This is cool about Japan! (Pietro)

If you walk in the streets of Kyoto in the morning you might be surprised to see shouting Buddhist
monks wandering around with their bowls in their hands. You might be even more surprise to see
how many businessmen in their suits on their way to the office and housewives going to the
supermarket actually stop, take out their wallets and give them money.
It may surprise you that young boys and girls wearing jeans, shirts, skirts and tops will take out
their traditional colourful clothing to go to traditional festivals. And then, when the festival is over,
maybe go clubbing or karaoking until the first train in the morning takes them home.
It might be surprising to see a group of businessmen entering a traditional Japanese restaurant
after work, take off their shoes, sit on the wooden mat and eat food that you have never seen in a Japanese restaurant outside of Japan.
If you’re coming to Japan looking for traditional culture you don’t really need to know where to
find it: it will come to you.
In a country where the same ruling family has been on the throne for millennia (well, since the
Gods created Japan if you stick to the myth) and that has never suffered invasions or been subject
to other countries, history flows continuously since the very beginning and the average Japanese
will not feel what the average Westerner feels when ancient and modern are put together.
In Europe you will never see a skyscraper built next to a gothic church or Roman ruins in the shade of contemporary buildings, as people in Europe just do not feel the two things go together.
Whereas in Japan you are very likely to find small Shinto shrines right in the middle of modern neighbourhoods, or the magnificent Honganji temples right opposite the imposing post‐modern
Kyoto station.
Traditional Japan coexists with modern Japan with an extraordinary harmony. To the point that it
is hard to see the two as separate, but rather as different parts of the Japanese daily life. Seeing an old woman dressed in a kimono speaking on the cell phone while waiting on the platform for the
Shinkansen to arrive, or a high school boy in his traditional school uniform playing the latest
Nintendo game on the Yamanote line will remind you of this every day.