From Toilets to Temples: Revealing Japanese Surprises

Never before for this blog have I struggled so mightily to choose from so many options of what to write about for a trip. Japan is such a startlingly unique (and fun) destination, with many unexpected aspects, so I decided to highlight just some of these for you here, and I’ll definitely provide more in a future post. Therefore this current post isn’t about popular sights in Japan, though I have included some photos below given how photogenic this country is, in order to give some sense of the visuals of the place. 

Toilets

Of course I knew before this trip that Japan has advanced toilets, but I hadn’t understood the variety of options on offer until experiencing the toilets in our various accommodations. We had one toilet which opened automatically when someone entered the bathroom, and another which turned on the exhaust fan in the bathroom when the toilet was sat upon. One issued frog and cricket sounds when a client was on the throne, presumably to mask potentially offensive emanations. Of course there is seat warming and bidet functionality also, with a retracting and self-cleaning “probe,” and our Osaka apartment’s toilet also issued a little spritz into the bowl before use. Often much of the automation was off-putting, and Ben would use his Japanese skills to disable some features.

Public toilets are plentiful and always free. One rule of thumb we normally have during travel is that if you find a free restroom, use it even if you don’t feel like you need to, because one never knows when the next opportunity may be. But in Japan we had to break this rule because free toilets are everywhere, and we couldn’t even go that often! They’re also super-clean, though many don’t include soap or any way to dry your hands, especially in Tokyo. So one recommendation when traveling in Japan is to have a handkerchief or small towel handy when out and about.

Trash

Which leads me to the next surprise — the lack of public trash and recycling receptacles. In Tokyo in particular, there are extremely few trash or recycling cans for public use, but you notice this lack in Kyoto and Osaka too. It’s intentional, and it’s why you will notice that everyone carries some sort of bag with them, like a backpack, so that they can carry home any trash they’ve accumulated during the day, including the reams of receipts that shops love to give out. And in that bag you can also carry your towel for wiping your wet hands after a restroom trip. Interestingly, another surprise was that every restaurant provides a plastic-packaged moist towelette before the meal for wiping hands (but no, not the face!). But just be sure not to take a step while enjoying your meal…

Walking Restrictions

Apparently Japanese etiquette (though less stringent in Osaka, I’d say) is to not do much of anything while walking except walking. It’s considered rude to eat, drink, talk on the phone, or smoke while walking, and so while takeout food and drink is an option, you should stop somewhere out of the way of pedestrian traffic to enjoy any snack or beverage. And here you’ll generate some leftover trash for which you’ll now have your backpack handy. Much of this leftover trash will likely be in the form of plastics.

Plastic

Plastics for containing foods and drinks are everywhere in Japan, even for items that arguably don’t require plastics. As previously mentioned, a moist towelette is delivered in a plastic container before every meal out. And there are vending machines offering various drinks in small plastic containers, with these machines distributed conveniently all over the cities such that larger bottles aren’t common, and they wouldn’t fit into the rare plastic bottle recycling receptacle anyway. Convenience stores are ubiquitous, and are often leveraged for getting a quick bite to eat, with most foods offered with plenty of plastic wrapping. Even the bananas are plastic-wrapped! So you better have your backpack ready to carry home both the peel and the wrapper.

Fake Foods

Speaking of plastics, never before touring Japan had I seen so many great-looking fake foods. And not only are these made to visually represent Japanese food menu items, but they’re often provided for other types of restaurants too!

Gashapan (Capsule Toys)

Another popular plastic-heavy item is “gashapan,” a little plastic toy or model contained within a plastic capsule, obtained at a price from a dispensing machine. Each machine focuses on one theme and contains multiple capsules, with there being various toys in a set per theme. For example, Ben found a table-tennis-themed dispenser and paid to buy three capsules. Luckily for him, each capsule contained something different (he could have hit a repeat item). There are Hello Kitty machines, Harry Potter machines, Pokemon machines, you name it. These capsule toys are so popular that you can find one or more dispensing machines at various locations around Japan. They are very common, and there are even large stores that contain nothing other than dozens or even hundreds of gashapan machines! Popular tourist destinations will even have sets made that revolve around a theme associated with those destinations!

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Clearly, these capsule dispensers are popular, but another, even more popular, dispenser in Japan is the vending machine. I’ll cover Japan’s wide range of options in a future post.

In the meantime, enjoy an uproariously funny sushi story from my favorite YouTuber based in Japan, Chris Broad of “Abroad in Japan”.

Oh yeah, and based on this post’s title, you might be expecting a surprise pertaining to a temple. OK, so here’s one: the temple area in Nara has some deer in the park, but what was unexpected was just how completely overrun with deer the area is!!

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Today’s funny video: I honestly cannot recall the last time I laughed as hard as I did while watching Chris Broad’s retelling of the second of his worst etiquette disasters in Japan. Ben and I were on a subway train, and I was watching with my earbuds in, trying not to laugh, and so tears were pouring down my face as I struggled to at most chuckle because Tokyo subway train cars are normally deathly quiet. One time I closed my eyes between several stops, and I just listened, hearing almost nothing. When I reopened my eyes, to my astonishment the train car was completely full, and there were multiple people standing around me, just inches away! Anyway, sometimes trying not to laugh just makes you need to laugh even harder, and that’s what happened here. I’m surprised Ben didn’t get up and sit somewhere else on the train. I suppose he would have had it not been so full, haha.