On the plane

Well today in the Heathrow airport I already saw more japanese people than in all my life until now. First the check-in terminal was sparsely filled with only white people, and toward checkin time the japanese people came quickly and quietly. Mostly they came in groups of 4-8 people, while the white people were either alone or in pairs.

Soon the terminal was filled with 60% japanese people, but they managed not to make much of an impact either by the space the took up, nor by the volume. All their interactions seemed quiet and restrained, with no apparent excitement, few smiles (those that I saw seemed to have come out of social conventions / propriety rather than actual fun & good vibe). The young people didn't stand out much either, also quiet & restrained, and their fashion styles semi-cool, not individualistic.
This is my first impression of Japanese people. Hope there's more of a wild side to them than that.

Talked to the japanese woman next to me on the plane, asking her if it was her first time in Europe. After about 3 minutes of fighting thru broken English, I found out it was her 20th (TWENTIETH). She goes to Europe every year, and has seen every fucking corner of this continent from Nantes in West France to Trondheim & the glaciers in Norway to Sicily.
Impressive. Took me about half an hour to get this info out of her tho. Shouldn't 20 years be enough to learn ONE european language properly? How about starting with English?
I think i'll be bitching a lot about this thruout my trip.

Flying over Novaya Zemlya, the site of the biggest nuclear detonation in history. This place is completely frozen over - no sign of life (or death for that matter). Every time I see a place like that I think how meaningless this world is, and if there was a Creator, what the hell was he thinking?

Me: So have you ever been to Korea?
Japanese woman: Nooo, nooo. Korean people come to Japan!

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Flying over Khabarovsk, Russia. It's the most beautiful location before we reach Japan. Green as far as the eye can see, and rivers in all directions (Amur and its tributaries). The city looks cozy, and not too industrial. Plenty of forests, hills and fields.