Writer's Block: Destination anywhere

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Ha ha, which country is "mine?" The one I live in, or the one I was raised in and am a citizen of?

When it comes to Japan, if you can only make one stop I would recommend Kyoto. Yes, even over Tokyo. Kyoto wasn't razed during the war; it's a cornucopia of old temples, shrines, and castles, and it's still got plenty of modern culture; it really epitomizes the sometimes awkward, sometimes elegant straddling between old and new in Japanese culture. (Like the storefronts lined up in Shijo and Teramachi: shoe store, clothes store, Y100 store, SHRINE, shoe store . . . ). And even if the draw of Japan for you is the anime or counterculture scene, Osaka is quite comparable to Tokyo but less crowded and only a short train ride away. The Kansai area is better for getting both sides of the Japanese coin, in my opinion. But I could also be partial :-P

The US is actually really hard. Frankly, I still haven't been to a lot of classically American places myself: I've never seen Mt. Rushmore, Yosemite, Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, or, really, anything west of Kansas besides an airport and my aunt's house in Oregon I can't even remember because I was only a year old. (Though that changes next month when I visit Robert, Tiffany, and Lisa in LA and San Francisco!). My gut instinct is to recommend New York City, since it's just got so much in it in terms of both landmarks and diversity of people. However, part of me feels like being so diverse and cultured, New York City is actually kind of unrepresentative of America-- if that makes sense? You miss out on the giant expanses of America that aren't crowded multicultural cities: the farmlands, the beaches, the deserts and plateaus, French-infused Louisiana, and Texas which was almost its own republic for a while and still has the ego to match. The unique areas like New Orleans and San Francisco, which are practically cultures unto themselves, and the roomy, quiet, and anonymous red states, the areas still unused to foreign cultures with just that much more to learn from you.

I mean, when I think of America, the country I was born in raised in, I certainly don't think of the towering skyscrapers, textbook-familiar sites, incredible food culture, theater, fashion, and shopping I encountered on the two trips I've made to NYC. I think of open country roads bounded by cornfields; hordes of deciduous trees in maple, oak, beech, and tulip; dilapidated red barns; farmhouses with high, thin windows; Amish buggies; and awkwardly the occasional Confederate flag (yup, in Indiana) hung in someone's yard.

But I guess that's why I recommend Kyoto over Hagi when it comes to Japan, too. There's the place you should go when you first visit a country, the place that will give you sites you will recognize (and can name-drop) and plenty of souvenir-appropriate merchandise and just generally puts the country's best face forward for your consumption. And then there are the little places you find when you're ready to appreciate the a larger, more nuanced picture-- and when you're ready to accept that no place, neither home nor away, is too foreign, nor too perfect.

Edit (5:50): I wish I could understand the Russian responses to this question, lol. As of my posting this, just about all the responses have been in Cyrillic and I can't make out where it is I should go in Russia/Ukraine, etc )-:

Writer's Block: Destination anywhere

[Error: unknown template qotd]

Ha ha, which country is "mine?" The one I live in, or the one I was raised in and am a citizen of?

When it comes to Japan, if you can only make one stop I would recommend Kyoto. Yes, even over Tokyo. Kyoto wasn't razed during the war; it's a cornucopia of old temples, shrines, and castles, and it's still got plenty of modern culture; it really epitomizes the sometimes awkward, sometimes elegant straddling between old and new in Japanese culture. (Like the storefronts lined up in Shijo and Teramachi: shoe store, clothes store, Y100 store, SHRINE, shoe store . . . ). And even if the draw of Japan for you is the anime or counterculture scene, Osaka is quite comparable to Tokyo but less crowded and only a short train ride away. The Kansai area is better for getting both sides of the Japanese coin, in my opinion. But I could also be partial :-P

The US is actually really hard. Frankly, I still haven't been to a lot of classically American places myself: I've never seen Mt. Rushmore, Yosemite, Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, or, really, anything west of Kansas besides an airport and my aunt's house in Oregon I can't even remember because I was only a year old. (Though that changes next month when I visit Robert, Tiffany, and Lisa in LA and San Francisco!). My gut instinct is to recommend New York City, since it's just got so much in it in terms of both landmarks and diversity of people. However, part of me feels like being so diverse and cultured, New York City is actually kind of unrepresentative of America-- if that makes sense? You miss out on the giant expanses of America that aren't crowded multicultural cities: the farmlands, the beaches, the deserts and plateaus, French-infused Louisiana, and Texas which was almost its own republic for a while and still has the ego to match. The unique areas like New Orleans and San Francisco, which are practically cultures unto themselves, and the roomy, quiet, and anonymous red states, the areas still unused to foreign cultures with just that much more to learn from you.

I mean, when I think of America, the country I was born in raised in, I certainly don't think of the towering skyscrapers, textbook-familiar sites, incredible food culture, theater, fashion, and shopping I encountered on the two trips I've made to NYC. I think of open country roads bounded by cornfields; hordes of deciduous trees in maple, oak, beech, and tulip; dilapidated red barns; farmhouses with high, thin windows; Amish buggies; and awkwardly the occasional Confederate flag (yup, in Indiana) hung in someone's yard.

But I guess that's why I recommend Kyoto over Hagi when it comes to Japan, too. There's the place you should go when you first visit a country, the place that will give you sites you will recognize (and can name-drop) and plenty of souvenir-appropriate merchandise and just generally puts the country's best face forward for your consumption. And then there are the little places you find when you're ready to appreciate the a larger, more nuanced picture-- and when you're ready to accept that no place, neither home nor away, is too foreign, nor too perfect.

Edit (5:50): I wish I could understand the Russian responses to this question, lol. As of my posting this, just about all the responses have been in Cyrillic and I can't make out where it is I should go in Russia/Ukraine, etc )-: