seigex

I wonder what McDonalds will change the 大人のクリームパイ to.

BuildingMyBento

And let's not forget about D'Asse biscuits.

CPH-Flyer

I first came to Japan in the 90s, quickly after starting to study Japanese, I decided that when summer break came around I had to go to Japan to see if I liked the country, if not the work that was going in to kanji and other fun sides of the Japanese language would not be worth it.

It was my first trip out of Europe, and my first trip alone. Arriving at Narita where every single aircraft, apart from the tiny Scandinavian Airlines 767 I just arrived on, seemed to be a 747, and then taking the Narita Express for a train change at Shinjuku Station, everything seemed to have a very big scale. I also remember being impressed the animated advertising always running exactly outside the window as the N'EX ran through the tunnel from T2 towards Tokyo. Everything seemed very advanced and futuristic.

Some days of navigating Tokyo, then heading to Hiroshima, Kyoto and Osaka. Kyoto was an initial disappointment, I had kind of expected it to be more traditional less modern city. The station area and Karasuma is still a bit of an eyesore on the city, but one quickly learns to navigate away from there. I did find my ways to navigate Kyoto, and find the traditional parts, and eventually lived in Kyoto for a year while still a student.

Looking at old pictures, certain shots could almost be taken today, though Tokyo had a lot less highrises back then. (apologies for the quality, these are pictures of pictures as this is pre digital camera days)


Akihabara

View from the TMG Building towards Shinjuku Station.

JapanFlyerT

Landed in 1992. Having been in Taiwan and China, the kanji did not intimidate me all that much even though my reading ability was extremely limited, but the politeness of people was very noticeable (women older than me holding the door, etc).
One surprising situation was entering what I thought was the male onsen locker room, finding a woman, and hastily retreating to the other locker room. Turns out the first place was the men's, and the woman was one of the cleaners. Oops.

evergrn

That reminds me of one time I stayed at a ryokan in Gifu. Went to the men’s onsen. The typical setup where you go thru the locker room, then out to the large indoor onsen which leads out to a couple of rotenburos outside. I go into the indoor onsen area and the place is empty, except an old couple probably in their 60’s was in there. As soon as I come in, the obasan rushed out sheepishly. Very surprised to see that, but kudos to them for their risk taking. It’s something you might imagine a young couple trying to pull off. After the lady left, the dude just stayed put.

Incidentally, last year I wasn’t thinking and walked into a ladies room by accident.

evergrn

if this photo is from the 90’s , then I’m amazed that the taxi car model looks the exact same back then as they look now (asides from those newer hatchbacks).

CPH-Flyer

That model with slight tweaks over time have been around for a very long while. I don't know if it is still being produced, but it certainly was until the new London cab inspired ones came around.

kentauta

Judging from billboards (coexistence of DVD and ワープロ in one picture and lack of anime stuff), I believe this picture is from late 90's or very early 00's. Soon after this, the anime culture started surfacing in the town. This was around the end of "my" golden era of Akihabara where there were lots of obscure shops in a basement or upper floors of old buildings selling used/untested/broken rare pieces of equipment like SGI, Sun, and hp workstations and their peripheral hardware, measurement equipment,etc. I don't know how many times I visited the town for treasure hunting.

CPH-Flyer

Checking the details the picture is from 1996.

rworne

My first trip was with a foreign exchange program back in the summer of '85. I was placed near Kurume city in Kyushu for a summer stay (much to my dismay, the group did not have year-long programs for Japan). Flew over on a JAL flight (a 747) to Tokyo, a bus ride to Shinjuku for the night, then an ANA flight to Fukuoka airport.

Due to a quirk in the rules and my age, I graduated high school prior to the trip - so it was a bit odd being demoted back to high school student after having completed my 1st year of college. This caused issues at the school (Meizen HS) because the students knew I was not a HS student and thus did not accept me in their group. So I resorted to hanging out with the teachers. I had a very basic grasp of the language at the time, which was quite rare back then, but that opened up a lot of opportunities to explore that I would not otherwise have had. This occurred after solo navigating my way back from the high school walking to the bus terminal, finding the right bus, making one bus transfer winding up at the station, a train ride, and a walk home. While this does not sound like much, back in those days you needed to watch the lighted board on the bus and listen to the announcements to know when to get off and how much to pay - all in Japanese - there's no English used back then. Not another foreigner to be seen either. Fun times.

Most of my free time was spent exploring the Nishitetsu line from Kurume to Fukuoka, hitting the local movie theater, and trying not to make a fool out of myself in public.

Likes:
The quiet country-like atmosphere.
Houses surrounded my rice paddies.
The peculiar wood smell that is specific to only Japanese houses.
The incredible (huge) insects.
The dude in the train station with the ticket punch clicking away as he takes everyone's tickets at the turnstile.
Tofu, dry-cleaners, and the like going through the neighborhood announcing their presence - and the scramble to respond to them.
Everyone watching the HS baseball competition. Even the lone yakuza on the train sitting next to me was into it using a small Sony portable TV.
The occasional bold native who wants to try out their English on the foreigner in the train.

Dislikes:
Mosquitoes
Konyaku
Vehicles with loudspeakers on them
Modern houses with essentially a toilet mounted over a pit of excrement
The occasional bold native who wants to try out their English on the foreigner in the train.

Significant events while I was there:
Watched the dollar crash against the yen, which really put the strain on the last half of my trip.
Reagan's colon cancer diagnosis
JAL flight 123 crashing in Gunma, and the crap-fest that came out of that.
Watching on the news some guy with a knife climb into a window of a building and slay the head of an investment firm, while an army of reporters just stood by watching.

BuildingMyBento

please delete

BuildingMyBento

Blurry continuation of your photo, only taken in 2005.

CPH-Flyer

Certain things change slowly, but the digital camera add would indeed move the picture out of the 90s and in to the 00s. I had moved to mainly digital cameras for snapshots by 2005.

seigex

Still love the 80s-90s look of the old 110 and 35mm cameras.

CPH-Flyer

I do sometimes still miss using my good old Canon 35mm slr. But to be honest, even my DSLR is not getting much action these days, it really needs to be rather special destination to trigger me bringing anything but my phone. And I actually go for the mirrorless more compact cameras these days.