Continuing on the travel experiences, Lost in Translation was on TV today, and it made me realise that one of the enduring experiences of my life, was travelling to Tokyo on my own, and having that Lost in Translation experience.
Wandering around the streets of Shinjuku not really speaking that much of the language, sleeping alone in a Japanese style business hotel, watching television programs that were all in Japanese and getting immersed in a culture at once alien but reassuringly human. It is as though Japan puts a spin on every normal experience and makes it their own, translating my human experiences into another language I cannot understand.
The simplest things that we usually take for granted fascinate me in Japan, because it is so different. It's the nearly self cleaning toilets to the waist deep bathtubs I love so much. It's the flashing street lights and billboards on buildings and ramen stores tucked up narrow flights of staircases serving the best noodles I've ever tasted. It's the sunshine, walking in the university smiling like a schoolgirl, riding on the back of a Japanese styled bicycle like in a Miyazaki film.
We take for granted the simplest things of our realities for granted, until we walk into another place that turns everything on its head, and begin to realize what we have. I guess that's what culture shock feels like.
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