Some post trip musings~

1. We’re not that far off, technology-wise

Not sure about you, but I’ve always envisioned Japan to be tech-savvy after constantly hearing hype about their futuristic innovations (like robots) and being the motherland of famous electronic brands.

Instead of the wondrous tech we expected to see, we encountered:

• aging Suica (equivalent of Ezlink) top up machines and ATMs with mechanical keypads that both looked like they were built in the 1990s lol
• niche shops that were still selling CDs/DVDs, there was even a huge Tower Records outlet there
• yoshinoya (and most other eateries) were using a calculator shaped pda to press in orders which felt ancient compared to Sg where touch screens are used.
  (To be fair, we actually like the vending machine ordering system since it’s rather efficient..)
• spotted Freetel’s dual screen flip phone at Yodabashi. Like seriously? android flip phones… lolz.
  (Dom: android flip-phones, the latest trend yet to hit sg k)

2. mega is (not that) mega.

Could be due to space constraints in Tokyo, but the Daiso store at Harajuku, touted as ‘one of the biggest’ in Tokyo was probably smaller than the Daiso at Vivo/City Square. Felt the same for the ‘biggest’ Don Quijote and Pokemon ‘megastore’. Are we expecting too much?

3. Japanese people are all skinny!!

It didn’t really hit us till the last few days that there was almost never a plump person in sight around Japan. I briefly remember making a remark to Dom that there was a guy with prob a size 25 waist in proximity to us. Gooooooodness. We were wondering after every full meal on why they are so skinny even though our portions of ramen and rice felt like a lot to us and we just attributed it to the subway stairs & long distances of transit between lines.

Anyway did some research and they said that its because of a mixture of the following reasons:

• They bike A LOT 🚲
• Their food portions are small (personally I dont really think so haha) 🍱
• Their diet is healthier: vege & seafood over red meat 🍣
• Peer pressure as plump people are usually (kinda) ostracised 😔

4. Ramen chefs are mostly young mid-career aged men?

Could not find much on this but at Fu-Unji and Menya Itto the chefs looked very happy and passionate about their ramen!

5. Eating sushi the right way

Did you know that….

• You should not dip the base of the sushi into Soy sauce directly but instead, use a pickle as a brush for the sauce along the top of the sushi
• Sushis are usually roughly 6cm long, small enough fit your mouth nicely

Sushi eating guide found at the legendary Jiro’s site (too exclusive for us plebs).

6. In Japan, everyone’s camera is better than yours

Woah. Like seriously, everyone owns a mid-range/professional dslr/film slr camera! The only people with cheap basic dslrs are tourists.

Could be the sakura season but i’ve never seen so many Leicas carried around in a week 😍

All in all, Japan was a wonderful experience, and we wish we could still be there, if not for work :/
What a great week it was!