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It's amazing how businesses can pop up and do well on train platforms where people only wait maybe 2-3 minutes at a time. On the Yamanote line platform at Shibuya station, there's this little red shack when you can buy or sell a home. I was planning on finding out more, but by the time I finished taking this picture my train had arrived and I had to leave.
In Tokyo last month, Brian bought this awesome little yakitori grill.
I learned how to drive in Japan. I went to Hinomaru Driving School in Meguro, where we were required to take something like 30 hours of driving and 30 hours of classroom work. By the end of it, I had memorized all the road rules in Japan, but driving with a super scary instructor as my passenger didn't make me very good at handling a car. It wasn't until I almost crashed my Honda Legend twice that I finally started to get the hang of it. (Now, I'm a pretty good driver. I can take my super-torquey stick-shift hatchback on any hill in San Francisco and am happy to report that I do not fit the "Asian women are bad drivers" stereotype anymore.)
I do notice, though, that in the US, people tend to drive really irresponsibly — more than half of drivers on the streets in SF don't signal when they're switching lanes or taking a right turn, and they often stop in the middle of the street without hazards on or pulling over.
You rarely see this kind of annoying driver behavior in Japan, but you do see a lot of people driving super-slow, no doubt because they still remember the scary instructor man who sat next to them in driving school and insisted they should never speed. So which is better?
I am not exactly sure how this works, but this appears to be some kind of gadget, a light source that you shine onto your palm to determine what kind of businessman/stalker you are. If anyone has tried this, please leave a comment so we can all know how it was.
TokyoMango reader Jeremy took this photo in Atami. Imagine wiping yourself off with this mess after an onsen bath...
In 2008, Chronicle published my book: Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan.
I am also the founder of The Tofu Project, a boutique program that helps Japanese entrepreneurs and creators think deeper, tell better stories, and go out into the world in a much bigger way. We work with companies like Mixi, Japan Airlines, and Salesforce.com.
Sometimes I try to explain Japanese culture on CNN, BBC, CBC, WSJ, ABC (so many acronyms!) or in person at places like the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, ETech, and Ignite!
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