Domo Arigato Mr.Roboto

Prior to coming to Japan I had quite a few expectations. 

1) sick cars

2) Drifting (kind of a joke)

3)amazing cell phones/electronics

4) Crazy vending machine

All of which were wrong.

First off. No drifting,I can't even count how many people said I would see that because of the Fast and the Furious movie Tokyo Drift. So I'm sorry to disappoint you all, but it doesn't happen. BUT, I will admit if people were to drift it would be very easy. Why? The road system. I didn't think there was any other way of making intersections and roads but there is. And it's stupid. All the roads curve, half them you can barely fit two cars down but they do (apparently no one is really too concerned about their mirrors..) I wish I could explain it better but you really have to see it. Sometimes you sit in the middle of intersections while others just go around you. Lights are a solid 5 minutes long. Anyone driving from Canada would have a fit. Oh and when crossing the blind have to hit a button so it will make a noise for them, my question is, how do they know if there is a button? 

With that being said everywhere you go there is a yellow strip in the middle of the sidewalk or in the metro stations with either bumpy lines, circles or rectangles. They are incredibly annoying to walk on until I realized they are paths for the blind. (I was very excited when I figured this out) the circles means either stairs or edge of a platform etc. The lines just mean keep going and the rectangles are kind of a warning for the circles. It's amazing and so accessible. I was very impressed, even if it is annoying to walk on.

Ok now cars. You know those Cube cars your starting to see back home that look like they should be little catering vans. Well that is what about 85% of people drive here. Little boxes. They love them! Every car company has them and it's all you see. Everywhere. And if not those then obviously it's amazingly expensive cars that blow your mind. But those really aren't that often. Which is upsetting.

 

Cell phones. I was expecting top of the line, 5 years ahead of us, amazing cell phones.

No

Everyone has a flip phone. A thin, wide flip phone. That's it. Well either that or an Iphone, they love Iphones. But with that being said they are still pretty cool. You know the BBM codes people use to add each other as contacts. Well those weird box pictures are everywhere. And all phones can scan them. What for?

Information. On all billboards or ads you see, restaurants anything has a code that you can scan to read or see about it. It's amazing. Apparently soon you are going to be able to pay for things by just scanning that code. As for black berry. Yeah they hate it. You see ads for it and such but I haven't seen one person use one. It's flip phone or Iphone. Or both, a lot of people have like 3 cell phones for no good reason. 

Vending Machines. Well they are everywhere. But I had heard there are ones with school girls panties, and even lawn mowers. Well I don't know where those people were but I have seen nothing like that. Majority are just drinks or cigarettes there are at least 4 of each on every block. But I have seen an umbrella one (very smart) and a make-up one which was neat. But that's really the extent of it. I'm kind of disappointed I was looking forward to seeing how many random ones I could find. Maybe that fad ended a few years ago I'm not too sure.

So what is the conclusion? No Japan isn't as far ahead as I was expecting, and it may not look as crazy as I thought but the difference is still pretty sweet.

And either way I still love Japan.

Ky.xo