Things are not as they seem.
Especially here.
1. Imagine the tinkling music of an ice cream van. Excited?
Sorry it is actually the bin men come to warn you they are on their way.
Why warn you with deceptive music?
A three page guide regarding how to recycle what items, and on which days they must go out, and in which kind of bin-bags, boxes or tied up with string etc. This is serious stuff!
Excuse me while I go to hang my soy sauce wrappers out to dry...
2. Food may not be the food you think!
Example 1 - Milk is not always cows milk as Ryan found out...
Milk may in fact, as in this case, be peach flavoured, and have an orange juice-like punch.
In other cases, chocolate bread rolls have been raisons with a tube of butter through the middle, or, as in the case of our dumplings, raw squid may be hidden as a gem in the middle.
You just never really know...
This 'cucumber' is not. When we brought it home, Google kindly informed me that it is a Goya. A bitter melon often used in Goya-Chanpuru, a traditional dish from Okinawa, consists of pork, egg and goya.
Apparently very addictive once you get over the distinctive bitterness...
3. Restaurants may advertise as open online. They may even have a board outside to say they are currently open.
To believe this there need to be three criteria:
A You can open the door
B The lights are on
C Somebody welcomes you inside and gives you a table
If ANY of the above are not present, it is not open. Even if the lights are on, and the door is open, don't go in, sit down and read a menu, it may not end positively.
4. Over-packing is a bit of a problem here. It seriously explains why everyone is so hot on recycling.
As a bit an an analogy. A dairy milk try is a box of chocolates inside a celophane wrapping.
In Japan, this would be a wrapper, containing a box, inside which there would be two trays in individual wrappers.
To top this off (once the pass-the-parcel music has stopped) each chocolate would also have it's own little foil wrapper.
A few examples:
5.Car Parks no more! Bike parks are where it is at.
The pricing is actually extortionate. We have one near us for £5 an hour, and we are not even in the city...
6. ALWAYS take an umbrella.
We are finally in a country where I don't get a funny look for taking my brolly out in the gorgeous sunshine. They double up as sun shades for most people, men and women alike. Win-win in my book.
Everywhere is geared towards this.
Supermarkets have brolly covers.
Restaurants have specific stands at the door.
Attractions even have lock-away stands!
7. Toilets are good fun!
There may be no way to dry your hands, and no soap, squat-only option toilets and incredible condescending instructions on EXACTLY how to use a toilet on the door.
BUT.. there will likely also be:
An umbrella holder (following on from my point above...)
A child seat
An array of buttons which do anything from playing you music, to heating the toilet seat, to an array of bidet options.
8. If you order together at the table, don't expect to eat together. A continually reoccurring theme has been for dishes to appear as they are ready. Not much of a problem for us, as we share most dishes. But it can be annoying when my salad is finished by the time the steak shows up.
- We have asked Yuriko (cooking instructor!) and apparently they are either doing a kindness and letting us share, or, it could just be bad service.
9. Also, don't tip, they may run after you to give you your change. We tried to do it ONCE, and we even explained we wanted to leave a tip - resulting in over excited hug from the waiter.