New Zealand Memories

Left Australia with pleasure. Too long time in Sydney was too much, plus my pocket was getting too damaged. Arrived in rainy Auckland and met a Columbian guy who gave me more information that I needed about his country. I love South American people.

Obviously I did not arrange my hostel as usual and the couch I had promised stood me up saying that I did not confirmed it, days after we had a argument through messages on cs but her excuses were so stupid and lame that I felt pity and I did not leave her a bad reference. Found a shitty hostel with free dinner and went to sleep early, next morning waited for the rain to stop and went to have some pictures of the city. Felt Auckland a city with a lack of soul, pretty gray and boring. When I was walking past the bus station asked for the ticket prices to get to the north land, according to the advice of the friends that went there before me, it was worth to go. The price was reasonable, and bought it straight away. Went to the streets I hadn't been and went to the hostel to take my bag. Looked for some more couches on cs on the north tows. Left without meeting any person. Boring Auckland.

Arrived to Paihia that day on the evening that is a little town with a beautiful coast view. You can do some sports, kayaking, and above all, heaps of sailing. My idea was from there to book some tour to see the huge Kauri trees, the cape Reinga and the 90 miles beach where you can do the fun sand boarding. I did not find any hostel when i got there, all booked out, and no contacts for cs couches, just a girl for coffee. Found just one tourist agency open at that time that sold me the just exact last seat on the tour for the next day. Lucky?. 100 nz dollars though. Kept walking after around the town and found on the floor a note of 20 dollars and another of 5. Lucky again? A guy on a hostel gave a map with the possible hostels with any bed. Found a bed pretty late. 25 dollars. Lucky number. Went to look for something to eat, fish and chips 6 dollars, bargain!. Feeling being back in England! Saw the end of a crappy movie in the hostel and slept early to not miss my tour the next day.

Impressions about Japan.

I have written this about Japan, Hope you like it.

Japan.

Actually it has been an incredible experience.

A so different country, plenty of people, rushing, transports, food, weird language, and different feelings. I’m having now, a love - hate for this country.

In one hand, I love the futuristic image of the country and its cities, with all those different buildings, never two equal architecture, triple floors highways in the middle of the city, super fast trains going everywhere and by anywhere crossing the country in two hours..., the lights in the cities, especially Tokyo, during the night... the lights are amazing and everywhere, like in a movie, electronic machines for anything, like the amazing toilets!, restaurants and shops on any floor of the skyscrapers, and the best thing for me, that I miss the most, the food. Anything you try is good, amazing for someone with a big stomach like me ;), all menus are in Japanese so, obviously you need menus with pictures or there is usually replicas of the dishes at the main door, but, if you don’t have a picture, you can choose something randomly and I’m sure it will be delicious!

The people are basically weird. But incredible polite and hospitalitary. All of them! They always are up to help you even when they don’t understand you! Sometimes they even don’t hesitate to go with you till the place you are looking for just to help! Plus they are SO honest! If you don’t like the price, they send you where is cheaper!!! If a monument of temple is being refurbished at the moment, they tell you at the door with pictures how it is inside and apologize!!! And do not forget that is the organized, safest and cleanest country I have seen in my life!

And the bad things on the other hand, people with you can’t communicate at all, it’s very difficult to find people that can speak English, they are rushing everywhere, the language is weird, everywhere and uncompressible, which make it exotic, but you get tired of no information in any moment and never understand anything... It’s a country not multicultural at all, you JUST see Japanese people all the time, and millions of them, no matter time or place, always lots, to walk can be sometimes a nightmare. Its super expensive, to get to any club, its minimum 20 Euros entrance plus drinks, hostels minimum 20 Euros a night, restaurants 20-30, you can get by, going to cheaper places that you can start to discover, but, takes time, and you have to walk a lot... there no much nature, with so many people and cars you have no much space, when you travel from one city to another, literally, there is no countryside, you just see houses and buildings all the time.... crazy. Overwhelming country.... They have an incredible organization for anything. I mean anything. There are queues for everything, transports, shops... This country with a size of half Spain and a 90% of mountains in its surface, there are 125 millions of people living, which makes sense why all the technology and organization that they have.

The first week in Japan I was in Tokyo, met my good Spanish friend Pablo there, and Paul from London after Pablo, he was travelling around Japan as well. Found a couch surfing host that, she did not want me to say to anyone, but, what the heck, you are my friend and I can tell you, she is the first geisha non Japanese ever. She is originally from Australia but she has been living all her life in Japan, most of it. One day I could see all the preparation for a geisha performance with the makeup, dress and so on. She wanted me to do things in exchange of the "hospitality", like moving furniture to a new flat, and some translation texts for her website. Was so difficult to find a couchsurfing host, Japanese people are not that "open" and flats are usually very small... so, not easy find couch in Japan. After the first week, of food, descovering walking Tokyo, party, and so on, I used my Japan Rail Pass to explore Japan (when I bought it I thought it was so expensive, but actually I used a lot and I saved lots of money, so if you guys want to come to more than 2 weeks to Japan and plan to see some cities, don’t hesitate in getting one). Close to Tokyo i visited Nakamura, which is a lovely town on the coast where you can see the japanese surfing beaches (not that great) and a big buda and Nikko, beautiful town too with old Japanese temples and feel the vibe of the Japanese little towns.
When i left Japan I just found couch in Osaka, which was kind of luck because it is in central Japan, and with the bullet trains was easy to go from there to everywhere, like if I was going to work every morning. I was going very early to Kobe, nice port, Kyoto, all japan culture with tons of temples, Hiroshima, famous because the first nuclear bomb and its peace museum, Miyayima, beautiful town with the shrine on the water, Nara, small lovely town with university nice lakes and the biggest wooden building inside with a huge Buda, Himeji, with a gorgeous castle micer outside than inside, and so on, many places of which I keep a great memory of the of Japanese culture. The last weekend I went back to Tokyo to meet again the people I meet there and the friends of my friend Pablo for a last weekend party and getting ready for Australia.

That’s briefly my impression about Japan.

Extrañar

Eso de extrañar… la nostalgia y todo eso es un verso. No se extraña un país, se extraña el barrio en todo caso, pero también lo extrañás si te mudás a diez cuadras. El que se siente patriota, el que cree que pertenece a un país es un tarado mental; la patria es un invento. ¿Qué tengo que ver yo con un tucumano o con un salteño? Son tan ajenos a mí como un catalán o un portugués. Son estadísticas, números sin cara. Uno se siente parte de muy poca gente, tu país son tus amigos, y eso sí se extraña.

Federico Luppi en "Martin Hache"