Tokyo my home (well sort of for now)

I am posting after a long time inspite of promising y'all Nikko autumn photos and being more regular with my posts too. Good intentions and all that!

First happy new year to everyone :) I had a super wicked holiday getting into New Year with tonnes of snow so much that I don't want to see snow for the rest of this year. However that wish is going to remain unfulfilled. Next holiday is to see a Snow Festival. :O I mean we didn't think too much did we? :)

I really liked this shot of Tokyo all in black and white hence this post happened. It feels like a city full of concrete and buildings. But Tokyo has managed to surprise me in the last 3 months that I have been here. You wander the streets and inevitably confront the old. There are shrines, old houses sitting very comfortably with the shiny new skyscraper. Green abounds - yes I promise you that.

Imagine this in the heart of the city! Can you even imagine such a scene in Bumbai? It was peaceful, so serene and there were people young and old walking around ever so happily! If Bumbai even decided that we needed something like this, my home would be very different.


Tokyo is clean. I don't miss the filth back home at all! I am sounding like a NRI snob, sorry about that, but oh man its lovely not be faced with paan and spit stains in Metro stations and yes no one is jostling you in the train either. Simple things but they do enhance the quality of life.

The culture is very different too. People give each other too much space sometimes I reckon. A small incident happened when I moved here first. An elderly gentleman riding a bicycle (yes everyone rides one here or so it feels) turned the corner of the road and well bam went right into the lamp post. I was standing there at the signal paralyzed by etiquette. There were two other people on the road - who err looked at him and well walked away. By the time the signal had turned green, he had recovered and was on his way. But I am told this is a minor case in a city where people are very helpful and this I have experienced myself without knowing any Japanese.

Oh yes first rule of living in Japan - you gotta know Japanese to survive with aam aadmi. Or else your interaction with the locals is next to nada. English teaching btw is the number one occupation of most gaijins (foreigners) here. But very hard to get into unless you are what they call a 'native' speaker. And err whilst my education from the time I was born has been in English, they would not consider me a 'native' speaker believe it or not!

Enough from me for now. Hopefully will be writing more frequently. I aim to also move this blog from here to Wordpress or even my own website sometime this year. It has now become my New Year resolution so touch wood for that. :)