Nami, Slovenia, around and around

I decided to write a blog about my travel across Japan. My sister and I decided to go to Japan for three months and research the country a little bit. Since this page is related to my Digimon Website, there will be a lot of Digimon content – since my plan is to write a little bit about the locations we can see in the Digimon franchise. If that’s why you are here, feel free to look around!

"Let us be lovely
And let us be kind,
Let us be silly and free.
It won't make us famous,
It won't make us rich,
But damnit how HAPPY we'll be."
- Edward Monkton



One of my favourite Digimon character's song, enjoy:
Toshiko Fujita (Tai) - Yuuki wo Tsubasa ni Shite (勇気を翼にして):

♡ ♡ ♡

你好香港!
Tuesday 4 April 2023 @ April 04, 2023
Another month, another post. This time we go somewhere "closer" to Japan - Hong Kong. It was one of my favourite real life researches besides Japan. I was studying chinese culture and language a few years ago and it's still a topic I'm interested in.  I'll try to avoid the political part of Hong Kong and only present to you the locations we see in the second season, episode 41. I was actually thinking about going to Hong Kong last year since it was one of the few places that would accept European tourists since covid outburst. Unfortunately that didn't happen but it's on my "must see" list. 

So the episode starts with Kari and Izzy coming to Hong Kong - Nathan road (which is the most famous street in Hong Kong, filled with hotels and shops). I was so optimistic about finding all the shops we can see in the background when Kari and Izzy arrive but so far no luck.I searched for every sign you can see in that episode and couldn't find a thing. Once again, this is at least 20 years later and a lot of things changed. I searched for pictures of the road in year 2000 so I can compare it to the google street view. In the last 20 years they build more shopping centers, high-rise apartment buildings, restaurants and other tourist-oriented businesses along the road. It's completely modernized. You can see it on the pictures below. 


In the second half of the trip Kari and Izzy are at the Kowloon Park, next to the Kowloon Park Swimming Pool. It's one of the best equipped swimming pools in Hong Kong and has such a nice architecture. Love how accurate the drawings are in the series. The building, plants, outdoor lamps, fountain, ... The only thing I noticed is that the view is somehow mirrored. If you look at the pictures you can see that the view you see on the right side of the fountain is actually on the left. If you would look at the right side of the fountain you would see the pool behind the fence, not lamps and plants. 


Through Kari and Izzy's part of the episode we can also see some other parts of Asia, but I'm not really sure which one is which. They have to go to chinese border to pick up lost Digimon and bring them back to Kowloon park so Kari can open the digital world and send them back in. I'm not sure which border that was but I would guess it's somewhere in Himalaya - maybe himalayan border with India in Gallwan Valley, next to the Gallwan river. 


I was actually pretty excited with these scenes because they wrote 你好 (hello) on a big rock and as a kid I had no idea what it means and now years later I forgot about these scenes and I was pretty happy to recognise these two basic characters.  

While watching this episode Kari always uses mandarin pronunciations and not cantonese (for example she says "ni hao" as hello (你好) instead of "nei5 hou2" and uses "xie xie" (谢谢) as thank you, which isn't the most common between cantonese speakers) and I was wondering if people of Hong Kong would find this offensive because of the relationship they have with Mainland China. Other than that bravo Kari for trying. 

With that being said I'm finishing my Hong Kong research and will be back next month with a trip to Australia with Joe and Cody. Have a great day. 




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