One last thought

THis was the year I, we, realised a lifelong ambition to visit Japan.

In order to make it happen, we had to save for a year, go without many things, so we would pay for the trip and spending money. Tanks to Jools' organisation skills, and the travel arranger, the whole two weeks went flawlessly. It was like a dream.

I don't really know what I expected Japan was going to be like, that part had not occurred to me, just that I wanted to go. And take photos. Lots of photos.

Landing in Tokyo, and seeing all the signs in both Japanese and English made me realise that it was a very different place, but we should be able to cope. We were met at the exit from immigration by a smart man with our name on a sign, and he took us to a car and drove us right to the door of the hotel. He spoke little English, but was very pleasant and liked that I was taking photos of everything.

We went to the lobby of the hotel, checked in, and once we had completed the paperwork, went to our room. We were on our own. Kinda. We had a book of instructions for the whole two weeks, but we had to make it happen, no one was going to do it for us.

And outside the window, was one of the largest cities in the world, and it was ours to explore and discover. Only, where to start?

We did the sensible thing, really and explored the local area, seeing what was about, seeing that just off the main road, there were narrow residential streets where ordinary people lived and worked. And it was thus all over the country.

But there was fear. Fear of the unknown, and fear of looking silly. I spotted a Denny, and I thought that would be an easy place to eat first. Maybe have some familiar food. But, it was a Japanese version, and although they spoke some English, we picked our food from a pictorial menu, but it was all painless, ad the food came and was good. Even if I had no idea what I was eating. But then we had to do this twice or three times a day for the next two weeks.

After wandering about for a couple of hours, then going back to the hotel to snooze, we went out after dark to find dinner. All places looked fabulous and strange. Which one to choose, I had no idea. But Jen just got fed up with our prevaricating, and walked into a steak joint. A simple chain place, and we sat down and tried to swim. Or not drown anyway. And we did it, and that gave us confidence to go on and try more traditional places to eat on other nights. Although some nights we just wanted to eat something familiar.

And so it went on.

And then we came back. And the experience sunk in. I wrote blogs, edited shots, told people about what we did, re-wrote blogs, edited more photos. And so those two weeks lasted the whole year, and we can say we went to Japan this year, ate strange things, met wonderfully friendly and polite people, and it was as magical, strange, colourful, wonderful and memorable as I had hoped. As we both hoped. It is a holiday that will last a lifetime, and has changed us as people. We de-cluttered, be ate differently, we will eat those things again. We were polite, more polite than normal, and I don't think it would hurt us in England to all be a little more polite to each other, rather than be greedy stupid people.

I am also glad that you, dear readers, enjoyed the trip with us.

And many thanks for reading my other posts, I really am very touched that you do so, and would like to thank you all.

Happy New Year to you all.