from at least 20 places in the time I've been here.
Rules- they follow every fucking rule to a tee, now that's fine for the most part but when you are standing at a red light crossing and there isn't a car to be seen and there are 20 people waiting to cross the road all standing there like lemmings for it to go green I sometimes wonder the common sense lol, but hey how it's probably why crime is so low because they all follow the rules......
Also no bins anywhere, yet the place is spotless!! We need to learn some of that shit for sure....
Formality-Yep it's part of it here for sure but no doubt it would tilt me up if I was doing that shit day in and day out. I mean the poor conductors on the train have to bow every time they enter and leave a car. I was on a 90 minute train journey the other day and the poor drink/food lady must have come through our car 20 times, that's 20 bows on the way in and 20 on the way out lol, and that was only our car, there were 7 other cars!!! lol
That's just off the top of my head for now
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