ehy man!
I think I'll come from the same place as yours.. I just arrived here and my first impression is the same as yours. Here people don't have taste for beautiful things. There is no architecture, no house planning.. It's all build as it come and the first impression is an impression of a poor country, even if I know it's not true.
Try to build an highway into a city in Europe, how do this people has such bad ideas?! Why do they have all those electric cables? Why don't they have big alimentary stores instead of those almost useless convenience stores?
Anyway I enjoyed the movement in Namba and other places, and I hope in the future I'll have time to visit beautiful places. Still, I think in Europe we live better.
cheers

well I feel sorry for you guys living in big cities I live in the country-side and where I live we have big parks rivers,mountains all greenery and when I want to have a night out in the city I just hoop a train and am there in like 1hour or 2 I've never to Europe but I've live in the most european city in NorthAmerica Quebec city and Old Montreal but in winter is frigging freezing and summers are worst hotter than in japan Iam from a Latinamerican country with beaches on the caribbean and the pacific LOL

ok my fellow human. we need to back up some, and choose our words with a little more caution and a little less passion.
For one, who do you think is reading the board? a bunch of mediterraneans who are gonna have your same point of view and cheer you on, and start bashing Japan with you? Wake up, please. the words you use are naturally going to offend people so how can you not expect anybody to give you a heated reply?
Now, for my heated reply
This had me cracking up
Quote:
HAHAHA! cuz'! that is FUNNY! the way you set this one up is classic, my man! c'mon, what do some of our other readers here think? in your first line, you knock americans for being ignorant, self-centered, and Nazi. then you go on about how great and beautiful your home land is in contrast to Japan's terrible architecture, etc and inability to impress YOU?? does that not sound like the most ignorant, self-centered rumble of sh-it you ever heard? HAHA! "World known artists have come to my land for INSPRIATION!" "History is OOZING out of every corner"(did you really mean to say oozing??) and my favorite line: "But let's not talk about my home". that was killer punchline, cuz!
Bruddah, if you don't have the capacity to enjoy someone else's culture from a perspective other than your own, (one that you brought with you all the way from europe and grew up with and hold onto so dearly and have already decided that your vision of beauty is the ONLY vision of beauty) and you display yourself like you have on this message board, then you yourself appear to be ignorant and self centered.
I'm from Hawaii dammit. I'm a frikken american. Hell yes, our country is basking in problems, but i would never put down another person's homeland or culture just because it didn't suit my tastes. That is ignorant, and I hate that shit. And that's why i decided to respond to your post

Now on a lighter note, in regards to your initial inquiry: you complain of how Japan is tight and narrow. for coming from a land so rich in art and beauty, you fail to see the beauty in that?? they manage to create ingenious and functional appliances, furniture, homes and cars to handle the close quartered living conditions they are forced to live with. of course there's a lot of useless crap created too, but all those compact spiffy litte electronic devices you are carrying around were either made in japan or were irrevocably influenced by japanese design.
And how can you even compare Osaka with Paris or Rome?? osaka is mostly business district! of course it's gonna have buildings and freeways and concrete! how else are people going to work and provide a living? you want everyone to recess back to ancient japan and tend the rice paddies for their local daimyo? just to restore some misty woods and sparkling rivers to satisfy your aesthetic void?

If that's the scenery you want, here's what you need to do: like someone said earlier, get out of kansai and check out the rural areas for that scenerey. take a drive to Ise and visit the coast or trek to Nagano in the mountains, find a nice steamy onsen, preferrably one in the open, so you can enjoy the calm soothing rumble of a nearby river.

Well, if I had a beer in my hand, I'd toast you some luck in finding some peace with this land.

Hawaii out--

"they manage to create ingenious and functional appliances, furniture, homes and cars to handle the close quartered living conditions they are forced to live with. of course there's a lot of useless crap created too, but all those compact spiffy litte electronic devices you are carrying around were either made in japan or were irrevocably influenced by japanese design."

I checked my pockets...Japaneses coins, a Korean mobile phone, Taiwanese mp3 player, a Swiss watch, Italian glasses, and cotton clothes maid in India and Indonesia...well, I eat sushi today!
about my apartment: I had never lived in a so bad insulated flat, ever. And it's not the worst I've seen here, by far!
My car is German...

"And how can you even compare Osaka with Paris or Rome?? osaka is mostly business district! of course it's gonna have buildings and freeways and concrete! how else are people going to work and provide a living? you want everyone to recess back to ancient japan and tend the rice paddies for their local daimyo? just to restore some misty woods and sparkling rivers to satisfy your aesthetic void?"

I'm not comparing, since they're UNcomaprable! Osaka is utterly ugly and Paris and Roma are not. that's the point! Have you ever been to Paris? Have you ever been to "La Defence"? an that's the 'business district', guy, and it's made out of concrete too, but is not obnoxious! Why?

My theory is that Japanese don't see what they don't want to see, they don't complain for what authorities do, and officials work for companies interests, which are basically three: concrete, steel, and department store. And this is basically what you get. Ugliness...sorry.

It's because the Americans fire-bombed everything in the war!!

Everybody don't see what they don't want to see. Not only in Japan.

Osaka is good for business and the people are openminded and not as shy as most other Japanese cities. That's why non-Japanese go there: not for its beauty, but for the people and the business.

Kyoto and Nara are beautiful. And it doesn't smell terrible there unlike Paris. Gotta agree with you that Rome is a great city, but definitely not the prettiest city in Italy.

"I'm not comparing, since they're UNcomaprable! Osaka is utterly ugly and Paris and Roma are not. that's the point!"

You are missing the point you're trying to make.

If you focus on what you don't like, you'll always live in an ugly country--no matter where you go.

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