Travel Interlude - 10 Essentials to Travel in Japan

Before I continue my travels through japan, I thought it might be good to share some personal insights into some travel etiquette that I see a lot of folks either might not be aware of, or might ignore when they travel to Japan or any country.   

Japan in particular is a society based around a strict sense of cultural norms, expectations and philosophies.  These things can be hard for the outsider to grasp on the first, second, third, even the hundredth journey.  People spend lifetimes in Japan and they don't understand them, but some of the things I list below could help you not only to have a more comfortable trip but they will allow folks to open up to you as if you were a local in some respects.

1.  Always obey the listed rules and signs.   

This is something I myself struggle with.  I'll explain it with a personal story.  I was standing in Asakusa Temple in Tokyo looking out at a gathering procession that was going on.  There's no photography allowed inside the temple of the main statue of kannon, and the signs clearly state this.  I thought, foolishly, that I could take a picture of the procession outside since all the Japanese people were.  I was wrong.  I didn't take into account, they were standing on the temple steps, beyond the sanctuary.   I was quickly and tersely corrected.   

Signs are very important in Japan, and they don't always make sense, but be sure to look out for them and obey what they say.  You'll get along better with people if you do.  

2.  If in doubt, ask about.  

The Japanese are extremely friendly, especially young Japanese who are in high school, junior high and elementary school.  They LOVE to practice their English, and you can usually get across a semblance of understanding with a little work, OR they will direct you to someone who can.  That said, it is crucial to learn some words to get around.  

One of the most essential phrases you can possibly ask is "I deska?"  This is pronounced "e (as in old mcdonald had a farm, eyai eyai oh) -des-kah."   I deska is the essential "may I?" you need to implore if you want to take someone's picture.  The Japanese for all their love of cameras are like anyone and sometimes want their privacy.  In the story above, I could have asked "i deska" before taking a picture or attempting it and they might have directed me to a place.  

3.  Always say your food is yummy (and it usually is.)  

"Oishi" (pronounced oi like oivey, and she: oy-she) means delicious or wonderful.  Take some time to try to identify certain foods or fishes.  Tempura, sushi, curry, individual ingredients, knowledge is power and the Japanese love to see your making an effort to understand their language.  Telling them something's delicious in Japanese is a great way to get smiles and sometimes nice little extra treats.

4.  Say thank you as much as you can.

Arigato or arigato gozaimasu (ari-gato, ari-gato-goz-ai-mas-sh-tei) or ari-gato-goz-ai-mas) are catch all thank yous.  The Japanese will thank you for entering, for exiting, for smiling, for doing business in general.  They will compliment you, help you out, serve you, always use these phrases.   

5.  Don't be afraid to say sorry or excuse me, but say them properly.  

 Being a foreigner, you're bound to make a mistake or to bump into someone or even want to catch their attention.

In general if you want to pass someone, try to use the phrase sumimasen.  (Sumi-mass-sen).  It generally means "sorry" or "excuse me."  A more formal way is to say "gomenasai" (go-men-nah-sai).  Try to be polite but not too polite, after all you don't really know these people.   This is incredibly useful when moving through crowded areas like subways if you are in a hurry.  

6.  The Japanese toilet is an unusual creature.

Japanese toilets are known for being high tech, and they have lots of buttons switches and odd little doodads.  It can take a while to understand some of them, but when in doubt, don't mess with anything.  The flush function is clearly marked with a handle or button on the side or top.  If your using the infamous squat toilets, well, not much help for you there.  That's an exercise, literally.  Face the end with the handle, and try not to drop anything.  Clean up after yourself, and carry handkerchiefs with you.

7.  Most local inns are very rustic, expect to sleep on the ground.

Outside of western hotels, the Japanese tend to sleep on futons, a special kind of matress on the floor.  These can be very uncomfortable for people not used to them, especially the pillows which are nothing more than light little packets of packing peanut type objects you lay your head on.  It can take a bit to get used to.  Sometimes when at an inn there are extra futons in a closet in the room and you can put these on top of the other ones for some extra comfort.  Just be sure to put them back before the nice folks clean up when your at breakfast.

8.  Trains wait for no one.  

I've talked about this before, but trains leave on time, every time.  If its 10:01 and the train leaves at 10:01:56, it leaves at that time precisely.  Having a special app like Hyperdia can help, since  many stations don't list train times, and special trains are hard to discern one from another.  When in doubt, the train personnel can help you find which platform and train you want to catch at a specific time.   

9.  Lost?  Ask the police.  

The Koban or police box/station is commonly found all over Japan.  You'll find them in small and large neighborhoods, usually with someone attending them.  You can recognize them by the symbol or the little mascots below.  The Koban are helpful people, and sometimes they know English, and they have maps, so if you are looking for a place, they can point on a map and give you a sense where you want to go.

Koban Mascot

Koban Symbol, usually found on the front face of the building

10.  Always, always always carry a card with your hotel's information, address, etc on it.

Most hotels and businesses have business cards that clearly state the address and phone number of the place.   You can find these at the front desks, or you can ask for a card or write it down on a small sheet,  Keep this with you, because if you get lost, you can present it to a taxi driver, a koban, or a local and they can help you find it or get you back "home".  

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So these are the ten essentials I have found to help you survive traveling in Japan.  I hope you found them useful.  My next post will be Himeji Castle and Town, so see you then.

Travels in Japan - Osaka and Osaka Castle

From the vantage point looking out the window of my room at the Hotel New Otani Osaka I could look out towards a park and see the square face and slant angled roofs of Osaka castle.  It rose beyond its moat and towering grey block buttress, illuminated at night to give it an ethereal glow. 

While the present Osaka Castle is just a modern reconstruction (the original burned down in 1868 during the Meiji Restoration) it is still a beautiful structure and my first glance at the Japanese style of castles that I saw in person.   The interior held a museum with artifacts from Hideyoshi's reign, including a reconstruction of a solid gold tea room and implements. 

It was a busy time in Osaka with a sumo tournament going on and some kind of concert at the nearby Osaka Conference dome.  The hotel lobby was decorated for the tournament, including beautiful flowers and a ceremonial sumo apron on display in the main lobby every day.  

I remember seeing hundreds, maybe thousands of people lined up just to get pictures with cardboard cut outs of the band playing that evening.  The air was pleasantly cool when I struck out for a walk through the park to take in the castle grounds.  The plum blossoms were just starting to bloom there, and the promise of cherry blossoms lingered on the branches of the trees surrounding the castle as well.

The park itself is very large, with the castle grounds alone being 15 acres with trees and paths that go around and through it.  Surrounding it are taller apartments and other buildings forming a sort of ring around the whole of the castle park.   It was intriguing to walk in a place that was once home to some of the greatest men of the era of unification in Japan.  Here Hideyoshi sought to create a dynasty, and here men fought bravely for the honor of his successors when the Tokugawa's sought to create their own.   Little remains to show that time, other than the walls and the false facade of the main tower. 


There were food stalls everywhere in the park, including the famous Osaka staple of Takoyaki: deep fried dumplings with octopus tentacles in the middle of them.  (My dad calls them Octopus Balls and that's an American/Western term for them as well.   The term dumpling is more apt.)  These are usually served with a nice helping of bonito (dried fish) flakes and mayonnaise.   While I couldn't convince my folks to sample the local fare, I can attest that they are delicious and a traveler should at least try authentic Japanese Takoyaki once in their lives. 

Unfortunately they didn't allow photography in the main part of the inside museum, but my parents and I waited in line for a tour and got some pictures of the huge decorative golden "dolphin fish" that sit out on the far eaves of the castle towers.  These are meant to stave off lightning strikes and fire believe it or not.  On the whole the main attraction was the view and the park itself, with our hotel within walking distance.   Osaka Castle served as an appetizer to a much larger, more impressive and authentic structure that we would visit the next day.  

A Ceremonial Sumo Apron, the picture below explains more about the object

Early Cherry Blossoms

Takoyaki Stand

Close up of the Castle

View of the city

Detail of the castle roof with one of the "dolphin fish" ornaments on the end.

Close up of the "dolphin fish"

The Hotel New Otani Osaka Castle with the Osaka Convention Dome in the foreground.

Travel Preview - Osaka Japan

It's time to get back into the swing of my travels through Japan that I paused on my old blog with a trip to Mount Nokogiriyama in Chiba Prefecture.  I've been very privileged to travel to Japan three times now, and I still haven't quite touched on my third trip, but before we can move on, I wanted to talk a bit about my next destination of Osaka.

When I travel, especially to Japan, I try to pick locations along major routes of travel, a city to stay in with easy access to the railways, and then branch out.  This sort of hub procedure works well in Japan since you can reach almost anywhere by train, or by extension trains and buses or other transport that is available locally.   Osaka is one such place, a fairly major city within reach of several major locations such as Kyoto, Himeji, Mount Koya, among others which I wanted to visit.

Osaka is a major city, a castle town, and a gastronomic paradise.  It was chosen by the warlord Hideyoshi as his capital when he became Shogun in Japan in 1583.  Hideyoshi was a general of the warlord Oda Nobunaga who sought to unify Japan. After Nobunaga died Hideyoshi sought to end centuries of war and suceeded where many before had failed.  Building the castle in Osaka, he wished to establish a lineage, but did not succeed, but his efforts paved the way for centuries of peace that followed when his retainer Tokugawa Ieasu became shogun.

The castle of Osaka is a recreation, but it still stands as a monument to a man's dream, and the city that grew out around it has always been a haven for commerce and delicious food for centuries in Japan.

I wanted to get a "flavor" of  Osaka so to speak, along with the hope that we might catch some cherry blossoms since spring was just starting.  We were in luck for the most part!   I wanted a view of Osaka Castle itself, and I found one in the Hotel New Otani Osaka Park.  The hotel looks right over the park, with views of the castle and the city itself, AND it is a short train ride from the two main stations where one can catch the rails all around the province.

Another great part about my pick was it was a short ride to Dotonburi, which is a famous food street along a canal where one can literally go from one end of the street to another and eat the most remarkable local street foods.  Unfortunately, we never got there but I will link to a video which extols the virtues of this place, and I fully intend to return there someday.

On the whole though, my opinions of Osaka the city are very limited.  It seems like a very large, drab city from personal experience.  There was not a lot of color or context that I could add from just traveling through it, with a lot of old apartments and warrens of streets.  This sort of thing is common in Japanese cities, and even Tokyo has it to an extent, but Tokyo always seems brighter and cleaner than any other city even in Japan somehow.

But Osaka is a great gateway to many other things, and those are the things I will talk about in my upcoming blogs.

"Thank you for Smoking" - Japan's Throwback Habit

As a kid I remember a time when smoking and non-smoking sections were prominent where I lived, but as I grew up, smoking became a verboten subject and those things died out. I never thought about it much until I first traveled to Japan and found that smoking is still very much alive and a part of the culture there.

You can go to restaurants, parks, inside train stations, near shrines and even out on a trail in the middle of a forest there will be a special place at a rest stop just for smokers. I once recall standing in Tokyo station looking into a small glass compartment crammed with about 50 people smoking.  It didn't exactly look comfortable, but it had fans to ventilate and no one seemed to mind.  I suppose like having to endure the crowds Japanese people are still used to public smoking.

Sometimes inside modern hotels there's a special, small room just for them, and its common to find smoking and non-smoking rooms available. Its a little strange since we don't find that here in the United States anymore.  Of course, with smoking comes some awareness. The Japanese are always factitious and concerned about the comfort of others, so they do try to let people know where they can and cannot smoke.  Some of this is also born from a long history and fear of fire. A stray bit of ash can set buildings or forests ablaze and cause massive damage.

Sometimes smoking also lends itself to a bit of humor and levity when it comes to carrying across a message about the health and safety of the habit. The internet is chock full of pinned pictures like the one above where a sign will try to carry across a poignant message. Unfortunately, Japanese doesn't always translate so eloquently to English to the result is usually hilarious to behold.

Still, for smokers and non-smokers, Japan is a welcoming country. For those who do not smoke, I suggest a little amount of awareness, and for those who do courtesy in obeying Japanese smoking laws.

The Japanese and the "Western Style" Breakfast

If my experiences in Japan are any indication or viable gauge, anytime you see "western style" breakfast on a Japanese hotel's menu, you are rolling the dice.

This is not to say the Japanese don't have good breakfasts, they do, but their idea of breakfast is very different from what we have in the west.  As Denis Leary once put how he wants food, "I want bacon and butter and buckets of grease, okay?"  The same could be said of western expectation, which is then re-interpreted by the Japanese conception and palate.  

In the west the classic, easy get up and go eat a breakfast of crispy bacon, firm eggs, toast and no less than two cups of coffee in large mugs.    In Japan you get a single small cup of coffee, bacon that might or might not have been put on the surface of a griddle to get it warm on both sides, and very runny eggs.   You will also find bread-a-plenty, soups, fries, pasta, sausages, and the ever-present enigma of salad for breakfast that every "western" breakfast includes and that is if you are lucky.    Very lucky travelers at ryokan will get kaiseki style breakfast which are usually very delicious, but these too are tailored to Japanese and not western tastes.

This is not a fault of hotels or shops, as they are trying to cater to foreigners, and many include Japanese and western breakfasts together.   Even the best hotels are not immune to the statements and observations I have made above, and the Japanese do their darndest, but they just have a very different interpretation of breakfast.

What westerners want is very different than what the majority of Japanese want.  In the end, the Japanese are the majority, even in western hotels throughout Japan and they are going to cater to their way of doing things.

I don't write this to disparage people from breakfasts in Japan.   I am simply making an observation for people who are not prepared.  In my opinion it is almost better to pay for breakfast separately instead of packages with a room.  Most breakfasts I saw were 2-3 thousand yen per person if you do not have a package and if you don't like what they serve, that could become money wasted.

If you are set on eating at a hotel go for the miso soup, fresh fish, tofu, plain rice, bread, cereals, fruit, salad and sausages if they have them in a western/Japanese breakfast.   There is also "morning service" which includes toast with jam and coffee at many coffee shops.   Sometimes this menu includes a small salad too, but that's it.   

I personally can vouch for a handful of onigiri rice balls with tuna in them as a staple of champions to get you going.  These can be purchased along with other good food at convenience stores for a fraction of the cost of breakfast at a hotel.  The other choice are bakeries, which if you can find them are a treasure trove of delicious goodness.  

Now I do something new.  I invite those who read this, and who read where I post it, to comment and leave their own breakfast impressions below.  Not only just about Japan, but around the world.  I've experienced breakfast in a few different countries and even around the continental USA, and I would love to hear a broader opinion.   Do other countries serve two types of breakfast, are they very different from what we have?  I look forward to hearing what you all have to say.