What I find so unique about riding here is the ‘Respect’ for each others whether walking, cycling or driving…

Its the same respect that pervades just about everything that goes on here publicly … its sometimes detected in the cleanliness, ie supper clean street scapes and not a bin in sight… the portable ash tray… lack of theft ie. small bike chains … shoes off etc…

On the local roads, whatever vehicle they choose to use, they lack typical Western aggressive driving or riding attitudes… ‘that my trip is all important and your in my way’ is very rare…
I’m used to back home in Australia for example at the lights… when they turn ‘Blue’ (thats what they call green here) flooring it !! But here I detect a definite pause …. then a somewhat slow glide of the mark… unnatural really.

Also in a typical uncontrolled intersection, even when they have the right of way Japanese drivers tend to wait just a second in confirmation that there action will not cause a accident.
Again this is quite different to driving with the attitude that if there is a crash, as long as I was in the ‘right’ you should have stopped….
This is a hard thing to explain but the word ‘Respect’ works for me.

It is to this end that separate bike lanes seem not so important… in the many low speed environments of many Japanese town and cites.
With this almost ‘Zen like respect’ here everything just seems to work and allows for even the ever present ‘Salmoning’ (thank you Snobby) or even the acceptance of cycle/pedestrian cohabitation…

I doubt that in the West we have the Zen like qualities necessary to understand this let alone manifest it…

As for Sports Cycling its growing, just head out to any of the Toges (passes) around Tokyo and you’ll see hundreds of ‘Bling-ed out’ riders in the hurt box. Just like elsewhere in the world that has surplus there is a sports cycling boom.
As for Fixie riders, yes Japanese have an ability to perfect trends like no other and they are popular.
Better start building a reserve of cargo bikes for when that takes of here also…. Two kids and the groceries up front will be a good start….

The speed of traffic in Tokyo depended upon how crowded the place you were going to was and I could never pick any pattern to it – that said, I then moved to London and then to Melbourne, and of the three I think Melbourne has the worst traffic.

I don’t agree about the Japanese not cycling en masse – bike parking was a major problem around every subway station I used in Tokyo and there’d be literally millions riding every day.

The “road warriors” you describe are a brand new phenomenon – I never saw any on the roads in the years that I lived there but noticed them when I was back there last year. Basically it’s the London fixie culture that’s become popular in Japan.

I too, made that mistake in my first encounter with a washlet. Fortunately I had the rare peace of mind to just put my hand over the (quite powerful) spray while testing the various buttons to find “off”. You only make that mistake once.

Speaking of crates, I found perfect crates in one of the amazing japanese home center stores: nicely made wooden crates in a broad range of suitable sizes for the equivalent of about €10-15.

A friend of mine was traveling to Japan on business and had an unfortunate encounter with a toilet at his boss’s boss’s house. Seems the controls were all solid-state buttons on the side, and not labeled in English or any sort of international pictogram, so he went for the largest button. Resulting in getting sprayed down face to belt with the bidet function.

And now, back to talking about bike rack crates.

Since Japan has a strong national identity, maybe the public/private division isn’t as pronounce as it exist in the west. Many years ago, I saw a program about the corporate culture in Japan. If I remember correctly (questionable), the show portrayed working for a corporation similar to joining an extended family. If true, the public/private dichotomy as we experience it might be unfamiliar to someone in Japan.

The division seems to lie between high and low-tech devices, from what you describe. Fast cars and trains have more in common than with its low-tech counterpart, the bicycle. This might help explain its low popularity and abundance of low value department store bikes.

Also, nice observation about the lack of infra (structure) and random cycling behavior. I know its certainly true in the suburbs of Connecticut.

And Okinawa? Wall to wall cars (in heavy rain, being 2 hours late for work is considered fairly normal). I feel like I’m the only work-age human on the whole island who rides a bicycle for transportation.

And I really want one of those dripping cupboards, anyone know what they are called or know of a link so I can see a picture?

I’ve never heard of a dripping cupboard until now. I want one. The plastic drip tray I have gets covered in icky mold because it doesn’t drain very well (the rise is like .25 inches over 12 inches).

I believe the statistics but I don’t know Japan well enough to have a meaningful opinion whether car culture is fading in Japan. Bicycle culture, in any case, isn’t exactly exploding. I see more cyclists in Osaka and Kyoto but that’s about the only real development I can see as an outsider. Talking to bike industry people hasn’t uncovered any other trends either.