Japan by Daniele Somenzi

Vanni and I land in Osaka already in the dark; we arrive on a Boeing 747 from Honolulu, my first time in my life in Japan. That's why I had booked a room near Kansai airport, designed by Renzo Piano.

The Holiday Inn is the only hotel nearby that has a free shuttle bus, and we soon understand the reason: it's due to paying the toll of the long bridge.

The first impact is discovering that a double room in the hotel is like one of our singles, and necessarily so: they, the Japanese, are small, and there's little space in Japan given the very high population density. If we think that New Zealand, Italy and Japan have more or less the same square kilometres in size, and that the land of the kiwis has 4 million inhabitants, Italy 60, Japan 150.

The next day Vanni and I, with running shoes on our feet, go out into the street and start jogging, one way like any other to see a bit of the surroundings and at the same time work up a good sweat. Fortunately it's Sunday morning and there's no traffic. We soon understand that between one alley and another there's no greenery and really a lot of concrete. Greenery in Japan is only in the mountains. All the plains are occupied by houses. But how would they have managed if they hadn't dropped 2 atomic bombs? I think that in that case even the mountains would have been inhabited.

We go back with the free bus to the airport, where we pick up a rental car. The international driving licence is needed, which fortunately I have. Since I got it, I'd never needed it. The car rental office is one for all the companies — Hertz, Avis, Europcar etc. — and a girl who speaks a little English does everything. Strange, we think; moreover we were the only ones renting a car, and we soon understand why no one rents a car in Japan. First, the trains are super efficient. Second, the motorways cost 10 times more than in Italy. And finally, on ordinary roads there's so much traffic that from Osaka to Tokyo we took 2 whole days for 400 km.

But by now we had the car.

To avoid being fleeced by the hotels, Vanni and I sleep in campsites in a tent, three times and once in the car. But to say we were in a campsite isn't exactly true: once, not finding it, the policeman of that place gave us permission to camp in the local football pitch given the late hour, while the other 2 times, once on the way there and once on the return from Tokyo, at the edge of the Suzuka Formula 1 circuit.

We bought the food in supermarkets; going to a restaurant sets you back 150 euros as if nothing. Moreover we know that an average Japanese person at his first job as an apprentice earns 2000 € a month.

Now we understand why the Japanese, when they come to us as tourists, always stay in 5-star hotels.

Along the way we see many striking peculiarities of Japan, like that aquarium with bubbles and fish, which only by looking at it carefully and up close do you discover was a television.

Or when you get fuel at the petrol station: to begin with, the fuel nozzles hang from the ceiling and come down via pressure to a small bellows at the height of the car's filler hole, and this because of the lack of space; then another girl cleans all your windows, and the third girl — yes, because only pretty girls are at the petrol stations — empties your ashtray. And to finish, once you've paid what's due, all three greet you with a bow, and one stops the traffic on the road to let you pull out.

The red reflectors placed on top of the guardrails are fitted with a small brush that turns with the wind, keeping them always clean.

The cars are mostly small and tall, many fitted with small TV monitors — I didn't quite understand whether GPS or mini TV — and, hear hear, in Japan you drive on the left like in England. Who knows why.

In the supermarkets they sell foods unknown to us, like agave leaves to peel and eat dressed, smoked fish of every kind, and things that Vanni and I tasted but didn't even know what they were.

Pachinko is a game where, as in casinos, you sit in front of the slot machines and insert coins; but here you insert steel balls instead of money, and then at the end at the cash desk they turn them into Yen. Yes, this is a way of getting round the law, since gambling isn't allowed in Japan. And it's always full of people.

The cans of cold tea you get from Japanese vending machines also dispense cans of hot tea.

Incredible but true, the Japanese are great golfers, but unfortunately they have no space for courses, already occupied by houses; so now and then you see a course 500 metres long and 200 wide, all surrounded by nets even up high, where they practise at least hitting the ball.

At Kansai airport, where we then returned to leave again, after filling up the car and returning it intact, we eat a plate of spaghetti, and we notice that the two Japanese at the next table, eating a kind of spaghetti in broth with chopsticks, make strange noises to pull them into their mouths, and at the end a good belch in front of everyone. Wherever you go, customs you find. Like that of displaying outside restaurants, to illustrate the foods that can be made, ready-made dishes embalmed in a kind of plastic gelatine. Better than that.

At the airport, when already on the plane, the 3 men who accompany the big beast at engine start and are in charge of the final checks — who usually give the pilot a nod at the end — here, lined up, give all of us watching from the windows a long bow in greeting.

Japan is interesting.

bye