Uniquely Japan

Here's a compilation of stuff I found to be uniquely Japanese.

Vending machines. Yes, they are EVERYWHERE. Majority of them sell drinks though.

Vending machine to order food, bring the coupon to the counter and they will cook it for you. Staff don't need to handle cash then. Smart. But took us about 10 mins to figure which ones were what, ended up with us guessing and crossing our fingers.

Vending machines selling drinks. Some machines sell the same drinks with different prices. Only if you're free enough to compare lah.

Vending machine selling ties, batteries and SD cards. Strange combination.

Animation is everywhere, from instructional to informational to just about anything.

This was up in mountains in Hakone with the black eggs. I have no idea why Hello Kitty is there posing with the black egg.

Other countries would show a stick man. In Japan, it's a boy and a girl on each side of the door with their hands getting caught in the door. 

Even Mt Fuji has a soft toy. Guess who fell in love with it and bought it in a blink of an eye...

I have no idea what these two girls were supposed to be. Rabbit ears with tanned faces. 

Mascot for the Shinkansen, a platypus with Japanese eyes.

Salesgirl at Akihabara. Most of them were dressed like this.

There were even Ultraman drinks!

Then of course, Japan captions are the source of corny lines:

Advertising for Pachinko. Bring me there now!

Even when I didn't feel like going, I was spurred to go to toilet with this enthusiastic encouragement.

And a few other things I noted:

Japan is very compact. Less space means smaller fittings. Tiny sink. 

Where everything is wrapped. Brown and white sugar cubes individually wrapped.

Creative toilet fittings. Here's the all-in-one sink. Water and soap at the top and dryer at the bottom.  I can't believe I don't have any pictures of their toilet bowls with their many buttons!

A toilet built only for kids. Low sink, small toilet bowls etc. Adult's use the mirror on top, just to show you how low the sink and hand dryer are located.

Portable toilets. Reminds me of a Japanese prank joke found on YouTube...

All waste is sorted, even at fast food outlets. Plastic and paper.

And they have the squatting toilet, smartly built. Looks like a lying urinal.