One thing we felt that the Japanese are a little off on are their health concerns. You see a good portion of the population wearing air filter masks. You also see them use wet-naps prior to every meal and they are fanatical about taking your shoes off and wearing slippers inside the house, hotel, or restaurant. If you go to the bathroom they even have a different pair of slippers to wear.
When I was going through the airport I would take my shoes off due to them being steel toed and heeled. I know they would set off the metal detectors so I just took them off. The security folks would force me to wear slippers. I kept trying to tell them that I didn’t want them, but they were very insistent about it.
So my question is, how is slipping on a pair of slippers that everyone has had their feet in any more or less clean than me just walking 10 feet in my socks?
When you hit a public restroom don’t expect anything to dry your hands with. There might be an air dryer, but I only saw one public restroom the entire time that had paper towels. Soap was 50 / 50. Due to all of this, most guys didn’t wash their hands after using the bathroom. My g/f says that the women’s bathrooms were no better and often didn’t have any toilet paper. She also said the Japanese style toilets often times had some type of liquid substance all over and around them – and then no soap or towels.
In the U.S. we know that washing your hands is one of the single best defenses against becoming ill. Not masks, and not taking your shoes off. We just found it a bit odd.
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