by Warren » Jan 5, 2002 @ 4:04pm
We didn't speak any Japanese there, the only thing I ever said was "domo arigoto", which means thank you. Otherwise, we'd just go to someone and say "subway!" and they'd take us there. <br><br>There's no crime in Japan, everyone has a bicycle, and they just park it on the side of the sidewalk, without locking it or anything. So you could really, just grab any bike you want and ride away, but no one there would ever do that.<br><br>Oh, and I saw the Emperor on the last day there. The Imperial Palace is only open 2 days a year, and I was there! I stood in line with at least 1-2 million other people in the morning. I think there were at least 10 million people in total throughout the day who went to the Imperial Palace; I got to see the Emperor because I got there really early, and I got a bunch of little Japanese flags to wave around. I gave one to my French teacher and she went crazy, because you can't get anymore official than a flag from THE Imperial Palace. The Palace doesn't even look that great, it was distroyed by the Americans twice before, and it was rebuilt, and looks pretty boring, but I saw the Emperor! YAY! Actually, I saw him perfectly because we got right in front in the huge crowd, and I was like a foot taller than everyone else, so I could see everything.<br><br>Moose, the people in the US are dumb, even in Elisebethan times, the queen of England called the Americans immature slobs, and up to today, it hasn't changed at all. The only good thing about the US is that there's a lot of space, you can spread out your arms and not smack someone in the face. The people in Canada are nicer, I've been to Québec, New Brunswick, Ottowa, and Nova Scotia, and the people are much nicer than the Americans. In Japan and Europe, people stroll the streets of the cities at night. This is called "nightlife". They go to parties and shops and stuff. In the US, "nightlife" is "strolling" down the streets in a city at night trying to dodge bullets. In Tokyo, we walked through some parks late at night with no problems, and there were plenty of people around us. If you tried doing the same thing in Central Park in NYC, you'll have 50 bullets in you before you knew it. <br><br>Oh, one other thing about Americans that's something more recent. Since the 9/11 attack, Americans (not me!) have been becoming more patriotic. That's ok, but it has to be kept to a certain level. Sorry Shapeshifter, but look what happened to Germany that caused WWII. The government made the people so patriotic, that they went crazy. The same happened to Japan during WWII, they went so crazy with nationalism, that they even went to kamikaze-ism. Just yesterday, in French class, my teacher said "Hi Warren! Warren just came back from Japan!" and one stupid "American patriot" girl said "Japan sucks ass, America is better because we blew them up, and we should blow them up again to tell them that we're still better!" Me and the teacher yelled at her, but it seems like nearly all "patriotic Americans" say the US is better because the US can kill everyone else. That fucking doesn't make a fucking country superior to another country just because they can KILL PEOPLE BETTER AND FASTER!!! AHH!! I'd say Japan is superior to the US because Japan doesn't have a military!! Switzerland is superior to the US because the Swiss Army makes handy-dandy pocket knives and watches!! And the only military action they do are UN peacekeeping missions!! Having the US have the ability to kill everyone doesn't make them fucking superior!! It makes them inferior because it can start a fucking war!! And that's exactly what's happening!! A WAR!!! Ok, I'll end this paragraph before I get too crazy.<br><br>While I was in Japan, I watched the Japan news (dubbed in English). What was weird was, there were no, like, murder or killing stories. In the US, if you turn on the news, there will be "man rapes 100 little boys, kills them all with a pickaxe and eats their bodies! Tonight at 11!". Actually, the big story in Massachusetts right now is this Christian religious sect that starves their children, and one of the top people in it may have had a baby, and the government wants to take it away before they can sacrifice it. Oh, and the other big story is this dad killing another dad because of "rink rage" at a little league hockey game. In Japan, there were no stories like that, they did however always talk about the war in Afghanistan, but the main news by far was E-Day, the day the EURO became legal tender. They were showing concerts and parades and stuff for E-Day. That was cool. They had a concert with German opera and Italian rap at the same time, funny stuff! When I came back to the US, no one knew about the EURO, not even my History teacher knew about the EURO!! I of course have known about it for a long time, but I don't recall ever seeing it on the news, only on CNBC (stock market channel). Damn, I wanna move to Japan *thinks about Japanese chics, starts drooling, thinks about sushi, starts emphatically drooling, thinks about all the super advanced electronics, immediately becomes dehydrated from drooling*.
<br><br>And you know Warren, I did know the names of some pretty cool Japanese rock and alternative groups. But they slipped off my HD with the last crash. Sorry 
Nippon!
Interesting posts indeed.
