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Travel

First impression

The first thing you see in Japan after Narita International Airport is:


Rice, rice and more rice!

I took this video from a Narita Express train, my favorite train (fast and comfortable) to travel from Narita to Tokyo. Other lines from the Airport to Tokyo are Keisei Skyliner a little bit cheaper, JR Sobu Line much slower and Keisei Limited Express that is the slowest and the cheapest one.

For lines from the airport, not bad. The problem is that Narita is very far away from Tokyo. Narita Express takes more than one hour, and is the fastest train. In the seventies they started to built a shinkansen (bullet train) from the airport to Tokyo but the project stop because there were some political problems… (Who knows). Good news is that right now there is a new line in construction called Narita Rapid Railway that will start to work around 2010 and will connect Narita Airport and Tokyo in 36 minutes.

One curiosity about Narita is that there is a “type” of divorce known as “Narita Divorce” (Narita rikon). “Narita rikon” is broadly used by people because it seems that many Japanese couples decide to divorce when they are back at Narita Airport after their honey moon travel. There is even a Japanese drama called “Narita rikon” that made the expression even more popular.

Categories
Various

Spider-man


Found a guy trying to emulate Spider-man near Harajuku.

Categories
Various

Shaolin golden balls

Found this video at Crazy Japan where you can see how Shaolin monks train in order to develop some special abilities.

At Youtube there are many Shaolin videos but my recommendation is that you should first watch the film Shaolin Soccer, one of those films that made my university life unique.


Japanese Shaolin Soccer cover.