8. Offbeat Japan

The are many things which make Japan such a wonderful and unusual country.

1. Japanese toilets

The functionality of Japanese toilets is already the stuff of legends with some of them having a control panel resembling Concorde's flight deck. Instructions are invariably in Japanese, so there is no telling what is going to happen if you press any of the buttons. However, for the Westerner, there is only one thing that you need to know....that is that the one big red button means "stop everything".

2. Bonsai

One of the Japanese art forms is the miniaturisation of trees, known as "bonsai" and which decorate the inside of the house. We tried hard to find some of these but could only find the outdoor giant bonsai.

3. Important people doing very little

Unemployment level in Japan are very low. One of the reasons for this is that you often see important people, usually in uniform, standing around and not doing very much. Sometimes they might wave a flag or baton but that is about it, and it must be a thankless task in the midday heat.