Japan time

One thing that it seldom mentioned in
gaijin blogs is how the odd (to westerners)
time zone setup and local custom act to
structure the day.

For one thing, ALL of Japan is in one
time zone. That means the eastern side of
Japan has sunrise around 5am-5:30am,
and sunset around 5pm. Earlier sunsets
and later sunrises as fall creeps by.
Eastern Japan means
Tokyo etc.
Japan does not do DST.

So all those salarymen come home in the
dark. And night falls FAST in these parts.
There is a reason all the bikes have a cute
bowing-out of the right front carrier support.
It’s to make room for the front bike light that
rubs on the tire, and you better have
one unless you want to become a statistic,
or hit a pedestrian. Or other rider, or car.
Strangely enough rear lights are not common.

Then there is the practice of opening most
stores at 10am or even 11am!

The idea is that the average housewife is going
to get the kids and hubby ready for school &
work, then have a relax and only THEN,
go shopping. Stores close anytime from 6 to 9pm.

So if you are a tourist, feel free to sleep in.

Everything is closed anyway.

However if you wait until 8pm to pick up some
marked down premade salaryman-chow at the
local supermarket, it may be all gone.
<growl goes mr tummy>