Miscellaneous things about Tsukuba and Japan (4)

It's time to unload another set of cultural differences between Thailand and Japan again! I guess you could call these as mini "cultural shocks", but it's not shocking, just interesting.

Shop seal tapes

In Japan, every shops, whether it is convenience store, a drug store or a large supermarket, has its own seal. When you don't want a plastic bag (and many stores now will ask if you want one or not [thumbs up]), they will stick it on to the product to show that you've already paid for it. Some stores will also use the tape to (slightly) seal the top of the plastic bag.

An example seal from Kasumi

Elevator for disabled
At AIST and also other places, some elevators are equipped with special buttons which aid the disabled in using the elevator. In order to access the special elevator (since not all elevators are equipped with the special buttons), a special button is provided. Interestingly, when pressing the special buttons inside the elevator, the standard button will also light up, but the reverse is not true. My guess is that the door might stay opened longer if the special button is used. Also, the elevators here have audio floor announcement systems.

The lower button will call the elevator with aids for the disabled

The special buttons for the disabled

Gachapons Everywhere
Gachapons are machines where you insert ¥200 - ¥300 and get a random toy/figure/card out of it. Apparently, these are everywhere whether it is at a shopping mall, a restaurant and other places.

Gachapaon machines in front of a restaurant

No soap at toilets at the train station
I don't know why, but the toilets at the train station doesn't have soap provided! (And the toilets are often located past the ticket gate, so you can't use it unless you're taking the train.) When I've asked a Japanese about this, the answer I got was "because you don't need it?" Though everywhere else, soap is provided.

Heisei Year
Like Thailand, Japan has another year counting system for use in official documents. While Thailand uses the Buddhist Year (พ.ศ.), Japan uses a year system based on the current Emperor. The current era is Heisei (平成) which began in 1989 and thus the current year is the 25th year (written as 平成25年 or sometimes H25年).