[RealJames]

I took these from a post I made long ago, here are some of the things that surprised me!

• Look right first before crossing the street, not left, or the back of your head will get smacked by a bus
• When walking down the street and someones walking the opposite direction to you, go to the left of them, not the right, generally.
• J-walking is surprisingly uncommon, people will wait for the walk signal even if the road is absolutely empty. (Due to insurance reasons it would seem)
• Eating in public is rude
• While on the train or subway, be quiet, I put my cellphone on vibrate, people generally either don't talk to each other or whisper inaudibly
• While on the subway, it's normal for it to be so packed that people will be shoulder-to-shoulder with you.
• There are specific cars on the train and subway that are women-only for certain times of the day, it's marked in english on the ground and walls near them.
• When you pay for things at the store, you don't hand the cashier the money directly, there's this tray somewhere on the counter or near the till that you put your money in, they then take it from there, they hand you back the coin first, then the bills with the receipt
• Every time you enter and leave a store all the employees will utter some incomprehensible phrase that basically means welcome to the store, but they say it thousands of times a week so it bears no similarity to it's proper pronunciation. and you don't have to acknowledge it, no one does.
• Tips and tax are included in absolutely everything everywhere, even at the grocery store when things cost some uneven amount of yen, like 387y, it's included. the exception seems to be taxi drivers, tipping them isn't strange, but it's also not rude if you don't.
• Speaking of taxi's, don't touch the doors, they open and close for you, automatically
• Taxi's have a gps nav thing on the middle of the dash, and it shows the path the cabbi takes to your destination, so you can see he isn't taking some retarded obscure loopy path to screw you over, which is nice. Cabbi's are very well dressed, and wear gloves, and will help you load and unload luggage into/from the trunk.
• People smoke everywhere here, in restaurants too, you're in a different culture, don't judge people for it, our culture has much worse habits.
• Don't be shocked if a man takes the last seat and lets his girlfriend/wife stand beside him
• Make sure you don't try to stay at the wrong kind of hotel.
• For men, not shaving is rude, having stubble is like, being dirty, but if you're a foreigner, and not wearing a suit, it's fine, you're obviously a tourist
• Inside a restaurant, they will either give you a plastic wrapped moist towel, or a waiter will come by and hold one out for you to take from them, in which case it'll be hot/warm, use this to clean your hands, keep it near for while you're eating and after, unless it's a nicer restaurant, it's the only one you'll get.
• Don't stick your chopsticks in your rice, it bares too much resemblance to a custom meant for honouring the dead
• Don't point with chopsticks
• It is virtually impossible to be vegetarian here, and if you don't know what you're ordering, it could be something you'd never consider eating. Keep an open mind.
• There are virtually no garbages anywhere, it's incredible how clean the places is considering there's almost no place for you to dispose of anything, the only places I've seen them are at the train station or outside the convenient stores, but considering you never ever eat in public, it's not so often you have something you want to throw out.
• Japan has somehow not entered the world of 24hrs, few stores are open 24hrs, and the last train/subway is between midnight and 1am, first one around 5 am (in Osaka, I don't remember Tokyo).
• If you're in a very urban area at a later time in the evening, especially on the weekends, it's not uncommon to come across a very very drunk (normally respectable) business man, and this man will more than likely be doing something incredibly obscene... this is a very high stress society, and alcohol has been associated with relaxation, a lot
• Small-talk is not very common, there is no such thing as an "awkward silence" with a stranger.
• People in Japan do not hug each other, they'll seriously be like what the hell just happened, if you hug them.
• Japanese people are generally timid and modest.
• Japanese people are generally incredibly kind to foreigners, they will usually not help unless it's asked for though, as much as they may want to do so.
• It can also be easy to take advantage of this boundless kindness, they will help you as much as you ask them too and will not say no, try to not overstep the boundary of common courtesy.
• It's common that streets will have rather large storm drains along the side which may be uncovers, watch your step!