D. Using Rural Buses

Rural buses generally travel only where trains do not, to nearby towns away from the rail lines, and up into rugged mountains or underpopulated areas where trains are not feasible or economical. Many of the rural bus lines are run (at a loss) by the Japan Railways (the "JR Bus"). Those that serve small populations are not very frequent. "What? Oh, the next bus isn't for an hour and a half!"  If you have a Japan Rail Pass, it should cover any rural JR Bus routes (but not all of their Highway buses).

Rural buses can be a bit easier than trains, at least in the ticket department. Even at a terminus (usually a train station), you normally don't have to buy a ticket in advance (unless it's a long-distance inter-city express bus); just queue up with everyone else at the proper bus stop. You typically get on at the rear and take a ticket from a little machine as you step inside; the ticket only has a number on it that indicates where you got on.

At the front of the bus, above the driver's head is a grid with all the numbers from 1 to maybe 30. Next to each number is the price you pay if you hold that number and get off at the next stop. As you travel along, the prices scroll up and get larger and larger. If you don't have a ticket, you pay the highest price. There are still a few rural buses that have conductors who pass through the bus selling tickets, but they are a dying breed.

Now you just have to figure out when to get off! Along with the prices, the name of the next stop (in Japanese) appears at the top. In addition, the driver will mumble the name of each stop, but you won't be able to understand. So, early on, go forward and tell the driver where you are going; even if you just say the name, s/he will probably understand and make sure you get off there. If you can manage it, say "[town name] o-she-RAH-say kuda-SAI"  ('please let me know at [town name]').  If you're going to the end of the line, or if you actually know where you're going, you don't have to worry.

You usually get off at the front and pay the driver on the way out. In fact, there is usually a special box where you drop your ticket and the money before you get down. Quite often this box has an automatic change-making machine at its back, which will take coins or  ¥1000 (yen) notes; you still have to figure out your own fare. City buses all have different systems; sometimes you get on at the rear, on others you pay as you get on at the front.

Also, you don't have to worry about what class or what type of bus. Except for express inter-city buses, there is just one kind of bus and they will all stop at any bus stop, as long as someone pushes the button ahead of time. If you decide at the last minute that you need to get off, call out "orimas!", which means "I'm getting off!"

Don't expect buses to pick you up at any place except at a bonafide bus stop sign. There are a few buses through mountain areas that can be flagged down, but this is rare enough that it is indicated in the schedule book(!). Absolutely every bus stop in Japan has a bus schedule attached to it. Of course there may be various asterisks about not running on Sundays or holidays, or certain buses only going half way, and such. Often there are two columns on these posted schedules, the left side for week-days, and the right for Sundays and holidays.

Buses to really rural areas tend to be infrequent and stop early, like by 4 or 5pm. The trusty schedule book will warn you if you know how to look. If you miss the last bus, just stick out your thumb. Japanese almost never hitch-hike, but they know what a 'thumb-up' means, and foreigners are known to be eccentric in this way. It is generally quite safe, but most traffic in rural areas is very local. (Use your left thumb.) Bus stop is "basu tei" or "basu noriba"; bus station is "basu eki".

Long distance, inter-city express night buses run between the major cities. They cost less than taking the bullet train, but are still not cheap. They do save you a night's lodging, assuming you can sleep on the bus. Their terminals are inside main train stations. In Tokyo Station the ticket office is at the south end of the back (Yaesu) side of the station on the ground floor. There is another in Shibuya Station.

9/2006: Update on Long Distance Highway Buses:

Times have changed!  Long distance "high-speed" buses (called Kosoku Basu) now run frequently in the daytime (as well as overnight), and can be a  significantly cheaper alternative on major routes from Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Sendai, Takayama, Kanazawa, Hiroshima, and Fukuoka, to cities in their local areas and between these major centers.

Here's a link to Highway Bus Info and Prices on various routes at japan-guide.com. Just select a starting city to see what's available and prices.  For the actual schedules you'd have to follow the bus company links to their Japanese language sites and navigate. Several different companies now compete on many of these highway bus routes, including the JR Bus. But note that, while most rural JR Buses are covered by the Japan Rail Pass, only a few of these JR Highway Buses are covered with the Japan Rail Pass. -- See This link for details.

Note that these Highway Bus schedules are not as easy to find in the National Timetable (Ji-Koku-Hyo) book. Their page numbers are not listed on the route maps in the front of the book (as are most rural buses). Their schedules are at the beginning of the bus and ferry listings at the back of the book, they are in the mid-700 page numbers with the black and white bars in the margin. You're better off to start at the web reference above.

E. Hey!  What About Bicycling?

Okay, you can certainly go bicycling all over Japan, and a number of people have done it.  But I have not. (Though I have bicycled all over Tokyo and Kyoto.)  So I'm directing you to a few sources by people who have:

Most of these websites are targeted at those living in Japan, and looking for exciting bicycle outings, not for people wanting to bicycle all across Japan.  See also the section of this book on Camp Grounds.

And Hitchhiking?  Well, Will Ferguson has written a couple of books based on his hitching experience. "Hitchhiking Japan: Hokkaido Highway Blues" (Soho Press, Inc., 1998, ISBN #1569471339), is the narrative story of his hitching trip from the bottom to the top of Japan. It is not a travel guide, and not great literature, but it has lots of insights into modern Japan and is a good read if that's what you have in mind. 

Will's "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Japan" (Chas. Tutle, 1998, ISBN #0804820686) is much more of a guide book, and is a very good resource for anyone planning to travel cheaply, or go camping, or hitch-hike in Japan. Based on his five years of occassional hitching all around Japan, it is half cheap travel tips and half route and destination information for Hokkaido, Tohoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu.  Anyone planning to bicycle Japan should consult it.  (And, Yes, I have read and own both of these books.)  It is worth noting that Will lived in Japan for a number of years, and speaks reasonable Japanese; non-Japanese speakers will not find this type of travel quite as practical.  But yes, I did hitch around Japan one fall when I was just learning the language.

You're visiting Randy Johnson's "Favorite Getaways in Rural Japan",
Copyrighted © 1991-2008 by Randy R. Johnson.

Go to the Table of Contents of Favorite Getaways in Rural Japan
Visit Randy Johnson's Japan Page
Japan-Related Links

F. Taking A Japanese Bath

The Japanese bath is called a 'FUro'  (), or more commonly, 'o-FUro'. A public bathhouse is called a 'SENto'  () or 'o-FUro-ya-san'  (, "the bathhouse place"). The etiquette is quite the same at a private home, an inn, or a bath house, but there are more facilities in the public bathhouse. The toilet is always completely separated, and may be down the hall from the bathroom, which is only for taking a bath. Before entering the bath, there will be an area for taking off your clothes. In private homes and in lodgings, this will be a small space, perhaps with cubby-holes to stash your clothing. In public bath houses there is a large dressing room.

The 'furo' itself is a tub of hot water for soaking in. You never, never, ever bring soap or soapsuds into the tub. Washing with soap is done outside the tub. This is the one basic bath rule that you must not break. By strict convention, you wash and rinse yourself completely clean before entering the tub to soak. In practice, some jokers jump into the tub for a short soak before washing, and get away with it; if you need a wash, do it before going into the tub. Actually, there is a second basic bath rule that you must not break: never pull the plug out of the tub to drain the water. Wash outside the tub, rinse off, soak inside the tub, and leave the water for the next person -- do that and you're clean.


Baths in the Home

The simple bath tub in a private home is about three feet high, almost square, and just big enough for one person to get into up to their neck, with their knees drawn up. Nowadays they are mostly made of fiberglass, but a traditional bath is made of raw pine or even cedar. Unless you are using the bath in your own home, someone (traditionally, the lady of the house or the innkeeper) will have already drawn (or re-heated) a hot tub full of water for you. This small home tub is usually powered by a natural gas (or propane) heater and has a recirculating pump that keeps the water hot while you bathe. The heater and pump are integral parts of the home bath unit, just like the modern 'hot tub'.

There is no central hot water heater, and the bathroom itself is rarely heated. The tub is filled with cold water from a tap and then the gas is turned on; in winter it can take up to 45 minutes to heat up the bath water (as it used to in my Tokyo flat in the dead of winter!)  After that, everyone uses the same water to soak in. At home, the water may be changed only every two or three days, although it must be heated up every night. In the meantime, everyone soaks in the same water; if you pull the plug, you are dead meat. (Naturally, at inns and other public baths, the water will be changed at least daily.)  In the old days, the old bath water was used to wash wooden floors; the natural human body oils served as an excellent polish and sealant for the wood.

Most Japanese houses and small inns do not have a central hot water heater at all. Instead, small (5 or 10 gallon) "flash" heaters are connected directly to each outlet where hot water is needed. They are powered by natural gas, with a pilot light just like a gas stove. When someone turns on the hot water, they flash into action, heating the water with a gas flame as it flows out of the little tank. They are very effecitve and eliminate the long waits for hot water that those with central water heating so often endure.  Note that lavatories, toilets, and other washing-up places -- other than the kitchen sink -- rarely fall into the category of "where hot water is needed"; which means that you usually wash up in bracingly cold water!  But of course public bath houses nowdays have huge 'central' hot water tanks serving all spigots throughout the building, as this is their main business.

Typically, the standard small tub takes up a third to a half of the family bath room, leaving just enough room for one or two people to wash themselves. The floor is usually of tile or cement, sometimes with duckboard over it, and naturally the entire room slopes to a drain somewhere in the floor. There is usually a folding plastic insulating cover that is kept over the tub when it is not in use; you don't have to replace it if other bathers will come immediately after you.

Accouterments found in the bath include a very low stool about 8 inches high, a little tub or hand-basin the size of an old-fashioned wash basin, soap, a pumice stone, and perhaps some scrub cloths and natural sponges. A basic bathroom has no hot water tap, no shower, and no source of heat, save the hot tub. The traditional method is to scoop your hand basin into the hot bath tub several times and drench yourself with hot water -- outside the tub. There will be a cold water tap nearby if you need to cool the basin of hot water, or rinse soap off your hands.

Then you squat on the (very) low stool and wash yourself thoroughly with soap and a scrub cloth, with the help of an extra basin-full of hot water. The Japanese tend to do a very thorough job of soaping up every inch of their bodies and rubbing vigorously with the rough scrub cloths and sponges. Every night they scrub off all the dead skin accumulated during the day, to get squeaky clean. Oh, the pumice stone is for rubbing dead skin off of the soles of your feet.

To rinse your body off, you again dip hot water from the tub, making sure that you have no soap suds whatsoever on your hand or basin. Only when you are completely clean and free of any soapsuds do you climb into the hot bath tub for a long soak. The water in a Japanese bath is usually very hot -- 105 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, about 40 Celsius. If it's too hot for you, you should have already started running the cold water tap into the tub. But be a little adventurous and don't make it luke-warm like your bath at home. The water feels the hottest at the surface, so getting in is the hottest part, and once immersed in the bath, any movement causes the water to feel much hotter. The idea is to stay very still in the hot water and just relax. In the small home tub, very little movement is possible anyway.

When you've had enough, just step out and dry off. If you get too hot, you can also sit on the edge of the tub for a respite before submerging yourself again. Personally, I find that after a hot bath, a good drenching of cold water from the tap cools my body off so I don't stay overheated and continue sweating for the next twenty minutes.

This completes a description of a simple private bath that you might find in a private home or minshuku (country inn). A nicer private bath may include a tub big enough for two, or even three (well-acquainted) people to squeeze in. There may be a hot water tap, or even a shower hose connected to the tub's gas unit that allows you to get wet, rinse, and cool off with a stream from a shower nozzle whose temperature you can regulate. Naturally, the shower is only used outside the tub.

On a couple of occasions, people I was visiting for just a few hours invited me to take a bath in their home. I'm not sure how common this is, but they probably suspected that I did not have a bath in my flat, and thought I might appreciate the luxury.


Communal Baths

The following applies to using large communal baths in both public bathhouses and at some lodgings you may stay at. More details about the intricacies of using public bathhouses are provided later. Outdoor -- sometimes mixed-sex -- baths are mentioned in the Lodgings section above, under Hot Springs.

At any public bathing place or lodging, separate communal baths are now always provided for men and women, but it was only after World War II that the American Occupation (General MacArthur) 'convinced' the Japanese that it was somehow immoral for men and women to bathe together. At the time, the Japanese were baffled as to why this was so, and they mourned the loss of this aspect to their communal meeting places. For them, nudity was not directly associated with sex. Nudity is obviously required for proper bathing, which is one of the basic necessities of daily life. Judging from historic depictions, nudity was fairly optional for sex. Sex was sex and bathing was bathing; and what the two could possibly have to do with each other was a profound mystery to the old Japanese, especially since everybody from the neighborhood was in there in the tub with them.  Oh, well.

The same bathing procedures apply in large communal baths as in a small private bath, except that there are another ten or twenty people in there doing the same thing and the tubs are much larger. All along the walls of the bath house will be numerous taps where people sit to wash themselves. There will almost always be separate taps for both hot and cold water, so you do not need to go to the tub to get hot water. You draw the hot water (and cold if you like) into your plastic basin and pour it over yourself to get wet, and do the same to rinse off.

Nowadays, many large baths are equipped with shower nozzles at each station, at about head height when you are squatting on your stool. This makes it much easier to get the temperature you want, and is especially useful for washing and rinsing your hair. Still, some old-timers prefer drenching themselves from the tub itself; no problem.

There will be a shelf in front of you where you can set your shampoo, soap, razor, or whatever, and you can leave your little basin there (if it's not too crowded) to reserve your place for when you come back from the tub. As I mentioned, you will see some people jump into the hot tub for a quick soak before washing, but this is not properly kosher, and you really should wash first.

In a large bath there will often be several large tubs for soaking in after you wash. They are more like big tiled pools, with room for plenty of people to stretch out. There will be at least one hot one, a luke-warm one, and maybe a cold one (brrrr); you can work your way up and down as often as you like. I have read in several places that bringing your thin little 'tenugui' hand towel into the tub is a taboo, but in the many public and hotel baths I've been in, a lot of people do this and it seems the norm to me -- just make sure it is very clean of any soap. This little towel is commonly used to modestly cover one's privates when sitting on the edge of the tub, or you can soak it in cold water and set it on top of your head to cool you down as you soak.


The Public Bathhouse

The Japanese live in relatively frugal homes and apartments and, while the tide is turning, there are still many people who rent cheap apartments without any bathing facilities whatsoever. This is not considered a great inconvenience, since one of the finest bathing experiences that life has to offer is provided within a few blocks at the local public bathhouse, called either 'SENto' or 'oFUro-ya-san'. Traditionally the local social meeting place, the sento is still a great place to relax and unwind on a nightly basis; and the Japanese do religiously bathe nightly.

As more and more people can afford their own private bath, and as some more modern people turn to using a shower instead, the public bath house became an endangered species. But they have struggled back to popularity by renovating to provide better and more sumptuous facilities. Many people who have the convenience of a nice bath in their own homes still return to the public bathhouse regularly for the sheer pleasure of it.

By the way, until the oil crisis of the early 1970's, public baths in Japan were open for two sessions in both the morning -- from about 10am to 1 or 2 -- and again in the evening -- from 4 to 11 or 12.  (Those were the good old days! ... yeah, I was there)  But now there is only the evening session, and people who work during those hours are out of luck if they don't get a "bath break" from work.

While modernization has improved many old sentos, they can usually still be located by looking for the tallest "smokestack" in the neighborhood. Otherwise, the bathhouse is recognized by its large noren (shop curtain) over the doorway with the single phonetic character "yu", (  meaning 'hot water') writ large; and also by the large number of shoes left in the open entryway -- ladies' shoes to one side, gents' to the other.

That makes it easy to determine which side you should favor, even if you can't read the 'men' and 'women' signs. Right there in the entry way you will find little wooden or metal lockers where you can leave your shoes in return for a little metal key, in case you don't chance leaving your shoes out in the open. But most people just wear little wooden or plastic slippers to the bath house; you can hear them clogging noisily down the street toward the bath in the evenings. Everyone has a little plastic tub under their arm. While tubs are always provided, it is usual for locals to bring their own tub with their soap, shampoo, razor, towel, wash cloth and whatever is needed for the bath, except the stool.

After removing your shoes in the entryway, you step up, temporarily slip into some plastic slippers and approach the superintendent, who takes your money. His or her little podium is just inside, at the entrance to both the men's and women's dressing rooms, which can both be more-or-less viewed from that vantage point. Inside the dressing rooms are lockers where you can stash your clothes as you undress. Again there is a little metal key with an elastic band that you can wear around your wrist or ankle. Some people don't bother locking up.

Also in the dressing rooms are large mirrors, sinks, hair dryers, and almost always a 'massage chair' for the magic fingers. There will also be scales, a cooler case with soft drinks, a number of Japanese comic books and magazines, a case with various toiletries for sale, and a couple of fans going full blast to cool you down. There may also be a TV and a small lounge area with a table and chairs where you can sit and read while waiting for your spouse or friends. The space is not huge, but it is all there. There will be a toilet off of each dressing room.

Beyond the dressing room are frosted glass sliding doors leading to the bath areas. Into this area you take your little plastic tub full of toiletries, your little towel, and nothing else. The baths fill most of the large room, with rows of water taps all around the walls. Once inside, you grab a small stool off the stack (and a tub if you didn't bring one) and find an unoccupied station with water taps. You plop yourself down, arrange your things on the shelf in front of you and begin to wash.

There will be a mirror staring you in the face, and both men and women use the evening bath to shave. You will find both a hot and cold water tap, and if it is at all nice, a separate shower nozzle over your head. Washing is no different than in a private bath; you're on your own. Your neighbors will be washing only a foot or so to each side of you, but they don't exist unless you want them to; however small, you can have your private space. You can also ask about the baseball scores or chat about the weather if you're feeling friendly.

While you're there, have a look around. In some parts of town, the men's bath may sport any number of fantastic body tattoos, belonging mainly to the local mafioso. Their ladies do not often favor such embellishments, or so I am told. Most sentos are 'local' and neighborhood people meet there and often talk over the day's happenings.

Now to the baths. While a basic sento will have one or two hot tubs and a warm one, even an old bath house is likely to sport a cold tub, a steam room, a small shower room, a mineral bath, and an electric bath. The mineral bath (mushi buro) will be dense with exotic minerals and the electric bath (denki buro  ) actually has electric current running through it! Sauna rooms have become more common, and the escalation of competition for business has brought new innovations. In one of the two bath houses within three blocks of my cold-water flat in Kyoto, there was also a cedar sauna room with a TV, and a cold water pool with a waterfall. After this, can you imagine having to settle for a five-minute shower at home?

When you are ready to leave the bath area, you can dry yourself off with your little tenugui towel, wringing it out several times along the way. This will get you fairly dry, and you can finish with your fluffy western towel after you get back into the dressing room.

A good, and very hot bath leaves you feeling quite warm and rosy. In fact, you can walk home through the driving snow in nothing but sandals, shorts, and a shirt without feeling the cold at all. This is especially appreciated when coming home to a flat where the gas heater has been turned off for an hour or so.

As you might imagine, even a quick Japanese bath takes a half hour, and with the sumo wrestling highlights on the TV in the sauna, you can easily spend an hour and more in the luxurity of your local bathhouse; you deserve it. In general, the men's side has more of the fancy baths than the women's side, although many places now equitably provide such niceties as saunas and steam rooms for women as well.

The separation of the sexes in the bath house is definite but not fanatical. Usually the walls between the two bath rooms do not reach the ceiling and husbands and wives often converse across the abyss. Fathers sometimes bring their small daughters into the men's bath and mothers their sons into the ladies'. Women occasionally come into the men's dressing room to find their men, and although men wouldn't dare to do the same, they can easily view the ladies' dressing room from the entryway if they tarry, and you can always call across the partitions. It is not unusual for the cleaning ladies to come through and mop up in the men's bath in full session, and no one takes notice. For that matter, I have often encountered cleaning ladies in the men's toilet at hotels and office buildings. After all these years, they still don't get it.

As a final note, nowdays public bath houses often have a coin laundry next door, or even connected to the dressing rooms. You can bring your laundry and get it done while taking your bath. With communal facilities like these, it is much easier for the Japanese to put up with frugal little apartments; and even the more well-to-do come to the public baths just for the pleasure of it. Having been prepared with the above information, I encourage you not to leave Japan without having visited a local public bath house. Ask at your hotel.

Back to Randy's Favorite Getaways in Rural Japan
Up to Randy Johnson's Japan Page
Japan-Related Links

G. Footwear Etiquette In Japan

The rules of where you can and cannot wear what kinds of shoes in Japan are not all that complicated, it just seems that way compared to our lack of rules. And it can sometimes be difficult to discern just where the rules apply. For the uninitiated, it can be frustrating.

Shoes are dirty; they bring in the uncleanliness from the outside. When you enter a private home or a temple, you remove your shoes at the entryway and leave the dirt outside. This is the rationale. It also explains why going barefoot outside is such a taboo; if your feet are dirty, how can you prevent bringing all that outside dirt inside? That's the basic shoe rule, but still it does not apply everywhere. You can walk into office buildings, train stations, post offices, most stores, and many restaurants in your street shoes. That is true today because these are modernized buildings with washable floors. It was not true in the past, when there were only dirt floors, wooden floors, and tatami (reed mat) floors.

Traditionally, you wear slippers on wood floors, and bare or stocking feet on tatami mats. But there are some buildings with modern floors where you are also expected to leave your shoes at the entrance. The indications are there if you know what to look for. Many buildings have an entryway (genkan) inside the door, which is at street level. If there is a step up from the entryway, and if there are slippers lying on the floor above this step, or in racks nearby, you are expected to remove your shoes below the step, and put on the slippers after stepping up. If you see other shoes left on the floor of the entryway, or shoe cupboards nearby, these are other good indicators.

This is always true of homes (even the most humble flat), temples, traditional lodgings, and quite a few other places, including nicer restaurants. I was surprised to find slippers waiting for me at the entrance to my local City Hall, a somewhat older but definitely Western-style brick building with linoleum floors.  Aside from tatami, it is not specifically the flooring material that makes the determination, it is the wishes of the occupants. If they want you to leave your shoes at the door, they will have slippers waiting for you. Actually, you are supposed to step out of your shoes and into the slippers without putting your bare or stocking feet on either floor. If you can't negotiate this maneuver, it's not a big mistake, but at least do not put your stocking feet on the "outside" (dirty) floor where your shoes are.

When you enter someone's home, or a traditional Japanese inn or restaurant, you leave your shoes at the entryway. When you go to leave, someone will come and rearrange your shoes so that they are pointing out, for your convenience. In many places with a lot of traffic, there is a shoe cupboard where you can leave your street shoes on the way in.

When leaving a building and getting back into your street shoes, again it is appropriate (if difficult) to step directly out of the slippers and into your shoes in one shot. The Japanese wear slip-on shoes which are loose enough to allow them to do this easily (with years of practice), but if you've got hiking boots down there, the best you can do is stick your toes into them so your socks don't touch the floor, and then sit on the step and put them on properly. Such clumsiness is expected of foreigners.

You never, ever wear shoes or slippers onto tatami mats. If you make a mistake, floors can be washed, but tatami is very fragile and, etiquette aside, it is quite possible for you to soil or damage tatami mats, which are replaced (at great expense) every few years. Often there is a transition area, such as a hall, where you change from shoes to slippers, but whenever you get to a tatami room you must slip out of your slippers and walk on the mats only in bare or stocking feet; there are no exceptions. Every once in a while I see a western movie where someone like James Bond walks on tatami mats in his street shoes, and it always makes me cringe. Tatami rooms are always raised about an inch or two above the surrounding floor; this is your reminder.

If a home or temple (or any other building) is only of tatami mats, then you slip out of your shoes and step on the tatami in your socks. I once helped an office-mate move his apartment. He had a moving crew come and take all the heavy furniture and boxes. The guys in the moving crew wore slip-on shoes (of course! everyone does in Japan), and -- no matter what huge piece of furniture they were carrying -- at the entryway, they stopped to slip into their shoes, and they only walked on the tatami floor in their stocking feet.

It often happens in temples that there are wooden halls, in which you wear slippers, and then you enter tatami rooms and leave the slippers behind. Often these tatami rooms open onto wooden verandahs with views of splendid gardens. It is normal for you to walk in your stocking feet from the tatami onto the polished wooden verandah.

Now, however, if there is a pathway out into the garden, there must be some kind of sandals, wooden or plastic, waiting for you where you descend the verandah. You slip into the sandals, peruse the garden, and remove the 'garden' sandals when you return to the verandah, usually at the same place you left. Private homes and inns may also have 'garden' sandals available at any place where you may step from the building into a private outside area such as a garden -- since your street shoes are way back there somewhere in the entry hall!

Bathroom shoes are a whole other area. In any house, temple, inn, restaurant, or other place that feels traditional enough to require you to remove your shoes on entering, there will be special wooden sandals for use exclusively in the toilet. These sandals or slippers are left, and should be left, just inside the door to the toilet, not outside. When you get to the toilet, you always leave your slippers outside the door, and step into the wooden sandals inside the bathroom; this also tends to advertise when someone is using the toilet.

A common error is to forget to change slippers and wear the bathroom sandals into other areas of the building. This is a notable mistake, as bathroom sandals are considered at least as dirty as street shoes, but if you only make it once or twice you may be forgiven. You should, in fact, back out of the toilet, leaving the bathroom sandals facing in for the next person, and step back into your other slippers which are also facing that direction.

It occasionally occurs that you are in a place -- such as a drinking house or sushi bar -- where you are not required to leave your shoes at the door. You are in your street shoes, but when you go to the toilet, there are bathroom sandals waiting for you. You are expected to get out of your shoes, into the sandals, do your business, and change again. This is not common but occasionally occurs.

A more typical scenario is when you go with your friends to a medium-range Japanese restaurant and get a private tatami room for a get-together. You may walk into the restaurant in your street shoes and remove them outside the tatami dining room. When you want to go to the toilet, there will be house slippers waiting for you outside the tatami room. You slip into them and shuffle off to the toilet, where you are met again by the dreaded bathroom clogs. Be sure to come back in the slippers, not the clogs.

Okay, so we have street shoes, slippers, stocking feet, garden sandals, and bathroom sandals. That's it. I told you it was easy; the right shoes for the right place. Wear your shoes on tatami mats and you are cultural history. You must have caught on by now that slip-on street shoes are a virtual necessity in Japan, and that wearing your hiking boots for a day of temple visiting will be a royal pain in the rear.

Some people at home (U.S.) are amazed that I don't often untie my shoes!  From a few years of living in Japan, I have acquired the knack (it can't really be all that amazing, can it?) of being able to "slip" into street shoes and running shoes that already have the laces tied. They may be tied only a little bit looser than tight, but it is not that hard to put a finger behind your heel -- as a shoehorn -- and slide your foot into your tied shoes.  In Japan, shoehorns are much more common, and you will often find very long shoehorns (about 2 feet long) which allow you to slip into shoes -- tied or not -- without even stooping over much; look for them near the entryway.

Umbrella Etiquette

Finally, while you're there taking off your shoes, here's an etiquette note about using umbrellas in Japan.  Do not bring umbrellas (wet or dry) into a house or inn, and probably not into most other buildings and establishments.  This is considered bad luck and bad manners, and it is a lot worse than that if you ever lay a wet umbrella on a tatami mat floor -- that is a deportable offense!  Okay, if you have a (dry) folding umbrella in your luggage or day pack, no one is going to know or care.

In the entryway (just inside the door) of every house, inn, apartment, hovel, restaurant, shop, hotel, grocery store, and noodle shop you will find some kind of umbrella "stand" -- use it!  In big (modern) office, shopping, and government buildings, you will find little metal racks of lockable umbrella "keepers"; stick your umbrella in, close it, and pull out the flat key to secure your 'brolly.  Things can be a little looser in office buildings, where employees may carry their umbrellas all the way to the entryway of their particular company office before depositing them just inside the door.

Nowadays, in such places as large department stores (with numerous exits), you may find a tray of long plastic bags instead of an umbrella stand at the entrance. This risque modernism invites you to place your umbrella inside a bag and actually carry it around with you (indoors) as you shop! (tsk, tsk!)  At each exit (opposite the fresh bags) is a bin in which to dispose of your damp one.  Somehow, railway cars and buses have escaped the proscription on carrying umbrellas -- keep 'em with you when you ride; but they are still by far the majority of items in the 'Lost and Found' for transport companies.

Extra Umbrellas:  When you go to leave your friends' house and find that it is suddenly pouring down rain, they will lend you one of their many "odd" umbrellas -- since you will probably have to walk a good distance to get to a rail station or open-air bus stop.  Everyone in Japan keeps a supply of flimsy umbrellas just for this purpose. (It may be of clear plastic and have little poodles all over it saying "Dry Me!" in English, but you will take it anyway.)  You are expected to return this umbrella someday, or maybe you will forget, or maybe they will need it when they next come to your house.  In fact, the umbrella they lent you may be one they themselves borrowed several months ago and they never remembered to return it -- or maybe even where it came from.  This reciprocal irresponsibility keeps the steady flow of flimsy 'extra' umbrellas circulating throughout Japan!  I doubt that this rises to the level of a "Cultural Phenomenon", but it's worth knowing:  If you live in Japan, you will occasionally (but regularly) be called upon to offer someone an umbrella when they leave your flat -- make sure you have a couple that you don't mind "losing".


H. Bookstores

More and more English language books are available in Japan for foreigners wishing to explore the country, but the number is still not great. Among them are "Exploring Tohoku", by Jan Brown, and "Kanazawa" by Ruth Stevens. Then there are general travel guides to Japan from Lonely Planet, Moon Publications, and several others. And of course there are several little tourist guides to the major cities. Aside from these, your best bet is the wealth of English literature available at the Tourist Information Centers (TIC) in Tokyo and Kyoto.

For English books in general, Jena Books (pronounced YE-na) in the Ginza is perhaps the best in Tokyo. The entire top floor is English (and other European) language books, and the they also have a big selection of foreign magazines. It is a few blocks down the main Ginza Dori (street) from the TIC. The Imperial Hotel is also close to the TIC, and it has a small, but well-stocked book shop. Several other large tourist hotels in Tokyo have small English language book shops, and there is a Kinokuniya book store in Harajuku (that's ki-no-ku-NI-ya).

In Osaka, there is a large Kinokuniya book store at street level of the huge complex of the main Umeda Station downtown, and they have a comprehensive English language section.  In Kyoto, half of the third floor of the Maruzen store downtown is devoted to English books, and it is another good source.

Japanese Travel Guide Books

Almost any Japanese bookstore has a huge section of travel guides for very specific areas of the country.  The Japanese are some of the greatest travelers in the world! Even those who will never set foot outside of Japan, go sightseeing in their own country in droves -- many times a year!  As I have mentioned elsewhere, the Japanese were publishing detailed travel guide books when America was still a colony! 

In Japan today, there is a plethora of very detailed travel guide information available in a large number and variety of guide books. They cover every corner of the country, for every possible interest. There are guidebooks for Buddhist Pilgrims, for students, for hikers, for mountain climbers, for Hot Springs, for Pensions, for motorcyclists, for... well, you get the picture.  There are the "Green Guides", "Blue Guides", and many more, which have dozens and dozens of volumes each.  These little paperbacks contain detailed information on sightseeing, lodging, food, transportation, shopping, walks and such, plus plenty of maps.  You will see most independent Japanese tourists carrying one of them on their holiday trips. If the place is not at least mentioned in one of these books, it is truly off the beaten track.

If it were not for the fact that all these detailed guides are published only in Japanese, there would be no use whatsoever for the guide you are now reading.  If you can find one of these guide books for the area you'd like to visit -- and someone to read it for you -- you will learn where to stay, where to eat, where to go, which bus to take, how much it costs, and the telephone numbers for all of them!

Hey!  this is the stuff you're looking for and it's all right there. You just need to find a Japanese travel companion or co-worker to assist you in making your plans.  If you want to explore an area you don't know much about, it is worthwhile getting a guidebook ahead of time and finding someone to help you decipher parts of it. Aside from finding phone numbers for lodgings, a perusal of a good Japanese guide book would give you a better idea of just what you can expect. Is it going to be a tourist resort with dozens of big hotels, tour buses, and souvenir shops, or are there only a few simple inns and some hiking trails?

Now, rest assured, the guide you are now reading assumes that you do not have access to such information, and that with a little patience, you will be able to make your way around just fine with what you can learn here.  But... If you did have those guide books available, you should definitely try to use the heck out of them!

Hiking Resources

There are also several published series of very detailed topographic hiking maps.  Maps for the more popular hiking areas are available all over the country, and in each area, stores will stock a selection of more local maps. They show hiking times, driving and bus times, mountain lodgings, and all the ones I have seen are contour topographical maps, suitable for serious hikers.  The most-used series of hiking maps is a series called "Yama to Kogen Chizu"  by the Shobunsha company. Unfortunately, the maps (and their website) are all in Japanese only. No good series of hiking maps has yet been published (as of 2006) in both English and Japanese, which is what you really want!  This is a link to an English page which lists many of the Shobunsha maps, and links to where you can buy them on-line at the Amazon-Japan site, which is again, only in Japanese...

By the way, probably the best place to buy hiking supplies and equipment in Tokyo (or Asia, for that matter) is at Ishii Sports, also called ICI, located within two blocks (to the right) of Okubo station, on the Chuo line, just outside the main rail loop. (Okubo House, one of the popular cheap lodgings in Tokyo is nearby.) There are numerous other sporting and hiking goods shops around, but none with the selection of ICI. It is four stories high, including one devoted to skiing equipment, and half a floor for technical mountain climbing. ICI is comparable to REI in the U.S., and they also manufacture a lot of their own hiking gear.  [The ICI Web Site is in Japanese only].   Update 9/2006:  ICI now has over 20 stores all over Japan, including 6 in Tokyo, Umeda (Osaka), Sannomiya (Kobe), Sapporo, Nagano, Matsumoto, Niigata, Akita, Morioka and Kofu.  This Link to ICI Stores List is all in Japanese.

Another Japanese company which has been manufacturing a broad range of outdoor gear for over 30 years, Mont-Bell, now has retail outlets in 25 cities around Japan, and thier sites are in English.  Here's a list (in English) of the Mont-Bell retail locations  in Japan, and Products. 

Randy's Japan Page         Getaway Table of Contents      Next Page
Randy Johnson's "Favorite Getaways in Rural Japan"
All text Copyright © 1991-2008, Randy R. Johnson.