Since Brad asked me for culture and etiquette stuff, I'll be talking about that in this post. (Don't worry - there are only 34 days left until my trip, so I'll actually get to the really fun stuff and pictures before long!) Let's see... where to start?
I assume most people are familiar with the fact that Japanese people tend to be very polite. And they bow instead of shaking hands. That's pretty basic stuff. But there are a lot of little things they do - and don't do - that are pretty interesting. For example, when eating, you shouldn't stand your chopsticks up in a bowl of rice, because that's traditionally a custom done at funerals. Big no-no. You also shouldn't point or gesture with your chopsticks, pass food from your own chopsticks to someone else's, pick up food from a communal dish/bowl or scoop food directly from a bowl into your mouth. ...There's a lot of chopstick etiquette.
The Japanese are also big on changing shoes when entering certain buildings or rooms. For instance, if you're entering a room with a tatami (woven mat made of bamboo) floor, you must take off your shoes. When entering a house, you should take off your shoes (and there's generally a little foyer area with a shoe rack specifically for this purpose). When you enter a bathroom, you put on a pair of bathroom slippers so you don't track germs and whatnot out of the bathroom on your feet.
I hear a lot of public restrooms don't have paper towels, and some lack toilet paper, so most people buy a handkerchief to use to dry their hands. As for toilet paper, there are commonly people who stand in front of shops handing out packets of tissues to advertise their businesses, and people seem to use these tissues in the restroom. Good to know. Also, the Japanese have both old fashioned and extremely new, high tech toilets, and Wikipedia has an interesting article on both, if you wanna read more on that.
As far as trains go, Japan has one of the best train systems in the world. They're very safe, very reliable and very, very punctual. Typically, trains stop for only a minute or two and if you aren't on or off within that minute, you're out of luck. It definitely pays to be punctual. Luckily, train passengers are generally very accommodating if you're trying to board or exit a train, even if there may be a ton of people on it, as is typically the case during rush hour.
Also, some of Japan's busiest train stations (and Shinjuku - the world's busiest, with an estimated 3.52 million passengers passing through EACH DAY, as of 2006) are pretty big and not only house the ticket machines and different terminals, but also shopping centers and restaurants several stories high! Plus, at the Marunouchi exit of Tokyo station, they're testing out a new type of flooring that generates power (to man the ticket gates) when stepped on, so that's pretty nifty.
Of course, riding on a train doesn't come without its own taboos. Talking on a cell phone on the train is prohibited, but text messaging and email is fine. Eating on a train (with the exception of the long distance shinkansen and express trains) is frowned on, as is eating while walking, oddly enough.
Trash is another thing that Japan does differently than the US. There are separate receptacles for PET bottles, glass, newspapers, burnable trash and non-burnable trash. And from what I hear, there are very few trash cans in public areas. People are generally expected to take whatever trash they have home with them to throw away.
However, Japan has a ton of vending machines. And they dispense everything from hot and cold beverages to foods, beer, clothing, fresh flowers, books, videos and CDs and even pornography. Here are two pictures of some regular, old beverage vending machines, as taken by my friend, Alison, when she visited Tokyo in November 2006:
