Do Japan in two weeks.

I had no plan for my spring vacation, but was lured into joinig the other forigners travelling. So suddenly I found myself at the beach in Japans answer to Hawaii: Okinawa. A place with hot weather, nice beaches, nature parks and a romantic atmosphere. Ryeojin-san was swept away and Jeff-san became even happier than on this picture at the West-most trainstation in Japan.
I stayed cool and relaxed, actually so tame that the locals raised a monument of my behaviour. (sorry for you who don't read norwegian)

After returning, it was time for action. What was known as Chris' crazy plan, was to be my next adventure. So the two of us was got on night busses and night ferries to get around the west side as cheap and fast as possible. Starting in Beppu with mud-bath, sex-museum and hot-springs of every colour.
Next we met a new fellow TiTech-student Kenny-san at Fukouka. Beeing unable to find the local food there, neither Chris-san nor Kenny-san saw any other solution to our problem than to eat the poisonous fish "fugu". I couldn't be any worse, so after writing my will and checking that they survived their first bite, I did it. I ate the life-threatning octopus-tasting/tastless fish. Felt kinda like bungee-jumping.

Having already been in Hiroshima, everything was old news except a hobbyshop we found. Hooked on "Magic" as I am, we stayed and played a whole day at this Geek-shop.

But we had to move on, and got to the Japanese desert. Our plan to do paragliding had to be dropped since it was raining, so we realized that even if the desert has camels and sand, it is actually just a big beach. But Japanese tourists loves it.
Next mission was to embarrass ourselves by looking between our legs. That was in the place called shimahashidachi (the ladder to heaven). A facinating scenery, but not as facinating as the rental bikes we got. They had an electric engine giving us extra acceleration when stepping, a crazy feeling of freedom.

Visste du at...

Japanske mobiltelefoner er laget for å være store. Det er et moteobjekt og kan blant annet brukes til å se TV, sende e-post, surfe nettet, høre på musikk og spille spill. Å ringe derimot blir mange steder sett på som uhøflig, særlig på t-banen. Men de fleste har den framme til enhver tid. Man kan tilogmed bruke mobilen som billett på T-banen, og som kredittkort.

Vanlige kredittkort brukes ikke her i landet. Kontanter er konge. Noen vil kanskje si at det er gammeldags, men her prioriterer de. For man må nesten ha bruksanvisning for å kunne bruke toaletten her (de har til og med sensor som merker når du setter deg og starter vifte og varme i setet. Vi snakker teknologi!)

Likestillingen kan også bli sett på som litt gammeldags. I Norge bruker en gjennomsnittsmann 24timer i uka på husarbeid, mot den Japanske mann som bruker 7minutter om dagen. Dette gjør at Europere er veldig attraktive blant damene (vi ser ut som Robbie Williams). Det er også veldig populært å gifte seg her, mens hjemme er kanskje skillsmisse mer i vinden. Så karer som ikke tåler presset: "Dere vet hvor dere må gå."


Notis: Nintendo DS bruker RSA kryptosystem (se kommentar).