Everyone talks about using takkyubin and luggage forwarding.  It’s pretty straightforward to do this at the airport counter or from a hotel when the bell desk takes care of it for you, but most non-Japanese speaking people are probably intimidated by walking into a Yamato (Kuro-Neko/Black-Cat) depot with suitcases to be forwarded to your next ...

One very cool device “only in Japan” is the I-Pot made by Zojirushi.  A few years back, my wife and I bought one for my mother-in-law after she became a widow and began living alone.  Her I-Pot was such a hit with her that she took over the payments from us (avoiding currency exchange problems, ...