Etiquette, the slow side streets, and what Japanese hosts read in the first ten seconds.
Every traditional ryokan room has one quiet recess with a scroll and a flower. What it is for, where your suitcase goes instead, and why dinner faces away from it. JP: 床の間に荷物を置かない理由
A thin cotton cloth with raw ends dries hands at the station, rests on heads in the bath and becomes a letter on the rakugo stage. How to read, buy and wash a tenugui. JP: 手ぬぐい一枚、その静かな仕事
A low table, a quilt, a heater underneath. How the kotatsu shapes a Japanese winter room, where travellers meet one, and the manners of sharing its warmth. JP: こたつ――一枚の布団を分け合う、日本の冬の作法
In Shizuoka, oden comes in a broth the colour of strong tea, dusted with fish powder, and paid for by counting your bare skewers. JP: 静岡おでん――黒いだし、だし粉、串で数える勘定
In Nagoya and Ichinomiya, a coffee ordered before late morning comes with toast and an egg for the price of the cup. How the custom works, and how to order it. JP: 名古屋のモーニング――珈琲一杯に朝食がつく理由
At many izakaya a small bowl arrives with your first drink, unordered and on the bill. What the otōshi is, what it pays for, and how to read it. JP: 頼んでいない小鉢――お通しが語ること
In Japan, one station name can mean three buildings run by four companies. How to tell which one you're standing in, and what your IC card does between them. JP: 同じ駅名、別の駅――梅田・難波・浅草で迷わない
Your Suica or ICOCA is digital, but keeping it alive is a cash habit. Where to charge it, how to read the balance, and what to do with the last of it. JP: 交通系ICカードのチャージと、使い残しの行方
Public bins in Japan are scarce and particular. Vending machines, station platforms and the conbini door each take something different. JP: ゴミ箱はどこにある――日本の街でゴミを持ち歩く
West of Maibara the bullet train doesn't stop. On the slow line along Lake Biwa, two Ōmi merchant towns keep their canal, reed beds and carp-filled channels. JP: 近江八幡と五個荘、新幹線が止まらない商人の町で二日
Two days in the western Honshu castle towns of Tsuwano and Hagi, with carp in stone channels, a torii-lined hillside and summer oranges over samurai walls. JP: 鯉の掘割、塀の夏みかん――津和野から萩へ
Two slow days in western Ehime, where a candle maker, a 1916 kabuki theatre and a river that makes its own fog sit a short train ride apart. JP: 内子と大洲――木蝋と川霧、木で建て直した城
Most visitors see Gifu's cormorant fishing and leave. Stay a night for Kawaramachi's lattice street, a basket-woven Buddha, and Yanagase's slow arcades. JP: 鵜舟のあとの岐阜――格子の町と紙の大仏
Kanayamachi in Takaoka has cast metal since 1611. Visit its latticed street on a weekday morning, before the galleries open. JP: 高岡・金屋町――石畳に銅が光る鋳物師の町
Most visitors see Hirosaki for two pink weeks in spring. In the cold months it is all coffee rooms, a cedar-lined temple lane and Meiji-era wooden houses. JP: 花のあとの弘前――喫茶店と禅林街、洋館の町
A hot-spring valley above Kanazawa took a festival from an anime and kept it. On an ordinary day it is a bathhouse, a river and a shrine stair. JP: 湯涌温泉、『花咲くいろは』が借りた山あいの湯
The anime Tamayura drew Takehara's salt-merchant quarter almost street for street. A quiet walk through the town, its temple balcony, and a brewery with a second screen story. JP: たまゆらの町、竹原をフィルムで歩く
Uji, south of Kyoto, is the setting of the concert-band anime Euphonium. A walk through it takes in two bridges, a narrow island in the river and a short climb to Daikichiyama. JP: ユーフォニアムの宇治、川と橋と大吉山