Uchikura & Co Blog
2026-01-31
Why Japan’s Streets Are Clean — And It’s Not Because of the Government I walked this morning starting around 8:00 a.m. from my hotel near Tokyo Station to Akihabara Station, two stations away. It w...
2026-01-30
Why Do Hotels Have a $300 Hair Dryer (ReFa)? If you’ve stayed at a decent hotel in Japan—or visited an onsen, super sento, or public bath—you may have noticed something unusual: a hair dryer that c...
2026-01-30
Japan Should Be Japan — Not a Product of Globalization Tokyo is in the middle of an election season.Yet, when you walk through the streets of the city, you hardly feel it. There are no loud political...
2026-01-29
Silence That SpeaksYesterday, I arrived at Tokyo Station after a 2.5-hour Shinkansen ride from Shin-Osaka.During the entire journey, I did not hear a single loud voice. Not one. People checked thei...
2026-01-28
Japanese Credit Cards Don’t Actually Sell “Credit” In Japan, almost everyone has a credit card. Whether it’s VISA, Mastercard, or JCB, they’re an essential part of daily life and business. However, th...
2026-01-28
Hot Drinks in Japanese Vending Machines One of the small but telling differences between Japan and the United States is vending machines. In Japan, vending machines sell hot drinks.Not just coffee,...
2026-01-28
A Japanese Proverb the World Should UnderstandThere is a Japanese proverb:“Hito no furi mite, waga furi naose.” It literally means, “Look at others’ behavior and correct your own.”But its true mean...
2026-01-27
A Small Courtesy in the Sky Yesterday, on a short flight from Narita to Itami in Osaka, I noticed something quietly meaningful. The flight was only about an hour on a Boeing 737-800, but what impre...
2026-01-27
January 27, 2026 – Narita Airport, Chiba After a nine-hour flight, I arrived at Narita Airport in Chiba, Japan.They call it “New Tokyo International Airport,” but technically it’s not in Tokyo. Fro...
2026-01-26
January 26, 2026 — Monday, the day I traveled to Japan I woke up at 4:30 a.m. to catch up on emails and post on social media, including this blog. It has been one year since my kidney transplant su...