Elakiriyans who have visited japan

imhotep

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  • Mar 29, 2017
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    What really impressed me is the beauty of rural Japan. I have visited many places that a normal tourist wouldn't have travelled. Also tour operators will not take you over to these places as well. You need to hire a self-drive vehicle and it takes a fair bit of time. When you travel you need not only waste time looking at concrete structures. Beauty lies far away from the cities.

    What really impressed my son was probably the Toilet seats. I guess the first time he went over there he spent about 30 mins fiddling with all the buttons to figure out the technology. :P Apart from that he loved the Toyota Factory tour as boys are interested in cars.

    One more thing that impressed me was their optics. While in Kyoto we visited a large store. They had a designer frames clearance sale. Unbelievable prices. My wife selected one and went to the counter. Fortunately the young boy at the counter could speak fluent english. He was a Uni student studying Optometry. He said the price includes the lenses, with an adjustment on the type and features.
    She normally gets her specs from Singapore whenever we pass through and quite expensive. She has varifocals with minor astigmatism correction and the two eyes are different. Usually expensive because she goes for the thinnest lenses to minimize the weight.
    Anyway, she had a very recent prescription with her and handed it over to the guy. He said I just need to verify and asked her to sit at a machine. Within a minute the machine generated a report. Then he said this report doesn't match with the prescription she has and borrowed her existing specs and placed it in another machine. Then he said these glasses are also incorrect. Then he scanned her eyes once again and there was a similar report from the machine.
    I said there's no time for us as we will be leaving Kyoto tomorrow. Then this guy said that all it takes to grind the lenses is 40 mins, plus further polishing and minor corrections if needed and come back in an hour. I saw him getting out two blocks of Hoya glass lenses, inserted them to a machine that grinds these.
    After an hour went in and the specs was ready. With it her tension headaches also disappeared, because she wears it all day. Worth making a trip to Japan to get specs. That's really impressive optical technology.(y)

    I love to travel to Japan any day... even after having visited there a few times. I have many Japanese friends in there too.
     

    ShiningStar

    Well-known member
  • Dec 27, 2017
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    What really impressed me is the beauty of rural Japan. I have visited many places that a normal tourist wouldn't have travelled. Also tour operators will not take you over to these places as well. You need to hire a self-drive vehicle and it takes a fair bit of time. When you travel you need not only waste time looking at concrete structures. Beauty lies far away from the cities.

    What really impressed my son was probably the Toilet seats. I guess the first time he went over there he spent about 30 mins fiddling with all the buttons to figure out the technology. :P Apart from that he loved the Toyota Factory tour as boys are interested in cars.

    One more thing that impressed me was their optics. While in Kyoto we visited a large store. They had a designer frames clearance sale. Unbelievable prices. My wife selected one and went to the counter. Fortunately the young boy at the counter could speak fluent english. He was a Uni student studying Optometry. He said the price includes the lenses, with an adjustment on the type and features.
    She normally gets her specs from Singapore whenever we pass through and quite expensive. She has varifocals with minor astigmatism correction and the two eyes are different. Usually expensive because she goes for the thinnest lenses to minimize the weight.
    Anyway, she had a very recent prescription with her and handed it over to the guy. He said I just need to verify and asked her to sit at a machine. Within a minute the machine generated a report. Then he said this report doesn't match with the prescription she has and borrowed her existing specs and placed it in another machine. Then he said these glasses are also incorrect. Then he scanned her eyes once again and there was a similar report from the machine.
    I said there's no time for us as we will be leaving Kyoto tomorrow. Then this guy said that all it takes to grind the lenses is 40 mins, plus further polishing and minor corrections if needed and come back in an hour. I saw him getting out two blocks of Hoya glass lenses, inserted them to a machine that grinds these.
    After an hour went in and the specs was ready. With it her tension headaches also disappeared, because she wears it all day. Worth making a trip to Japan to get specs. That's really impressive optical technology.(y)

    I love to travel to Japan any day... even after having visited there a few times. I have many Japanese friends in there too.
    Thank you for the long answer
     

    ratadel

    Well-known member
  • Mar 27, 2007
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    දෙල්ගස මුදුනේ
    Since I was a child I always dreamt of visiting Japan one day. And when I finally did, it was exactly like how I imagined it would be. It was magical.

    Japanese people are workaholics to an extreme. And I am not a big fan of Japanese food. Other than that, everything was perfect!

    Yes, technology was one thing, among many others, that I was impressed with. The people I met were very polite and friendly.

    However, my sister in law who used to live in Japan for awhile has a different opinion(a negative one) about Japan (and Japanese people). So the opinions are subjective. You may or may not like Japan, depending on your personality and your likes and dislikes

    For me, it was a magical place. Can't wait to travel again
     

    ShiningStar

    Well-known member
  • Dec 27, 2017
    7,252
    7,128
    113
    Since I was a child I always dreamt of visiting Japan one day. And when I finally did, it was exactly like how I imagined it would be. It was magical.

    Japanese people are workaholics to an extreme. And I am not a big fan of Japanese food. Other than that, everything was perfect!

    Yes, technology was one thing, among many others, that I was impressed with. The people I met were very polite and friendly.

    However, my sister in law who used to live in Japan for awhile has a different opinion(a negative one) about Japan (and Japanese people). So the opinions are subjective. You may or may not like Japan, depending on your personality and your likes and dislikes

    For me, it was a magical place. Can't wait to travel again
    May i know the reason behind your sister in laws negative opinion ?
     

    imhotep

    Well-known member
  • Mar 29, 2017
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    Well according to her, the Japanese are very self involved, selfish and rude. Long story short, it's a great country to visit, but not to live in. But that's just her opinion (based on her personal experience)
    When you live there probably the perception is different. I do have a lot of Japanese friends. But they are all academics. They are nice, keep in touch at least once a month socially.
    Just before Covid one of them, a young Post-Doctoral Research Immunologist from Tokyo visited us in SriLanka. She stayed two weeks with us. She specifically requested to visit Kandy, Sigiriya, Anuradhapura, Pollonnaruwa & Nuwara Eliya, WildLife and a few Beaches.

    During the my visits in Japan, I have been helped by strangers without even asking for help. Once at a Tokyo station while I was at the ticket machine an English speaking guy stopped, enquired I needed help and he explained how best the tickets can be purchased considering we have several in our family. Purchase in multiples, so that it's cheaper. Later on, after we had the JR pass activated and no other tickets required.

    In rural Japan once my wife went in to a shop to find directions to the hotel we stayed because I couldn;t locate it from the Navigator. The shop guy had asked from where we were. When she said from SL.. he has said Oh.. Japan friends, closed the shop and came to our van and took us to the hotel and walked back.
    A very young Uni first year girl who was our volunteer guide for three days in Kyoto was very nice to us. She was with us everyday from 8 AM to 7 PM. She did her best to show us everything, took us everywhere and on the last day refused to take anything from us. Finally she agreed to take just a small token present just to remember us. She was about two years elder to my son and to this day they are friends and communicate.
    There were several instances the average Japanese guy was helpful.

    PS: OTOH the common Chinese just shun you away. Probably the lack of English is a possible reason. No help from them at all. If they want you to sell you something then of course all the English they know comes out. I will never set foot in China again unless for work related.
     
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