As we near the end of our visit to Japan, I’ve been going through our photos looking for examples of “only in Japan.”
Ryokan, Yufuin, Northern Kyushu
A ryokan is a traditional Japanese guest house.
Multi-course dinners and breakfasts were served in our room. After dinner, the table was moved and futons and duvets were laid out for us. Dwight is wearing a yukata: even the cheapest business hotel provides a yukata, or something similar.
Benesse Art Museum, Naoshima Island, Shikoku
Star architect, Tadao Ando, designed the museum in the 1990’s. The design includes a few hotel rooms, and I managed to snag one.
The room looks like a western hotel room. Look closer, and you see Ando’s signature concrete to the left of the window. The window looks out on the Seto Inland Sea. Just off camera there’s a signed James Turrell print, and outside, down a short hallway, are the galleries. We sat next to original Andy Warhols for dinner and breakfast.
To balance out this expensive place, we stayed in a lot of budget business hotels.
Hot Spring Foot Bath, Yufuin, Northern Kyushu
We soaked our feet at the train station while our laundry went through its cycles at a nearby coin laundry.
Boot-Cleaning Station, Kirishima, Southern Kyushu
Dwight did a fine job cleaning our boots at the end of a lovely hike. Boot cleaning stations are quite common at trailheads. Sometimes, there is even a hot spring foot bath.
Pocari Sweat, Sakurajima Ferry, Kagoshima, Southern Kyushu
We often drank this mildly citrus, non-carbonated sports drink at the end of a hike or cycle ride.
The ingredients aren’t too intimidating: water, sugar, citric acid, trisodium citrate, sodium chloride, potassium chloride, calcium lactate, magnesium carbonate, and flavoring.
Convenience Stores, Everywhere
We love Japanese convenience stores. For a start they always have clean restrooms, even if the signs can be a little quirky
These ubiquitous stores provide an amazing range of carefully selected and displayed items, and the staff are consistently polite. I recommend Sayaka Murata’s novel, in translation, Convenience Store Woman, for background.
“Only in Japan” may be stretching it as I’m betting each individual example in this post can be found elsewhere. However, the sum total of these examples would be hard to find anywhere but Japan.
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