Here is an interesting little known fact about Japan, or at least about Tokyo: if you visit high traffic areas often, like downtown department stores right off the train line, you may never have to buy kleenex again.

Let me explain.

In America, I've often seen people on street corners in downtown areas handing out flyers. These may advertise a new business, or be coupons for an existiing one, or religious circulars. Whatever they are for, the point is the people who distribute them just hand them out without including anything of value. They just expect you to take it.

This is not the case in Tokyo. In Tokyo, the flyer is placed in a small plastic bag along with a packet of tissues, not unlike the purse size ones you can buy here. Sometimes they will just hand out the tissue, and the advertisement will be a card on the bottom of the tissues, visible from the outside, through the clear plastic. Sometimes the advertisements will be bundled up inside a heavy duty, drawstring, reuseable plastic bag. Or a piece of candy will be attached. In any case, something worth having, apart from the coupon, will be part of the deal. Isn't that a great system?

Another thing regarding tissue in Japan - they are used like paper napkins there. Mihoko-san took me to a noodle shop that was about equivalent to a cafeteria. Every counter had a box of tissues about every three feet. At first I thought they must really be concerned about sneezes, but Mihoko-san explained that they were meant to be used instead of paper napkins. She used them that way at home. I found it odd to use a tissue as a napkin, because I don't think of them that way. They are too closely associated with sneezes in my mind to feel sanitary. She said they don't have that connotation in Japan, and are preferred to napkins because they are softer on the skin. That makes sense, when you think about it. Why not use kleenex?

Next, cricket. Or an explanation of the tokyo train system, if that is posssible. It is a complicated system. Or maybe sumo. Which will it be? Stay tuned!