I know what you mean, but to me there's really no comparison with being there. Being present in that environment. After doing a lot of driving around places over many years, and then doing the Great Tasmanian Bike RIde in my early 30s I would prefer to see places by bicycle if possible (and I would need to be a lot fitter!). The reason is that the difference in what you see and experience is huge. Almost as big as (in some ways bigger than) watching it on tv and being there. In so many ways driving around in a car looking out the windows to me feels like watching it on tv.
My ex-husband used to travel quite a lot for work, so I was only in Japan 20 years ago for a very short time, and didn't see much for various reasons - a bit of Tokyo and then a bit of a smaller city (Ueda, population about 150,000 then I think), bullet train travel between. My impressions were not particularly favourable to be honest; even though I find some of Japanese culture fascinating, and love the traditional art. My unfavourable impressions of very polluted and very crowded were compounded by my eldest (then 6 months old) becoming very ill with gastro. We think of Japan as a Westernised country and think things like hospitals will be similar/same. I was utterly appalled, and couldn't get out of there fast enough - we ended up taking the first available flight home and my son was in the Royal Children's Hospital for about a week after we got home (and as I've said before elsewhere on the forum - I really hate hospitals).
In the States I lived in Chicago for a couple of years, then in Boulder Colorado at the foot of the Rocky Mountains for another four years. Desperately homesick the whole time. Back then Aussies were not flavour of the month, we were considered to be "white trash" because we were poor and not American. So I copped it from lots of kids. I find it a fascinating and scary place. The attitudes are so parochial it's terrifying. When I was in school you hardly learned anything about the rest of the world, mainly about the US - it was like nowhere else existed. And the culture is very much that the US is some super shiny perfect place to be, far superior to anywhere else on earth. Who wouldn't want US style (given/forced) democracy?
I still love the Grand Canyon, and the Rockies; I've been back as an adult, but I prefer the Canadian part of the Rockies for many reasons. My favourite US city is San Francisco, I love to visit it but not likely to again. I've been as far south as Texas and New Mexico, and as far north as North Dakota in the States. I've also been to Mexico, and as far north in Canada as Churchill on Hudson Bay.
Have a lovely weekend all.
Cheers, Kristin
PS Thanks for the Friday Feast idea - it's another great one!
