12 Things I Noticed About Japan

A year ago today, I was walking through the immaculate streets of Kyoto, I spent over two weeks in the land of the rising sun. Even before I was interested in travelling, it was my dream to visit Japan, this was because I know Japan for ninjas, Nintendo, anime and some excellent food. Japan is on the bucket list of many people I know, and this is for a reason, the awesome culture has been sought after by many, there's the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo and Kyoto which is home to some of the best preserved monuments of Japanese history. Simply put, Japan is a majestic place which every traveller should visit at least once in their life.

1. Public Transport Is The Best In The World

This is no exaggeration, the public transport in Japan is the best I've ever been on, if I could have one thing that they have in Japan put in the UK, it would definitely be the public transport. If you visit Japan, you won't ever need to take a taxi and a simple taxi journey in Tokyo would be upwards of at least £100. During my time there, I took all sorts of public transport, buses, trains and even a ferry. They are always impeccably clean, fair prices and super efficient. However, a confusing aspect of buying train tickets is that you don't buy a ticket for where you are going, but you choose the price of your ticket, this confused me massively and if you want to avoid confusion, you can buy a Suica card which is basically an oyster card.

In every city, the train and underground systems are run perfectly and of course, to get from city to city, there is the Shinkansen trains, more commonly known as "bullet" trains, these trains can get you from city to city in a matter of hours, imagine going from Edinburgh to London in three hours, that is how fast they are. They are also really comfortable with great leg room and some incredible views from the window. Going to Japan without riding the Shinkansen is a missed opportunity. 

2. Convenience Stores 

Convenience stores in the UK are just places to get some cheap alcohol and in America, 7/11 is a place to get petrol or a Slurpee. In Japan, convenience stores have everything from groceries, to cosmetics and even manga. The three main convenience stores are 7-Eleven, Family Mart and Lawson. In some of them, you can access wifi and use the ATMs, furthermore, you can buy ready meals which are high quality for decent prices.

3. Vending Machines 

Almost on every street, there are colourful vending machines which you can use spare coins to buy soft drinks. They are nothing like normal vending machines and in some of them you can pay with your Suica card. Furthermore, they don't just sell soft drinks, they also sell coffee, snacks and even beers. 

4. The Food Is Unreal

Japanese food is not what you may expect, it is more than just sushi. Some of the best Japanese dishes I tasted was the ramen and also the Japanese curry. One of the more unexpected foods is the fried chicken which is rarely seen in restaurants outside of Japan, if you go to a place to get ramen, you have to get the fried chicken on the side too. The restaurant service is nothing short of excellent, in some of the places, you make your order by pressing a button on a machine and in many of the eateries, the stools are faced against a wall. Simply put, if you go to Japan, you will be eating well. 

5. Everywhere Looks Super Clean And Orderly

The streets of Japan make the streets of California look like they're from the third world, in Japan, not even a speck of pavement is dirty, you would struggle to find even the smallest piece of litter, despite the fact that public bins are can be found hardly anywhere. I barely saw any homeless people, except in one small place in Tokyo. Moreover, everywhere is incredibly quiet, no matter if you're in the countryside or if you're in the busiest streets of Tokyo, even at night, you won't hear loud drunk people and no matter where you are or what time of day it is, you can hear a pin drop. This is something I like about Japan because it creates a peaceful atmosphere.

6. They Don't ID You If You Buy Alcohol

In the US, you will be ID'd for alcohol even if you looked 60, in the UK it is the policy to ask for ID if the cashier believes you to be under 25, however in Japan, even though the drinking age is 20, they won't ask you for ID if you get a drink at the pub or buy something at 7-eleven. On my first day in Osaka, I went into a 7-eleven and bought a drink because I was thirsty, I took a can of what looked like a soft drink, when I went up to the counter and it came up on the screen asking me if I was over 20 and I took a sip of the drink and realised it was actually a Japanese version of Dragon Soop.

7. Shinto Shrines 

Shinto is the most prevalent religion in Japan and in many places, I saw shrines in which people pray and they are very well-kept. Some of the most famous sites such as the Fushimi Inari shrine are places dedicated to Shintoism. I saw people cleaning their hands with water before they go in and bowing with respect.

8. Japanese Castles 

In Osaka, there was one building standing out from the rest, Osaka castle sitting proudly near a beautiful park, looking like something from a postcard. Though I missed the opportunity to go inside of it, I still took the opportunity to gaze at its beauty and even though it had been restored over time, it was originally built in the 1500s. The most famous of them all is Himeji castle and if I make it back to Japan, I'd love to see it. 

9. People Spoke Japanese To Me Despite The Fact I Stick Out

To prepare myself before visiting, I had listened to an audio book on Japanese to learn a few phrases as I thought that English would not be widely spoken. Much to my surprise, more people could speak English than I thought, not everyone, but more than I expected. Despite that whenever I would buy something at 7-Eleven or get something to eat, they would talk to me in Japanese as if I knew what they were saying. Every time I entered a 7-Eleven the cashier would say welcome to me in Japanese and I learned that if I wanted to pay at a restaurant I would have to say excuse me in Japanese. It is completely different to somewhere like Portugal or Thailand in which people would speak English to me all of the time.

10. Football Culture Is Surprisingly Big

Japan might just be the biggest footballing nation in Asia and their national team is the one that performs the best in the World Cup out of all the Asian countries. You might know that footballing legends such as Andres Iniesta, Fernando Torres, Zico and even Gary Lineker have spent some of their career in Japanese football. Japanese fans were noted for their civility when they cleaned up after themselves during the 2018 World Cup and if you saw some of the fans of some Japanese football teams, you would be surprised. I was taken to see Omiya Ardija by a Japanese Hearts fan and even on a rainy day, there was an excellent attendance for what was a game in the second league. I even got to meet some of the players at their training facilities and bought a shirt as a souvenir. If you're a football fan who wants to travel to Japan, you should definitely look into going to a football match. 

 

11. The Toilets

You might have heard this one before, but it's worth noting anyway. You may have seen on the internet how Japanese toilets are sophisticated in that they have buttons which can perform a set of functions. The most useful function I found was the button which puts some peaceful ambience on in order to drown out the noise of using the toilet. 

12. The Pleasant Weather

In Japan, it tends to get cold and snowy in the winter months and in the summer months it can be really warm. I visited in June which was during the "rainy season" despite that it only rained a few days which I was there and for much of the time it was very warm at around 30 degrees, if I go to Japan again, I definitely want to go to some good beaches there. For a country that's around the same size as Finland, Japan has diverse weather depending on location. In Hokkaido, the winter weather can be extremely cold with some insane snowfall and on the other end, in Okinawa, it never snows and is warm for a lot of the year.