First Impression of Japan

The JL704 took me to Japan at 7:30 am on July 1th 2008 along with my commitment to take advantages from Japan both academic life and daily life. When I first got into Tokyo, I had the impression that Japan is in an apple-pie order; despite the high population density (5796 /km²), Tokyo has overcomed the traffic jam thanks to the well-organized transportation system including train, subway, shinkansen, taxi, etc...which are linked from one place to other places. However, such a modern system is confusing such a countryside girl like me because most of the signs are in Kanji characters and most of Japanese people don't speak English. Luckily, police working at the station are very helpful, though they can speak only a few English words for telling direction such as "left", "right", "straight", we finally always reach our destination.

Most JDS students from the ten countries were arranged to stay in one of the most famous hotel chains in Japan, Shinjuku Washington Hotel, surrounded by major commerial and administrative center as well as department stores, specialist electronic and camera shops, cinemas, restaurants and bars. Tokyo is one of the very costly cities in the world where everything is expensive, so most of the time I spend, I like to convert and compare to the price in my country, Cambodia. Having been in Tokyo for amost 3 months, I am now graduatlly accustomed to this such a high cost of living. There are also 100 yen shops available where most goods like snack, drink, vegetable, meat, fruit, stationery,.. cost 100yen or so.

Let me briefly describe about Japanese people in Tokyo. They seem to be so busy with their work. Giving value to the time, every morning the crowd in neat suit hurriedly walk back and forth believing that time and tide wait for no man. I do uphold this spirit of being punctual. Moreover, they are polite behaving in a way that shows awaressness of and caring for other's people feeling; they respect each other, in general.

According to JICA's documentation, the average household income is US$70,000 a year. Every family has its own colour TV and microwave. Most Japanese consider themselves middle class. The gap between rich and poor is small. Still, there are street people sleeping in a paper box under bridges.

Though there were news about suicides and murders, Japan is still one of the world's safest countries. I feel secure to live and learn in japan.