So I had a chance to visit Fukuoka yesterday. It’s a nice-sized city on the west side of Japan (just south of Busan). I wandered throughout the extremely clean and orderly boulevards for a good six or so hours (and have a super sexy sunburn as a result).
While I’ve been to downtown Tokyo very briefly at night, this was the first time I’ve been to any of the main islands during the day — and boy they aren’t kidding when they say Japan is highly industrialized.
Aside from the warehouse district (which I also meandered aimlessly through), the entire core is cleaner than downtown Seoul, Taipei or Kaohsiung (the big cities I’ve lived in thus far). Everyone was well-dressed, air-pollution was non-existent, and they all drove on the wrong side of the road!
Food prices were about par with Dallas or Seoul (Taiwan is by far the cheapest I’ve been to yet).
All the young women, if they weren’t dressed up in business suits wore impossibly small micro skirts. No complaints there.
It was kind of funny to see a line of men and women standing in front of a large magazine rack at 7-11. Apparently what you see in movies and cartoons is actually common-place: you find a book, pop in your headphones and just read standing up… in public.
I noticed less English in both advertisements and public transportation, but this could just be a result of distractions, like the young nurses that wore skin-tight clothing… as they road bicycles. Speaking of which, while all of the cars and buses on the road were modern vehicles, there were a large number of old school cruiser bicycles in use (not crazily zooming around like you see in videos from China).
And everyone walked with a different, more sophisticated air of confidence. I attribute this to the fact that Japan as a whole has pretty much been at the forefront of economic and cultural development for the past century. Conversely in Taiwan and Korea less than a generation ago most people still lived in a rural farm, and thus are still adjusting to a higher standard of living — and not walking around in pajamas (seriously, I’m not trying to make fun of “poorer” people, but some of the gitups are pretty funny to see).
This was taken right before sunset. Apparently the guy was a local man that liked to play for an hour or so each day on the park situated in the middle of the lake (Ohori Park). He even had a mini-amp connected to his guitar. I have no idea what the name of the song was, despite recording it, because the microphone on the camera didn’t work : (
There was a canal that cut the central business core into two areas.
If you’ve seen the film Lost in Translation, one of the more interesting aspects to global advertising is that you can find a famous celebrity on just about any product imaginable. One has to wonder if the star has any idea where their face is appearing on. Take for instance this beer vending machine that has the mug of ol’ Tommy Lee Jones on it. Sexy.
Obligatory Hello Kitty signage. I’ll be honest, despite the stereotypes, I didn’t feel inundated with ads for our friendly pink ambassador.