Originally Posted by
RTW1
Don't you think it's about time to just relax and take some aspects of your trip to Japan as they come?
This is starting to look like an obsession questioning each and every form of behavior before even going... just go, enjoy yourself and simply look around you to see what's considered to be acceptable behavior. And if you get it wrong you will only be one of the rude tourists who doesn't know any better. Everybody will live.
What fun is having the experience of visiting a new country when you have a minute-by-minute schedule and have debated every aspect of your stay in detail before you have even seen the place?
Really? Wanting to know if I'll look like a total a**hole for smoking a cigar in a foreign country with different (and rather scrupulous) cultural practices and perspectives ammounts to overly obsessing and taking the fun out of travel? To each his own, I suppose.