The First Impression

How many times have we heard the expression "the first impression is what stays". These days I've been thinking about it, while discovering Tokyo as well as Japan for my first time.

The day I left Beijing on my way to the airport the taxi driver made me the usual questions: Where are you from? And How long have you been in China? To the first question, as usual, I had to explain where Spain is what is the main language spoken. The reference to the South of France was enough to indicate the location, then I had to explain that in Spain we do not speak French, but Spanish. Answering the second question, I realized that I have been already two years in China.

The renewal of my visa, which allows me a maximum continuous stay of 3 months in China, and a bit of work brought me to Japan. The first night, while dining at the nice Aoky’s place where the main menu was BBQ chicken with vegetables (Yakitori), I was thinking about the impressions you get during the first hours and days at a new place. A second, third or fourth time that the visit a place again is never the same, so that first time is a bit special.

One of the things that impressed me most is the cleanliness of Tokyo. Since I landed at Narita Airport - 60 km from central Tokyo - until I sat at Aoky’s restaurant, after travelling first by train, then by subway and finally walking through the streets of the neighbourhood where I stayed (Asakusa ), everything was scrupulously clean. Other think that drove my attention was the respect of the Japanese to meet the standards such as crossing signals (including pedestrians and bicycles), smoking only in designated areas (at street), making queues, etc.. This means that Tokyo, with 12 million people (4 times the sizes of Madrid and also candidate city for Olympics 2016) works relatively well and there is the feeling of chaos that exists in some other large cities like Tokyo.

Sure everything has its drawbacks. Last Saturday while conversing with Tomo (a Japanese friend I had met years ago in London) told me that he wanted to leave to live abroad again. It appears that this order and enforcement made it a nice life outside the office, but not inside it, which seems excessive regulated and does not leave much room for flexibility and creativity.

I thought I was very clearly about my first impression, but what I talked to Tomo made me think. Now, I will try to scratch the first impressions to make sure that I do not get it wrong…

The First Bath

Just a month a ago I had the opportunity to have the first sea bath of the year in the city of Hong Kong where the temperature is much warmer than in Beijing and where there is sea where to swim. Last weekend, my mobile telephone wanted to have the first swim at the West Lake of the city of Hanghzhou – near Shanghai.

Mi had holding the telephone hit one person walking next to me and the telephone went, first to the ground and then to the water. A couple of people and I could see how the telephone was going into the wather (glu-glu-glu…).

One of the person who saw it, quickly called the police whom five minutes latter was there. The first method they tried was with a long stick attached to a basket. One of the staff of the lake saw that the solutions to take the telephone out had to be different.

Two phone calls followed – at that stage I decided to wait calm seating in a chair that they provided to me – and 15 minutes latter a small boat arrived with two people onboard. They brought a simple stick of 2meters long with a magnetic at the end. Another 10 minutes were enough to take the telephone out of the water.

I thank them for the very good service free of charge they had just provided to me. They did not want to accept any monetary compensation. I could read on their eyes saying that that was their job and they were already paid for that.

Only 45 minutes before, when the telephone mobile wanted to have the first bath of the season, I thought that it was going to be almost impossible to take it back. However, China surprised aging very positevely and I even reckon that very few lakes in the World have such a good service.