Faremax: Travel Forums

If you'd have one "trip of a lifetime" to plan for a leisure or business trip, would you prefer seeing

China or Japan?  Why?  And would you choose the mainstream cities for lodging (Beijing or Toyko)

or a more out-of-the-way place for your base while visiting?

Japan I know less about, but I would avoid the out of the way places in China. China is still a communist country and although that in itself is not reason to avoid places, there are still areas of extreme poverty and exploitation, and I would worry about an affluent looking tourist visiting these areas and not at least being mugged. Definately stay with the tourist type places.

Japan and my feelings on it I touched on in another thread. I fear offending them, with my smell (as they believe all Westerners smell bad because of eating meat) and with not understanding their customs. Again, tourist places would be used to this, but I would not go to the more 'authentic' places, where Japanese people themselves frequent, unless I REALLY knew what I was doing.

Destiny, they are fascinating countries and my suggestion is to visit both.  But if I had to chose only one then my answer would be Japan. I am just very interested in Japan, its culture and people.  Sorry can't give you more details on it though because I did not go there yet

My parents go to Europe on a yearly bases but in 2005 they have decided to visit Asia.  They went on a month long trip of Japan, China, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.  When they came back they were simply amazed of what they have seen. There were some restrictions in Myanmar (and my mom was scared) but everything went smooth and in terms of architecture they liked it the most.  Don't even think about being mugged as the possibility is very remote.  Your chances are much higher when you visit NY, Miami or any other big US city. IMO you can and should visit any authentic (out-of-the-way) place you want otherwise you will not be able to learn about the country and its people to its fullest.  My parents mentioned that people were wonderful in every country they have visited.  Very friendly and helpful.  Yes, they've had some language barrier (especially in mainland China) but it wasn't a major problem.  In Japan they did not have any problems at all as many people speak fluent English.

As for "red meat smell" it's a myth.  Yes, there are some questionable articles about this but they are just rumours.  Japanese might think that we still live in stone age and they might be right about that.  My father called my from Tokyo and said that he feels that he is about 300 years in the future.

So when are you going to post about your trip to Japan or China?

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"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein
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Even compared to the UK, some things in America are like the dark ages. The fact that you still use twin tub washing machines absolutely floored me, so I am sure that to the Japanese we are still banging stones together to make fire.

destiny:

If you'd have one "trip of a lifetime" to plan for a leisure or business trip, would you prefer seeing

China or Japan?  Why?  And would you choose the mainstream cities for lodging (Beijing or Toyko)

or a more out-of-the-way place for your base while visiting?

I would choose Japan because my oldest son was stationed there for a while.  He met his wife there.  She was from Thailand which is the country I would most like to visit in the East.  She was Thai but owned a restaurant in Japan and sent money home to her family.

 

So did you never visit him whilst he was there Ozzie?

faremax:

Destiny, they are fascinating countries and my suggestion is to visit both.  But if I had to chose only one then my answer would be Japan. I am just very interested in Japan, its culture and people.  Sorry can't give you more details on it though because I did not go there yet

Thank you for the answers, everyone.  I think I'd probably like "futurist" Toyko better, too.  And I

agree about out-of-the-way places.  That's where I enjoy finding out about the area from the locals.

When there's a language barrier, it's much worse though, of course.

I'm still aiming to go to Tokyo this year - I love the Japanese culture, and I'd like to fit in some of the more traditional areas as well as modern Tokyo.

I'm trying to learn Japanese too, but not getting very far :(

Have you tried Before You Know It?  Even a free version is pretty good.

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"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." - Albert Einstein
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I've visited Tokyo Japan 2 years ago. I prefer to travel China Town this time for a new experience. Any idea about The Forbidden City?

For some reason when I think about china I think about Japan, even though they are two different countries. But there are alot of traditions that they share amongst eachother.