As you might expect, McDonald's restaurants are everywhere in Japan. Even so, I ate more sushi than hamburgers in Japan...but my students never believed me.
It's lunchtime at the Osaka Kaiyukan Aquarium.
Some people think the Umeda Sky Building in downtown Osaka is ugly, but I think it's one the coolest buildings I've ever seen. It may look like it's under construction, but that horizontal structure in the middle is a walkway, not a scaffold. To the left is a glass elevator that takes you to a pair of escalators (one up, one down) with no supports beneath them, just glass and girders all around. As you ascend, you can look far below to the city, as if you're floating up into the sky.
When you've reached the top of the Umeda Sky Building, you can walk 360° around the circular roof for a windowless, crystal-clear view of the city.
When I go to baseball games in America, it's a time to sit back, relax, and maybe eat a hot dog or two while taking in the game. In Japan, the goal is a little different: make as much noise as humanly possible. Fans buy these noisemakers to help them out, and each section of the stands has a guy standing in the front leading chants and songs.
This particular sight isn't so common - at least not at this size! The symbol of shinto can be found almost everywhere in Japan.
You can easily spot school children - just look for the brightly colored caps. This group is on a field trip in Kyoto.
Japan has festivals for just about any occasion. This one, held every August in Himeji, celebrates the yukata. When I took this picture, it seemed like every man and woman in Himeji was out on the streets wearing a yukata and marching slowly around the city to the beat of a drum.
During that same yukata festival, a parade of dancers and musicians wound through town. The dancers here were all wearing Japanese-style socks, each with five little pockets, like gloves for fingers except they're for your toes. Apparently, they're designed to help keep the smell down.
This group popped up in the middle of the parade. Rick in Kyoto says they are shakuhachi (bamboo flute) players dressed as komusou (ronin samurai) who disguised themselves as itinerant Zen monks and functioned as wandering spies for the central government in the Edo Age.
I think Japanese festivals are mainly an excuse to eat all kinds of good food. Here, an okonomiyaki vendor takes an order during the Himeji festival.
My commute to and from work took me past this bridge twice a day. It's the longest suspension bridge in the world, joining Kobe to Awaji Island, but because there's not much to see or do in Awaji, I never once crossed over.
Here's another common sight in Japan. Instead of building malls, the towns will often just cover the streets of commercial districts, close them off to traffic, and turn them into giant indoor strip malls, complete with background music.
You've never known happiness until you've experienced a high-tech Japanese toilet. The basic models have heated seats and a built-in bidet, while the more expensive ones play music and have a hot-air blow dryer.
Traditional Japanese squat toilets are nearing obsolescence, but you can still find them in train stations and other older buildings and homes. I never quite got the hang of using them; I think there must be some trick to it that I never figured out and was too afraid to ask.
If you plan on visiting Japan, get used to this picture because you'll be seeing it a lot. Trains are the number one method of transportation, and the railroads reach every corner of the country. This picture is of a local train in mid-day, so there aren't many people on board, but on the express trains during rush hour, it's standing-room only.
If I had to choose one picture to show somebody what Japan looks like, this would be it. No matter where I went, there seemed to be a never-ending stretch of two-story houses separated by narrow streets and the occasional acre of crops. It will always be, in my mind at least, the true look of Japan.
