1) There are no big dogs. This might be specific to city centres, I don't know. But in the year I've been here I've seen maybe four big dogs. And when I say 'big', I don't mean Hound of the Baskervilles, I mean Labrador-and-upwards. I think it's because living spaces tend to be small, so almost everyone who has a dog goes for the miniature sizes. Fashion might also play a part, though I've yet to see anyone carry their shih-tzu in a handbag. There's a vaguely interesting element to this involving masculinity; Japan is pretty conservative with gender roles but loads of men have toy poodles and chihuahuas and there seems to be no suggestion that they are 'girly' dogs. In a way, there's a strength and dignity to watching a middle-aged man pick up his Pekingese one-handed and carry it home after it was all tuckered out from four minutes of walking.
2) North is not a constant. If you're looking at a map, at the station or on the street, the map doesn't automatically denote 'north' and 'up' as the same thing. This messed with my sense of the geography of Nagoya for a good eight-to-ten months.
3) Everything is individually wrapped. Bought a bag of sweets? Every sweet in the bag is in its own wrapper. Bought something that comes in a bag? That bag then has to go into its own bag. I sew myself wedding dresses out of plastic now just to make myself feel environmentally friendly. However, Japan does its best to make up for this massive overuse of materials -
4) The bins are insane. In the U.K., depending on your borough, you might have a regular bin and a recycling bin. Here, you must separate everything into the following categories: combustible waste, non-combustible waste, plastics, paper, card, cans, PET bottles, and the ominously named "big garbage". And they're all taken away from different places at different times. I struggle to keep up but I try my best because I'm reliably informed that Nagoya City Hall employs bored old women to shout at you if you don't do it right.
5) The fruit is massive.
Look at this apple. It's clearly trying to eat its special apple-cradle. You pay a lot for fruit here, and Japan's protectionist import policy means it's difficult to get anything which is domestically out of season (there was a potato shortage here a couple of months ago and, for a few weeks, McDonald's only sold chips in the smallest size). But the farmers clearly try and make up for it. Look at that thing.
6) Fillings are never what you think they'll be. Another food-related one. If you buy any bread product, an innocent-looking plain roll, a little brioche thing, whatever, it is guaranteed is will have an unexpected filling in the middle and it is guaranteed it will be something you don't want. A weird cheese-butter thing, a gristly meat thing, a bastardised mayonnaise. Whatever it is, you won't like it.
7) Squatting. People in Japan grow up training their thighs like gymnasts. Squat toilets are still pretty common; sitting in seiza (a kneeling position which puts a lot of pressure on the leg muscles) is no longer commonplace but still sometimes practiced on more formal occasions. And sitting on the ground is considered unhygienic so if a chair is unavailable, and you want to take a break from standing, you squat. Out and about you'll see plenty of people squatting to take their smoke breaks outside the office, checking their phones outside convenience stores, sheltering under awnings in the rain, and other general loiterings. To the uninitiated like me, it burns after the first twenty seconds, but I'm told you could do it comfortably for hours if you were properly accustomed to it.
8) No-one will let you put your bag on the floor. I think this is related to the previous point. The ground is considered dirty, even if it's a floor in a nice shop, restaurant or bar. If you take a handbag into a restaurant and try to put it down under your table, someone will rush forward with a box or a chair so you can put your bag there instead. If, like I did for the first few months, you act all baffled and say your bag is fine as it is, people get very unsettled and keep insisting you have the special bag box. Eventually I figured out it was easier for all involved if I just went along with it rather than waste time protesting, since it doesn't do any harm and seems to give the people around me peace of mind. Won't be too long until I become used to it and then feel constantly disgusted by the thought of bag-floor diseases.
9) Old men with useless jobs. Japan has a very different employment culture from the West. Graduates tend to apply for jobs straight out of university and then stay in that job until they retire - or rather, 'retire'. For some reason I haven't really investigated yet, the retirement age is 60 but a state pension is only available at 65, and a lot of people come back to their old jobs after they've officially 'retired' for the first time. Perhaps it's for the money, perhaps to feel productive and valued, I don't know. Japan's big companies also tend to have very high levels of job security, so these older people are welcomed back and even when they aren't needed by the company any more, they're just stashed in some obscure department and left to do whatever. I notice that in office car parks, for example, there's often an old guy just waving cars in and out all day. No-one really needs to be doing that job; there's usually no big traffic or security checks to be done or anything. Just waving the cars to come in, and come out, maybe usher the occasional pedestrian across when they could already work out perfectly well when to cross. I'd love to know more about the economics of this situation but, you know, browsing for cat calendars.
10) Businesses in creepy buildings and nowhere. Land space is at a premium here. Buildings are built tall and all over the place. There are also a lot more small businesses over here, another thing which intrigues me with its unfamiliar economics. I have no idea how these places survive; everywhere you see dry cleaners, restaurants, bars and travel agencies which would die in their first year back home. You see small businesses on random streets where no-one would ever have any reason to go. There's a café three streets parallel from me which appears to be run out of a residential garage. And Japanese cities are difficult to navigate due to most streets not having names, so before smartphones I have no idea how you'd ever find a nice restaurant even if you heard of one via word of mouth. ("Oh yeah, you just come out of the station, go right and then left, and then left and round a bit and it's in the grey tower next to the other grey tower.") There's a pretty nice Mexican restaurant I go to occasionally, and a lovely shop selling secondhand English books near my house. Both are located in random buildings that feel like crack dens from a bad TV drama. They're perfectly safe, as are most places in Japan, but they just look like old disused office blocks or apartment buildings. Walk in and there's no sign of life or commerce, just some dusty stairs and a creepy echo. There might be a cheapo sign on the front of flat number 308 with the name of the business, you're 40% convinced you're about to walk into an elaborate kidnapping plot, and then when you get in there it's all warm and friendly and the enchiladas are delicious. These buildings are like the world between worlds in the first Narnia book, except the pools of water come from a leaky roof instead of Aslan's magic.
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