Vacation to Japan
I went to Japan a few weeks ago, and let me just say that it is an experience of a lifetime. Granted I was only in the metropolitous of Tokyo, Japan for the duration of my trip, and did not even visit everything in the city, it showed me a real life illustration of how there are other countries out there that compete with the United States of America. The United States illustrates itself as the elitist country, one that cannot beat any other. However, countries like Japan are at the same level, or even higher than the United States in terms of technology, lifestyle, and value of living.
The cost of living in Tokyo is very high, and I would consider to be one of the highest in the world. However, considering I was a tourist and was in an expensive region of Japan, I am sure many things in Japan are inexpensive when one relies on its own food and culture. During my trip, my friends and I visited many restaurants, many expensive, and many inexpensive. Expensive restaurants had either an American flavor to it, or the feel of being “the high quality restaurant” in the city. A cheap Japanese fast food restaurant I went to were the big chains, Yoshinoya and Sukiya, both known for their “gyudon,” a beef bowl platter. My friend would always get the gyudon, while I would get the gyudon combo with eel that also comes with rice. The price you ask? Only around $7 to $8. In the states, the price for eel and rice alone is around $10-$12 itself in my area at least. In addition, since this was “fast food” the food came quick, and it was quite good. Chain restaurants in Japan seemed superior in my view to the ones that have locations in the United States. I visited a McDonald’s and Denny’s there, and there were better choices that did not disappoint.
Culture in Japan, in Tokyo at least, is very good for a foreigner like myself who visited. The people are very nice in general and were very helpful on giving me assistance on how to get to a location among other things. I cannot remember how many times I would enter a restaurant, store, arcade, or any other building, and enter with a genuine “welcome” gesture with a bow.
The train system in Japan is much more reliant than the train system here in New York City. Trains are on time and run smoother. It took a little getting used to, but once my friends and I got the hang of it, everything was fine.
Last thing I will speak about are the arcades. The arcades in Japan are amazing, and even a normal arcade there beats most or all the arcades here in the United States. A “small” arcade I went to was 2 floors, and many arcades were 4-5 floors, with the large arcades being 7-8 floors. Many racing games like Initial D, Midnight Club, Mario Kart were present. Also, there were “card game” arcade games, such as Lord of Vermilion and Baseball Heroes 3 where one uses cards to control the game.
One of the biggest things now in Japanese arcades are the Gundam Arcade Pods. For anyone who does not know Gundams, basically it is a large mobile weapon system, resembling a human body that is controlled. These were really fun to play, as you go into a machine and control your own Gundam. You are given Gundam cards, which in turn as your progress, as your level rises and obtain access to more weapons and accessories.
The greatness of the arcades in Japan can be described by the biggest pull, fighting games. In these arcades, fighting games are abundant and full of players, from recent games to Tekken 6 and Street Fighter IV, which are not even available in the states, to other popular classics such as Virtual Fighter, Guilty Gear, Marvel vs SNK, and King of Fighters. People would be playing for hours at a time, and thus become very proficient. I even had a good time watching these people play and beating others up.
In summary, Japan was awesome, and I plan on coming back there again.
