Himeji and some Misconceptions

7 October, APA Hotel, Himeji

Another quick trip on the Shinkansen today. We have now travelled more than 600kms from Tokyo through the flat plains of eastern Honshu. The whole way has been solid, wall-to-wall city. We have seen some densely populated areas in our travels, but this takes the cake.

Interestingly, from the train, the cities look dreadful. But, close up at street level, they aren't half bad. Wide streets, no more street traffic than you would see in the US, Australia or Europe and clean, clean, clean!

The smallish (550,000) city of Himeji is famous for its castle, a spectacular structure that is largely under restoration at the moment. All the same, we spent a rewarding few hours wandering about the extensive palace, one of the very few wooden structures to survive the wars and fires that have destroyed many of Japan's heritage buildings.

 

It's about time we commented on a couple of things about impressions of Japan. First, costs, one of our favourite topics! Japan has been in an economic freeze for almost two decades. As a result, prices have frozen fairly much at 20^th century levels. So, even though Japan was outrageously expensive 10 years ago, it has come back to the pack. As a couple of examples, local subway travel is around $2.50 (US or AUD) for a standard trip, a 500 ml can of beer is around $3.50 from a supermarket and sandwiches from a convenience store at $3.60 for a cheap lunch. Chain hotels near stations can be had for $75-$80. A nice Japanese evening meal will set you back about $15 for a main course. Specials can be found if you shop around. We bought a pair of sox today for $1.30. So, as usual, if you wander into the first restaurant you see, or buy your beer in a flash bar, you can multiply these prices by 10.

Next. Language is often seen as a problem for travellers in Japan. Not at all. Transport systems are set-up to deal with English speakers, most people speak enough English to help you out and people are so obliging that nothing is a problem. We do feel for non-English speakers though. They would have a problem. As far as the Japanese are concerned, there are only a two languages they deal with, apart from their own - English and Chinese.

The last misconception leads us to a far more serious issue. Japan is a very rich country. As discussed above, Japan is highly westernised and fairly affluent. However, things have changed for Japan in the last couple of decades. Yes, prices have held, to the advantage of the foreign tourist, but for the Japanese, the first decade of the 21^st century has been an economic nightmare. The stagnation of the economy has left Japan in a situation not dissimilar to Europe and the USA. To their credit, the Japanese have applied their strong cultural precepts to the problem. Jobs are maintained at the cost of corporate profits. A sad sight for us amongst all this, is that of very elderly people out working to support themselves, instead of enjoying what was probably planned as a comfortable retirement. Old, yes simply old, women sweeping the streets and parks with straw brooms and men in their 70s working as security or traffic guards. There is obviously a program of employment creation in place because, even with all the technology employed in Japan, wherever people can be used to do a job they are employed rather than some technology-based system.