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Puti in Japan, 1 of 3
This is a description of my family's trip to Japan in July 2005. The trip is one of those we make every second year to maintain contacts with the relatives and friends of my Japanese wife. That is also the only time that my two teenage children can spend time with their Japanese cousins.
We left from Finland for Japan in the end of June and returned in the end of July. Our traveling time is usually dictated by the summer vacations of our children, as it was this time, too. The timing is not a happy one from my viewpoint, as I have to trade the excellent Finnish summer weather and the white nights for hot, damp, and very rainy season in Japan, and also have the sun set at 7:00 p.m. However, I like Japan quite much and have many experiences on the positive side of the balance, too.
My relatives live in the western part of Tokyo, among the vast sea of small houses for single or a few families. Even after multiple visits the size and building density of Tokyo still manages to amaze me, coming from Finland, which is in comparison nearly empty of people. I am impressed by the ingenuity of Japanese traffic planners, as they can transport those millions of people every day to work and back home again through the mazes of the vast city.
The first half of our vacation we stayed at my wife's mother's house. When the house was built many decades ago, it had plenty of space around it, as it was the first building of that neighborhood. Now it has drowned out of sight with new buildings, and one has to look carefully to even find the narrow entrance passage to it from the street.
The house has plenty of nice neighbors now, and they often stop to chat with us and invite us to their homes when we pass by. One of them remembers Finland as "a country of no decayed teeth" from a TV advertisement about xylitol chewing gum. Well, perhaps the reality is not quite up to the fame yet.
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Language pair: Finnish; Thai
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