Final thoughts Madi

My trip to Japan is now over and I have returned back to Calgary. Calgary is the city I grew up in and I have been here my entire life. Having this be the first experience in another country and city was one of the most special things I can imagine. A month in Kawasaki City, close to Tokyo, was long but not long enough. I’ve discovered and decided that in the future it is my dream and goal to move to Japan and live there. Personally I love living in the city so having the experience of living in the Japanese city was extremely lucky for me. I felt like I was able to learn so many things about the lifestyle there and how to fit into the flow and live there comfortably. Of course I month is not long enough to learn all the norms that exist somewhere so I will definitely be coming back either to live there or on more trips to experience more and learn more.

I feel like Japan is a very unique place to live. Out of all the places in the world I’ve heard about Japan is the most interesting to me. Now actually having the experience I confirmed that it was extremely different but also, in my opinion, a really good place to live. Everything is planned out well and organized in ways that Calgary can’t even think of accomplishing right now. They have sophisticated train and bus systems, and despite less room their buildings, roads, and crosswalks all function in efficient ways. It is all planned out since it is a place with such a high population. The scramble crosswalks were still hard to get used to but it makes sense to cross as many pedestrians as you can at once so the crowd doesn’t grow since the space is always needed for more people. Being able to think back about these things it’s interesting to think about and understand why things are so different there from here.

All in all, I was able to learn so much about the lifestyle in Japan through this trip. Plus focusing on this topic helped me to open my mind to more ideas and observations about this and see it more. It felt really beneficial to be able to focus on understanding different norms and lifestyles as I was to live there one day. You need to at least understand the Japanese life and culture when you visit or I can be hard to adapt to. Which can lead to issues for the tourist or foreigner but also issues for the natives and it can come off as very rude. I think anyone who comes here for any amount of time should keep an open mind and notice things like this, and learn about different lifestyles in the world. Having such a large and connected global world it’s important to have knowledge on other people’s way of life.

This will be my last post, thank you so much for reading our blog!!

Madi

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