Etiquette, the slow side streets, and what Japanese hosts read in the first ten seconds.
In Japan, a wet umbrella is handled before you cross the threshold. A short guide to umbrella sleeves, locking stands with wooden keys, and the clear vinyl umbrella. JP: 入口の傘——傘袋と鍵付き傘立ての作法
In Japan, a strip of cloth over a shop door tells you whether it's open. Here's what it means when it's up, when it's gone, and how to walk through it. JP: 暖簾が出ていれば、店は開いている
Kamiza and shimoza: the unwritten seating order that arranges a Japanese room before anyone sits down, and what it asks of a visiting guest. JP: 上座と下座、部屋が決める席順
In Fukuoka the food stalls are built at dusk and gone by dawn — seven stools, a river, and a bowl of tonkotsu ramen you order by pointing. JP: 博多の屋台、川べりの夜のカウンター
The tachinomi is a bar you drink at on your feet — under the train tracks, cash on the counter, a dish arriving before you've ordered. Here is how to read one. JP: 椅子のない酒場、立ち飲みの流儀
In Aichi, a coffee ordered before eleven arrives with toast and an egg at no extra charge. The custom is called mōningu, and it explains the seven a.m. queue. JP: 名古屋のモーニング、珈琲に付いてくる朝食
Before a Japanese train arrives, the platform floor has already told you where the doors will open, which car is which, and where to queue. JP: ホームの足元を読む——乗車位置の目印
On a Japanese bus that charges by distance, a small numbered slip decides what you owe. How to read it, when to change your coins, and where the flat-fare rule flips. JP: 整理券と運賃表──バスの乗り方
On Japan's busiest bullet-train line, a large case is not luggage but a measurement. Above 160cm it needs a reservation of its own — and that reservation is free. JP: 東海道新幹線の特大荷物ルールと座席
Tokyo's one surviving streetcar runs from Minowabashi to Waseda. A 400-yen day ticket turns it into a slow tour of neighbourhoods most itineraries skip. JP: 都電荒川線でめぐる、東京のゆっくりな一日
Reopened in 2022 after eleven years out of service, the Tadami Line crosses the Fukushima–Niigata mountains about three times a day. Here is how two days fit around that. JP: 一日三本の只見線に旅程を合わせる
Salted fish walked from Wakasa Bay to Kyoto for centuries. The road is still there, and two days along it skip the shinkansen entirely. JP: 鯖街道をさかのぼる、小浜への二日
A Seto Inland Sea town too steep for cars, where the temples, the kissa and the secondhand bookshops all sit at the top of a staircase. JP: 坂の町・尾道、路地と古本と午後の光
On the San'in coast, a lake town where the moat boats lower their roofs and the tea comes with a sweet, whether or not anyone asked. JP: 午後三時の松江、城下町と茶
Almost every residential block in central Kyoto has its own small stone guardian in a red bib. In late August, the street holds a party for it. JP: 京都の辻の地蔵と、八月の地蔵盆
Where Kyoto's Takano and Kamo rivers meet is both a working riverbank and a frame from a dozen films — how to cross the stones and queue for the mochi without treating a neighbourhood as a set. JP: アニメの石を渡る、出町の鴨川デルタ
The opening frame of Yuru Camp is a solo tent on Lake Motosu in winter. The lake is real, the wind is colder than the show lets on, and the last bus leaves early. JP: ゆるキャン△の本栖湖、冬の湖畔で
The high school of Sound! Euphonium sits in Uji, thirty minutes south of Kyoto — a bridge from the seventh century, a river of tea, and a hill you climb at dusk. JP: 宇治、『響け!ユーフォニアム』の橋のたもとで