Little differences, part 2

I am going to have to be a lot more disciplined to make sure that I adequately document my time abroad, but as I need to get to bed after a good (but long) day of classes and other tasks, here are more little differences I’ve noticed, continued from last time…

• Keep to the left… most of the time. Actually, it’s better to look for directional arrows that will show you which side of the path or stairs to stay on. It’ll also keep you from accidentally colliding with someone coming from the opposite direction.

• Expect little courtesies. I bought a few things at a bookstore the other day and the clerk accidentally forgot to include the pen I paid for. The pen probably cost less than $2, but she actually chased me down to make sure I got it. The same thing happened again at the Post Office–a clerk came running down the block after I’d left just to make sure that I got all of my change!
  
  
• You will see virtually no homeless individuals or vagrants on the streets of Tokyo–after a week of walking around, I spotted just one outside of a shoe store in Ginza. I saw one more the week after. The official numbers are astonishingly small, so small that they seem unrealistic… but if they’re deliberately skewed, it does make you wonder where “the rest” are.
  
  
• Most toilets, including those in public restrooms (e.g., those in schools, malls, etc.) include a built-in bidet. Getting used to using one of these is something that I shall not discuss here!
  
  
• There are diagonal freakin’ crosswalks. These are amazing.