I’ve been overwhelmed by Japan; it is hyper-dense and a place of almost impossible contrasts. We have had almost no downtime when I could blog. Rather than trying to keep current, my new plan is to post a picture and a comment daily and then double back for a deeper look when I have time.

The art is a good place to start: much of it is graceful and minimal – especially landscapes – and just as much is pure chaos like this Keiichi Tanaami at a show in the National Art Center, Tokyo.

Bathrooms are another example: they are almost comically small – so small that the door has to swing out because there is no room for it to swing in – yet they are super deluxe with heated seats and both front and rear washing. The washing feature includes adjustable water pressure, and the rear washing feature, which I’ve used and can recommend, somehow the squirter is able to find the exact location of my butt hole every time. The only two ways that I’ve come up with that the squirter can do this is either everybody’s butthole is in the exact same place relative to the heated seat or the toilet has a butt hole locating device. I find both options equally improbable. As an aside, I had no idea that I needed a heated toilet seat, but now I know I do.

To stay on the bathroom theme, at the Nikko UNESCO Heritage site, there is a public toilet in the Tōshō-gū Shrine. In the Shrine, the floor is lacquered with a deep red lacquer, so you have to take your shoes off to go. As I was taking my shoes off, the woman next to me said to me, “I will not take my shoes off to go to a public toilet. It must be filthy in there.” It turned out that she was Vietnamese and from LA, BTW. Anyway, the toilet floor was immaculate, unsullied by us users, with the red lacquer floor in the middle of the room and a black marble inlay under the urinals and wash basins. In the courtyard outside, paved – for lack of a better word – with loose black river rocks, a woman was picking up fallen leaves with a giant tweezer. Japan is that clean.

One of the first things I was told in Japan was, “No napkins. ” In California, at Japanese restaurants, we get a hot towel before dinner, and then we discard it for a clean napkin. Here, we are given the hot towel before dinner, and we then roll it back up and put it beside our place setting. If we need to clean our mouths or wipe our fingers, we use the wet towel.

At every hotel we’ve stayed in, as the elevator door opens, a message plays. It was made by some woman – probably more than one – with a high, tiny, but cheerful voice, and I’m sure the message is important, like what floor we are on or the door is opening, but it sounds like a child is talking just behind the opening door. I’m proud to say that, after somewhere near thirty elevator rides, I am no longer fooled.

Japan is sort of famous for its trains, but so far, we’ve only been on two: one obligatory train from the airport and a very high-tech train, the Spacia – winner of the Blue Ribbon Prize 2024, for what I do not know – that Michele found through long-distance research. But, from that sample of two, what I did find most charming is that as the conductor leaves the car, he turns 180°and bows to us, a full bow from the waist with his arms and hands at his side.