Peter's Japan blog

This must be the weirdest thing I have come across on my last trip to Japan. We were walking around Fushimi Inari in Kyoto, and we heard a sound of what was like a crying baby, but I started to doubt that it was a baby, but that it might be a cat. Then we saw this around the corner. I've never heard a cat sing/cry like that before (or I just don't know anything about cats and this is perfectly normal ^^; maybe it was in pain, I don't know) You can actually hear the second cat moaning as well. Sorry for the focussing noise sometimes (it's a EOS 500D which doesn't have autofocus), and my silly joke about it sounding like it's chanting prayers ^^

Japan has to have its own strange etiquette about escalators. In most parts of the world it is custom for the people who are not in a rush, to stand right, so that other people who are in a hurry, can go up on left. Well, Japan has 3 ways ;p
In Tokyo, you stand left.
In Osaka, you stand right.
In Kyoto, it doesn't matter (people from Kyoto are not so much in a hurry than those in Tokyo or Osaka).

How did all this happen? While walking on the pavement in Japan, I tend to have to feeling, that 80-90% of the time, people walk on the left, when crossing each other. This might explain why people in Tokyo, stand on the left side of the escalator.
In Osaka however, I've read that there was a world expo in there. A world expo has a lot of foreign people visiting, and in 90% of the world, people stand right, and so people stood right in Osaka. So I've read.
In Kyoto, where people are in less in a hurry, I've read about another story. That there was a rule, that you stood left in the subway, and right on the Keihan lines. Thus creating confusion.
Also, knowing that people in the street walk left, it makes for a small paradox ^^

I had just stayed a week in Tokyo, standing left, and was now staying in Osaka, thus standing right. And today I went for a day to Kyoto, and I actually noticed it myself that in Kyoto, there isn't any rule. Some were standing left, some right. So it's actually true, and I was confused myself because I didn't know it was actually like that in Kyoto. I was thinking, who is right and who's wrong here?

Tokyo, Osaka & Kyoto may be one of the biggest cities in Japan, but how is in the other big Japanese cities. Is it only in Osaka that they stand right, or all cities down from Osaka? I will probably notice in a few days, when I'm in Hiroshima & Fukuoka ^^;

Japan seems to be filled with it: yellow bumpy lines, tiles with a grooves or dots. They are to be used as a guide for blind people. There are a few patterns that indicate different kind of obstacles like stairs, cross walk or cross sections. They can be found on the street, train stations, subway stations, ...

This pictures seems to be taken at the entrance to the subway in Narita Airport. As you can see there are several of these yellow lines here, that can guide blind people around and to the escalator.

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A team from a Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute has made a road surface that plays a song when you drive over it with a certain speed. Depending on the distance between the grooves the car will act as a tuning fork and play a "note" at a certain frequency. The song lasts about 30 seconds and you have to drive over it at a fixed speed of 28mph.

Source: The Guardian

You see them all over Japan, in streets, in buildings, in temples and train stations. Boxes against the wall that have this round red light on them that is always on. I have wondered what it was for a long time (as I couldn't read what was written on it). First I thought it was some kind of security system for detecting stuff, but I couldn't figure out what it was detecting. I couldn't think of anything that would be in all of these places.

But now I know: 消火栓 means fire hydrant ;p
So these things are just fire hydrants, and it all suddenly makes a lot of sense.
It's the red light that made them look a bit ominous ;p But it's actually easy to spot them with this light.

I saw this on a trivia tv show in Japan. The sign they use in Japan for their currency, the Yen, is this: 円. (I think the old sign was 圓) Why is it such a strange symbol for money? Coins are round, paper money is flat and it doesn't look like a letter either. So what is it?

I read somewhere that it looks like a counter in a bank, but that's not the true origin. On this trivia show, they showed the real origin with an interview to prove it.

Take a look at this satellite image: (image taken from Google Earth)

Look familiar, doesn't it?
This building is the Bank of Japan (aka Nihon Ginkou / 日本銀行) that issues the coins and bills for the Japanese Yen :)
They just took the shape of the building and used it for the currency sign!