This was our 4th trip to Japan, all the trips have been 3 day stopovers. Every trip has been wonderful. Maybe we were more observant this visit than on other visits.

We stayed at a 5* deluxe property(FHR) and we were very surprised that on 1 occasion the room service girl came to our room in her stocking feet. We have stayed in hotels all over Asia and have never encountered this before. This is something we would have expected at a traditional Japanese hotel.

On our way back to the airport we used a car from the hotel. Our driver was in a hurry and got up to speeds of 160kph. We were not late, in fact we left the hotel 4.5 hours before flight departure. Aren't the penalties for speeding in Japan quite stiff? Anyway we found this strange.

We also noticed ( for the first time) that some people in the service industry seemed to be expecting tips. 2 or 3 times we had people who seemed to hover and look disappointed as if they were expecting a tip. We had a 6 hour private tour with one fellow and at the end of the tour we thanked him profusely and presented him with a nicely wrapped gift. Suddenly this fellow went from being quite affable to being quite cold and stone-faced, the smile literally left his face, we felt like we had done something wrong. Is the custom of tipping slowly entering Japanese society?

Anyway, Japan is a great country and next trip it will be our final destination