Ed wrote:

> I'm not envious at all. Travelling in Japan seriously sucks. It's not like
> there are regional differences so you can travel from one region to the
> other and come upon differences. All you can find are different barn-like
> structures, different specialty foods, different biting insects, and the
> same crappy over-priced lodgings where you are lucky if you can squeeze into
> the hotel room without rupturing something important.
> 
> Did I forget to mention the fact that no matter where you travel in Japan,
> you will find more Japanese? Why the hell would I want to go to Tokyo? To
> meet more Japanese? There are more than enough where I am, so why would I
> want to spend good money going somewhere else where the only thing available
> is more Japanese?
 
Exactly. You sit on a train for hours and then you are all like, 
"Whoa, look at me I'm on another island", only to realize you are 
looking at the same concrete architecture, the same shops, the same 7 
million people cluttering up the sidewalks with their bicycles and 
their scooters. Sure, this particular region might be slightly flatter 
than you are used to, slightly more vertical, might even have a filthy 
beach and a ridiculously large bronze buddha, but it's all the same. 
Then you realize that with the money you spent getting to the exact 
same place you started you could be eating Yoshinoya meat bowl in a 
completely different country.