Let me try to distill my 25 years in Japan into a 25 word sentence bottom-line thingy.
Here we go:
If you live on another planet, you’ll learn a hell of a lot. If that sounds good, welcome to planet Japan. It’s a learning orgy.
Japan is different. Very, very different. That’s why it’s such a great learning experience. My problem is, after having stuffed my brain with all this exotic stuff for almost three decades, I haven’t managed to share it very well. So I thought I’d start here. And I should keep it short, and down-to-earth and everything. So here are my first words of wisdom:
Bring a towel.
That’s almost Zen-like. Only with Zen, it would be more like this:
(you can’t see this, it’s a bit of nothingness)
“Bring a towel” is three words. Three words is not nothing, but it’s close.
Now, why should you get a towel? Because Japan is bloody humid. Especially if your bodily frame is on the bulky side, like mine. In the hot season, I shower three times a day.
If I go somewhere, I bring a fresh change of clothes in my backpack. The climate is nice in spring and autumn, but the winters are chilly. The summers just kill you because of the sauna-like humidity.
So bring a towel.
A good travel towel dries fast and packs tiny. It doesn’t smell after you use it to wipe your face a hundred times a day. It can be tucked into a compact mesh envelope the size of a greeting card. If left to dry on its own, it will never get mildewed and gross. Such towels can be found on Amazon, even ones recommended by travellers to Japan. Some like to use super-thin cotton towels in hot, humid climates. Others prefer the more technical ones — the kind that travel gurus use.
Now, a towel is a great thing to have for other reasons, too.
For example, you can wet it in cold water and wrap it around your neck, to stay cool in the heat. Well, less hot, at least. A bit cooler than an egg in a fry pan. You can also use it when you go to the toilet. In many public toilets here, there are no paper towels or anything like that. I have looked at the natives with envy many times, when they — as by an act of instinct — pull out a handkerchief and wipe their hands before leaving the gent’s room. I stand there with my wet hands, and try to think of something to wipe them on. After 25 years, I still have much to learn.
Wet hands are bad. Still, things can actually get even worse than that.
In some toilets, there is no free toilet paper. Generally they are old-style gent’s rooms, where they have so called “squat toilets” that are employing a hemispherical hood made from porcelain, over which you squat and do your thing. You have to buy paper from a little vending machine at the entrance, which you may rush past if you’re in a hurry, and, perhaps, if you consider free-toilet paper a given.
It is not a given on the planet they call Japan.
There have been times when I have finished ridding myself of my bodily waste in a public toilet and started to look for the toilet paper, only to realise there is none.
Not good.
Zen is good, and it’s about nothing, but this kind of non-existence is terrifying. For these occasions, your towel will not save you unless you do something disgusting. So carry some toilet paper, too. You can buy it from one of those vending machines. It comes wrapped in a nice little package.
The Japanese like to wrap things nicely. They are experts at it.
Still, a towel will go a long way to saving the day on many other occasions in the hot and humid part of the year on planet Japan, which, by the way, lasts just as long as it does on your home planet. Get one of those super-thin things that takes up virtually no space when folded, and put it in your pocket. It will even do if you need to dry yourself after a shower.
By the way, the Japanese style is not to shower, but to soak. They take a bath every night. That’s been the tradition since eons back.
You will probably encounter this custom too, and then you’ll need your towel. It’ll be your secret ally on your journey on planet Japan.
But even if you don’t carry your own towel, you’ll still be able to enjoy towel heaven in Japan. In many restaurants on this planet, they’ll bring you a wet, cool towel when you sit down at your table, to wipe your sweaty hands and face with.
Ah, the freshness! The relief! If you haven’t carried a towel before, from now you’ll be a towel-addict.