Imagine a world where you must pay 2 months rent - non-refundable “thank you” money just to get over the dotted line for an apartment lease– or pay 3 months of the same nonsense just because your surname is Korean or Chinese. How about a world where bored old men search through your rubbish to see if everything has been separated into the correct ten recyclable categories? Better still, can you imagine catching your daily commute sitting next to a businessman openly looking at pornographic material? I can – I lived it for a decade. Welcome to Japan ladies and gentleman! So when the latest updates for travelling to the land of the Oosu Shihan appeared today, nothing came as a shock.
From CNN website:-
“The Japan Tourism Agency announced on Tuesday, May 17 that it would start allowing small group tours in May as part of a "test tourism" trial before the country fully reopens to foreign visitors. The country's tourism agency added that the trial will allow the government to assess health and safety protocols and how to deal with Covid-19 infections among the trial participants, according to a statement released on Tuesday by the country's tourism agency.
North Korea anyone?
"This venture will allow us to verify compliance and emergency responses for infection prevention and formulate guidelines for travel agencies and accommodation operators to keep in mind," the statement said.”
Full article: https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/japan-testing-tourism-reopen-intl-hnk/index.html
Verify, smellify…Seems like every other nation has already been opened up to the world for quite sometime….. What more guidelines need to be verified?
Nothing has been more on my mind these last two years than visiting North Korea… I mean Japan. Being under control of over-the-hill xenophobes, the eternal wait comes as no surprise. This slow dragged-out "quasi" process can only be described as Sooooo God Damn Japanese – Arghhhhhh!
My maiden trip to Okinawa, I had the notion that the city would be the same as everywhere else in Japan - How wrong I was! It was the total opposite – people were genuinely welcoming, discrimination or creepy oddball experiences did not exist, and porn was nowhere seen viewed in public. It was a different place, city, world – and absolutely not what I understood of was Japan. Mainland Japan can stay shut all they want, but at least open Okinawa to the rest of the world, or at least us, me, my dog too. Apologies for the lack of karate talk. Oooooosu...............................