Why Japan
It is an archipelago of fourteen thousand islands of which four hold almost everything, stretched over three thousand kilometres from subarctic to subtropical. That length explains why you can ski and swim in the same country in the same month.
What strikes you is not the exoticism but the precision: the trains leave on the second, the streets are clean without bins, and the social codes are dense and rarely explained. You feel at once perfectly looked after and completely foreign.
Getting around
The train is the country. The Shinkansen links Tokyo to Kyoto in two and a quarter hours, to the minute, and the regional network covers the rest with the same reliability. The Japan Rail Pass no longer systematically pays for itself since the 2023 increase: count your journeys before buying it.
In the city, the metro and the rechargeable cards — Suica, Pasmo, Icoca — settle everything, including vending machines and convenience stores. Taxis are expensive and rarely necessary.
Money
Japan remained a cash country longer than its neighbours, and you still need cash: small restaurants, temples, markets and machines. The ATMs in 7-Eleven convenience stores and post offices accept foreign cards, unlike many bank ATMs.
Tipping does not exist and can cause discomfort: leaving money on a table is a gesture that is not understood. The displayed price includes tax.
Before you go
The codes are worth knowing, not out of folklore but because they are genuinely followed: you do not eat while walking, you do not speak on the phone on the train, you take off your shoes where the floor level changes, and you do not plant your chopsticks in the rice.
Tattoos still close off access to many public baths and hot springs. Establishments that accept them exist and are looked up in advance.
Well-known places to stay and to eat are booked weeks ahead, and the cherry blossom high season concentrates demand into a fortnight whose dates change every year. Booking before knowing the blossom date is the rule.