Missing Japan: Food, Bicycles, Trains

Part two of my trip recap is about the aspects of life in Japan that I will miss the most. Hope you enjoy! The first part is available here.

The food: Japanese food is just so good. I don’t know of another place with such uniformly high quality restaurants. The worst sushi I had in Japan was better than the best sushi I’ve eaten in America.

Hmmmm....sushi

Excellent ramen

Matcha (green tea kit kats). They have matcha flavored varieties of everything!

A half-vanilla, half-matcha ice cream cone

Restaurants are held to a much higher standard than they are in the United States, which seems to give the customer more control over the dining experience. It is considered impolite to tip waiters, and most restaurants have a button at each table that can be used to signal waiters, as opposed to trying to flag them down by making eye contact. It's also much easier to pay the bill. At the end of a meal, the server gives you the receipt and you walk to the cash register to pay it, instead of waiting for the server to bring it back.

Display cases like these are outside almost every restaurant in Japan. They have

plastic models of the menu items to show customers what they can order.

Another display case at a tonkatsu restaurant (tonkatsu is deep-fried, breaded pork cutlet)

At this restaurant orders are taken at the counter. The more typical

arrangement is for waiters to take orders at the customer's table.

Public infrastructure: I liked several things about Japan’s public services. For one, there was an abundance of public workers to make sure things went smoothly. The most famous example of this is the “people pushers” who cram people onto subway cars, but there were also crossing guards at pretty much every major intersection and shopping center to help direct traffic, which can be a big help in a city with millions of people.

The public transportation was superb. Most Tokyo neighborhoods, in the city and the suburbs, are based entirely around train stations. There is a expansive bus and bike network that connects people to the stations, and although it may be overcrowded, the trains are clean and run super frequently. Tokyo may be one of the world’s most overpopulated places, but it is also one of the easiest to get around because of its investment in transportation.

Our group on the subway

Admiring Mt. Fuji from the bullet train

Tokyo has the highest concentration of bicycles I’ve ever seen in one place. The city has at least twice as much parking for bikes as for cars at most destinations. Pretty much everyone owns a bike and uses it to commute, run errands, drop of their kids, or all three.

Riding to the train station with Ruku

An example of the ample, awesome bike parking available throughout Tokyo

More bike parking outside a train station

Vending machines: This one is hard to explain if you’ve never been to Japan. Vending machines are engrained in Japanese society. There is at least one on every block—usually more—and they’re wildly popular as a way to beat the heat (almost every one sells drinks, not food). They also have better drinks than the ones in America. The most basic ones have coke products, along with coffee and tea, but some even sell beer and more exotic sodas.