Saturday 2 May 2009

Europe in the eyes of a tourist..


Living in an expensive city as amman, which has a very low income/price ratio, gave me no chance of feeling like a tourist when I visited other countries. But, living in a city with a high income/price ratio with very expensive prices but yet higher incomes as Tokyo, made me see Praha (Prague) as one of the cheapest cities in the world.

Yeah! Believe it or not I even felt that the chocolate in the mini bar of the hotel room is not actually expensive! I bought a whole L size pizza, with salads and a cold drink for 1000yen (10$)! A 500ml cola is for 80yen, and a one hour bus from one city to another is 350yen!

Let us just clear some stereotypes about the Europeans:

1. Europeans are very organized and exact in time.

Nope. Far from the truth. When the bus leaves 16:04, that means its 4 minutes late. In Japan, this would never occur unless in rare occasions it was accompanied with a huge apologies. 16:00 means 16:00.

2. Europeans are so open minded and free.

Yeah right! Thats why they kept staring at me and my Japanese professor. You have never seen a Japanese person before? Yeah, I do not drink Alcohol. Yes never. Live with it and please do not keep giving me that weird look and stop whispering about it to your friends!

3. Nobody drinks Alcohol more than the Japanese.

Oh yeah, except for the Europeans. Europeans drink a beer between each two beers. And even during their working hours they drink.

4. Europe is soo clean that we wish Arab countries to be the same.

You are far from the truth here. For two years living in Japan, i did not notice 1 paper thrown carelessly in the middle of the road. That was probably the default case in Praha. Writing on the walls is so spread that you wonder how a clean wall looks like. Ofcourse, do not let me start to talk about their subways and metros! Shinjuku subway station in Tokyo (3 million visitors per day) is much cleaner than whole Praha (population of 1million). Amman also is much cleaner.

All in all, it was a very nice trip where business mixed with pleasure! Ofcourse, since my beloved university paid for all this, who am I to complain? Haha!


4 comments:

momiji said...

Well, may be not all Europe like this, my cousins went to Germany before and they said that it is very clean, but they also said that the German people are not so open-minded as we think.
Also I heard that in some cities in Japan there are people who stares at foreigners and don't accept others' cultures.

Anyway, Japan stills my dream land :)

Ike said...

hey Europe ain't that bad!! :P just kidding ^-^ yeah, sometimes u can find not-so-polite people but that is not the norm! :P maybe u can come to portugal one day ^^
Apart from all that i still hope you enjoyed your trip to europe!
Can't wait for new posts!
Cya Subzero ;)

Saemon 左衛門 said...

There is a HUGE difference between western europe and eastern europe. The Czech republic is in eastern europe.

Do not judge all of europe just from one Eastern european country. Big mistake.

Saemon 左衛門 said...

One more thing:

"For two years living in Japan, i did not notice 1 paper thrown carelessly in the middle of the road"You went to Japan for two weeks and saw a street littered so much, it made the dirtiest street in Amman look clean.

Japan != Tokyo