After our first visit to Japan here are our “only in Japan” moments.
- After checking into our hotel, next morning I get a letter taped to the door. It read
2. My wife and I casually stroll past a tea tasting event. We showed the slightest of interest at one stall. There was a group of 4 already seated and only 1 empty chair. So we thought never mind, lets keep walking. The host tells us to wait 1 second. He runs, and I mean SPRINTS, about 20 paces to a truck. Grabs an extra chair and runs back to us. I thought this guy will do anything for a sale! So we sit down and try the teas, tastes good, lets buy some. He’s not selling! Turns out it was all part of some free educational event.
3. Maid cafes. Its a cafe, the waitresses dress like french maids. They act super cute like anime characters. Oftentimes sickeningly over the top, like calling me “master” and drawing cute animals on my food. But what surprised me were the people who didn’t work there.
It was not a busy period when we went. Besides us there was another table of tourists. There was a big guy with a deep voice dressed in FULL DRAG. He kept getting up every 10 mins and came back in a different outfit. There was a grumpy old man and a normal looking Japanese guy.
So before the dancing starts, they try to sell you some glow sticks and firecrackers for audience participation. They dim the lights. Disco ball lights up. Normal guy opens his bag and takes out his OWN glow sticks and bunny ears. Grumpy man’s face lights up like a child. Guy in drag gets up and starts stretching. The music starts, a candypop / eurobeat thing. The maids dancing is not bad but all the weirdos join in! They know all the moves, are more enthusiastic than the maids and they look ridiculous. One of them was trying to get us to join in. Only in Japan.
4. No taking calls on trains. If someone forgot to turn on silent and gets a call they will quickly reject the call. One time a guy sprinted to the place between carriages to take an important call.
5. We took a cable car up a mountain. On the way down a friend in our party left her sunglasses up there. A worker must have seen it and radioed the guys at the bottom. When we got out of the cable car, a worker informed us to wait while someone brings it down on the next cable car. Bravo.
6. We go to check into another hotel and behind the check in counter was this.
7. Construction zones. One place had a decibel meter to make sure the construction did not make too much noise (perhaps only during certain hours). If the construction blocked a sidewalk and you need to walk around, someone will be there to apologise for the inconvenience.
8. Airport security. You know how you can’t bring a bottle of water through most airport checks. Some Japanese airports have a machine that scans your bottle for flammable liquids. If it passes you can bring it. Just goes to show their attitude to not inconvenience you that they will invent a machine to do that. In Australia the attitude is more like “F*** that, we don’t care what’s in your bottle we’re confiscating it.” In China, they used to say “Are you sure its not a flammable liquid? Prove it, take a drink.”
9. Go to an arcade. Everyone has the reflexes of a ninja.
Japan is an amazing place where being polite and attention to detail are taken to the extreme. Thoroughly enjoyed our visit.