Plan Your Trip
Where to Stay in Tokyo: Which Area, and What a Night Costs
In Tokyo you are not choosing a neighbourhood so much as a station. Six areas that work for a first trip, what…
Travel style: First-timer
Japan Column
What Japanese People Think of Tourists — and the Unspoken Rules
Japan welcomed record visitor numbers and then started introducing tourist taxes, screens over viewpoints and residential no-go lanes. The honest version of…
Culture and Etiquette
The Japanese Year: Hanami, Tsuyu, Momiji and New Year
Japan pays more attention to the calendar than almost any country, and the whole population moves in step with it. What each…
Culture and Etiquette
Matsuri: What Happens at a Japanese Festival and How to Join In
Portable shrines carried by four hundred people, illuminated paper warriors, and a dance anyone can join. The dozen festivals worth planning a…
Culture and Etiquette
Tipping in Japan, and Why Nobody Wants Your Money
There is no tipping in Japan, in any situation, and attempting it causes a small crisis. Here is why, what the charges…
Culture and Etiquette
On Trains, in Queues, with Rubbish: Public Behaviour in Japan
Why Japanese trains are silent, why there are no bins, and why the escalator side changes between Tokyo and Osaka. The public…
Culture and Etiquette
Shrines and Temples: What to Do from the Gate Onwards
How to tell a shrine from a temple in three seconds, what to do at each, and what all those wooden plaques,…
Culture and Etiquette
Staying in a Ryokan: What Actually Happens, Hour by Hour
You are not booking a room. You are booking an evening with a fixed schedule, two enormous meals and a set of…
Culture and Etiquette
Onsen for Beginners: Rules, Tattoos and the Small Towel
Naked, in front of strangers, in water hotter than you expect. It is easier than it sounds and better than almost anything…
Culture and Etiquette
Japanese Etiquette: What Actually Matters, and What Doesn’t
Most etiquette advice about Japan is written for people who will never go. Here are the eight things that genuinely matter, the…