RANDOM, FUN FACTS
Toilets, Showers & Handdryers:
Japanese Style or Western Style? You get two types of toilet options to choose from. With Japanese Style toilets, you have to squat to do your business...I can't say that I was adventurous enough to try this.
On the other end of the spectrum was the hi-tech toilet washlets from Toto (the brand that monopolises just about any hardware bathroom product you encounter in Japan). The bidet sprays in these high-tech toilets have both it's functional and novelty factor.
The shower faucets in some of our hotels were great. Instead of the usual hot and cold handles, you had one handle that controlled the water pressure and the other controlling the water temperature. The high-speed Mitsibushi hand dryers where also really cool. You just stick your hands in and let the crazy wind work it's magic.
Advertising:
You might experience this when you're in the main shopping districts in Tokyo like Shibuya and Shinjuku or if you're in Osaka, Shinsaibashi. That is, people handing out packets of tissues with ads on the front of them. At first I was like "cool!" free tissue. But after collecting so many my friend and I weren't too sure what to do with them all. But do keep them because you never know when that freakish wind and rain weather might come to soak all your clothing and belongings (in our case, Hakone).
Umbrellas:
They must be use to the rain over there. They had umbrella lockers outside some of the restaurants and museums I visited. I found this quite amusing because I thought "Who would want to steal umbrellas?" Or maybe I should rephrase that, "Who would want to still my crappy umbrella?" Obviously people in Japan like to invest in their umbrellas, as evident in the "expensive and extensive" range of umbrellas stocked in their department stores. And if you're lucky, on really rainy days, you might also spot a wet umbrella bag dispenser in front of a store. To watch this dispensing machine in action was pretty cool.
Black Suits:
Salarymen or not, it doesn't seem to matter, Tokyo men are well dressed and groomed and it seems like black suits are "the mandatory item" in every men's wardrobe. It's the kind of suit you would normally associate a CEO/big shot executive wearing or the one pulled out by men for "special occasions only". But to have this constant sea of black suits fill up and spill out of trains as an everyday occurance was really quite a spectacle.
Man Bags:
In the big cities like Tokyo and Osaka, it feels like the proliferation of man bags. The most common one that springs to my mind is the two handle laptop bag, but with much more fancier trimmings and fabric choices.
Though I don't like to generalise, it seems Japanese men can get away with sporting man bags and being more feminine as their counterparts tend to be on the "super duper girly" side (to the point where even I related more to what the guys were wearing than the girls).
Bins:
Where for art thou bins? I was holding onto my empty cup for so long from Ometsando, onto the train and to Shinjuku. It took me FOREVER to locate a rubbish bin in Shinjuku. I can't believe how happy I got when I finally caught sight of one (...it's sad, but true). On a sidenote, even without bins, their city still manages to look much cleaner than ours which have plenty of bins.
Gift wrapping:
In Japan, we loved saying that we were buying gifts for people because it meant that the item would be beautifully wrapped, with that extra tissue paper, sticker, ribbon or bag so you could place the gift in. Even when we weren't buying gifts our purchases still got the royal wrapping treatment and it is this extra effort in the customer service experience that I'll miss from Japan.
Another fascinating thing was watching how the shop assistant wrapped a gift my friend bought for her mum. For someone who always starts in the centre to wrap a gift I was surprise to see the shop assistant start at the far, bottom right hand corner. Clearly, I have much to learn when it comes to the art of gift wrapping.
Trays:
In most transactions that you make, be it at a restaurant or store, you will notice a small tray at the counter. Being use to the simple two step process of just handing the cash over to the cashier and them handing it back to you, there are more formalities in Japan. It was quite commonplace for me to first put my payment on the tray for the store attendant to collect and then once that payment was process, the store attendant would usually count out the notes to me to make sure I agreed it was the correct change before placing the notes on the tray along with the coins if there were any, for me to collect.
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