Passport III

This pair of pages has another pair of entrances to Japan. Only when you travel to and from Japan do you realise how organised the immigration system is. Instead of traditional stamps, printed stickers are used that can be machine scanned. Don't forget: Most of Japan is trying to keep you out!

On page eleven, you can see my enter and exit stamps for Korea. Prior to traveling to Korea, person after person (both Western and Japanese) told me not to travel to Korea because is was the "same" as Japan. Boy were they ever wrong! Korea is a totally different country than Japan.

My earlier blog posts have detailed accounts of my travels there.

This page also has my business trip to Hongkong. Fortunately, I traveled at the same time as Richard Robinson from work. He is always a blast to go out with after work. Even though we were stationed on different floors in the Citibank building, each night we met for dinner. Richard is an endless explorer, so we managed to find some interesting restaurants ourselves in both Kowloon and Hongkong Island with the help of natives.

I highly recommend traveling to Hongkong on business and for pleasure. I would not recommend it for living for two reasons: pollution and mixing with the locals. Contrary to Tokyo, little mixing occurs between the locals and foreigners in Hongkong. Part of this may be due to its fractured past with Britain acting as its ruler for 150 years. I cannot blame the Cantonese locals for isolating substantial parts of their culture from the Britons and other foreigners. Even to this day, there are neighborhoods on Hongkong Island that are primarily foreign. I wondered sometimes if I was still in Hongkong!