The travel bug hit me as far back as grade school in grade five to be exact. Yes, in those days we had geography as a subject and I can still remember the countries our book took us to. Japan was my first choice followed by Australia and Peru.
Fortunately, I am happy to report that I did visit Australia in 2018. Their strange animals and birds and the outback were the main attractions for me. I was also curious to see how similar we Canadians were to the Aussies and discovered that the most we had in common was we spoke the same language. I have never been to Peru but did get close when I visited Equador in 2016. Now what about Japan? Thanks to an eight hour layover at the Narita airport on my way home to Canada from Thailand in 2010, my husband and I decided to take the train from the airport to the town of Narita. We could have gone further into Tokyo but knew that it would be impossible to see much in such a large city except for hoards of people..
All told we had about six hours to tour this typically Japanese town. We were there in early April when the cherry trees were just beginning to show some pink. It took me back to one of the pictures in my geography book. When I look back on that day, I am flabergasted at what we managed to cram into those hours.
After warming ourselves up with a coffee at a MacDonald’s, we headed for the centre of the town and came across a large temple which fortunately was open so we were able to go inside. Japan as we know is famous for their temples. After roaming around the gardens with bonsai trees and other strange plants, we were fortunate to meet two lovely ladies from the Chamber of Commerce all decked out in their traditional kimonos. They had no trouble convincing us that we should come with them to take part in a typical Japanese tea, all for free. They insisted that I try on a traditional bridal kimono and took our pictures which I have packed away somewhere. As we continued our tour around the town, I was astonished at how clean the streets and sidewalks were, even the alley ways. There was not a bit of litter anywhere. I don’t remember there being much traffic. It was all so quiet and there was classical music playing on every street corner. We felt very welcomed by all those we met. One man we met on our walk recommended a restaurant where we could have a typical Japanese lunch. Although our waiter didn’t speak much English, he was fun and tried to be very helpful about putting together a typical Japanese plate of sushi accompanied by some saki to wash it all down. However, although the soy bean dessert was ornate and looked delicious, I wasn’t too keen on it.
By the time we had finished, we had just enough time to get out to the airport for our flight home. I didn’t want to leave and ever since I often think that I ought to make this my last country to visit before my travelling days are over. I know it will be an expensive trip, but if I start saving now maybe I can make it. Kyoto here I come! I watched “Somebody Feed Phil” on Netflix recently who took us to that city’s culture and food. It took be back to my one day visit to Japan and my dream as a grade school student that Japan was my first choice for countries I wanted to visit.
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