What Katy did: the land of non-stop fun

Forget Land of the Rising Sun.

Japan is Land of the Non-Stop Fun.

I spent a week there recently and already I can’t wait to go back.

Things are different in Japan.

Whereas here people bump into and elbow each other just to get a seat on the train, in Tokyo you can stand in the middle of the world’s biggest scramble crossing without touching another human.

One million people can be walking towards you and not one of them will so much as nudge you to get past.

And they’re helpful.

Finding myself completely lost on more than one occasion, I discovered you are never alone in Tokyo with people only too keen to point you in the right direction.

And then there’s the cute factor.

It’s an incontrovertible fact that everything in Japan is cute.

From the little dishes of display food outside restaurants to the tiny cans of cool drink available from vending machines on every street corner, there is more cute there than anywhere else in the world.

One thing there is not a lot of is rubbish.

The streets of Tokyo are pristine.

There are no discarded cans or fast food wrappers littering the gutters.

There are no cigarette butts lining the footpaths.

It’s almost too good to be true.

How does one of the world’s biggest cities keep itself so nice? 

Before I return though, I really need to learn the difference between ‘cute’ and ‘scary’ in Japanese.

Calling a baby ‘scary’ was a low point.

Who knew those words were so easily confused?

By all means, go to Japan.

Just don’t make that mistake.