Etiquette, the slow side streets, and what Japanese hosts read in the first ten seconds.
The genkan — that sunken step at a Japanese doorway — runs on rules no one says aloud: where shoes stop, where slippers end, and why the bathroom keeps its own pair. JP: 玄関で靴を脱ぐということ
It is not about cleanliness alone. The genkan threshold carries a spatial grammar that shapes every room beyond it. JP: 敷居を越える前に：靴を脱ぐ理由
The teishoku — a set meal of rice, miso, a main, and pickles — is how working Japan eats lunch. Here is how to sit down and order one. JP: 定食の読み方：昼の小部屋へ
Tachinomi — standing drinking — is where salarimen, cooks, and retirees share a narrow counter. No reservation, no performance, no minimum spend. JP: 立ち飲みの静かな作法
Japan's streets are famously clean, yet public bins are rare. Here is where the rubbish actually goes, and how to carry yours without friction. JP: 日本でゴミを捨てる場所を探す旅
Japan's vending machines and IC cards form a parallel economy most visitors never fully enter. Here is how to move through it without friction. JP: 自動販売機と交通系ICカードの静かな経済
Western Honshū's Sea of Japan coast never got the bullet train. Three unhurried days down the San'in Main Line — Matsue's water castle, ancient Izumo, the Tottori dunes. JP: 新幹線が通らない山陰海岸、三日間の旅
Yamagata prefecture sits two hours from Tokyo by shinkansen, yet most visitors pass through without stopping. Here is why that is a mistake. JP: 山形四日間：温泉、漆器、そして静けさ
Vermilion gates the height of a child, a pair of stone foxes, a shrine small enough to miss. Central Tokyo keeps hundreds, and almost no visitor stops. JP: ビルの谷間の小さなお稲荷さん
A few Tokyo bathhouses open at dawn for the people who keep the city running. Inside: a wooden key, a hand-painted Fuji, and the courtesy of not looking. JP: 夜明けの銭湯、街がまだ眠るうちに
Inside Japan's jazu kissa — jazz cafés where you order one coffee, face the speakers, and the etiquette is silence. How to find them, and how to behave. JP: 誰も話さない、音楽だけの喫茶店
Ōgaki in Gifu is a city of open canals and artesian wells — and the unmarked backdrop of A Silent Voice. How to walk its bridges without turning a neighbourhood into a set. JP: 「聲の形」の橋を歩く、水都・大垣
A preserved Vories-designed school in Toyosato became the model for K-On!'s high school. The pilgrimage works because the building was loved long before the camera arrived. JP: 豊郷の旧校舎、けいおんが訪れた場所
Chichibu's quiet Saitama hills provided every exterior shot in Anohana. The town still holds that register — unhurried, slightly melancholy, worth the train ride. JP: 秩父・あの花の丘、悲しみが風景になった場所