OTAKU

The biggest mistake tourists make in Japan is dragging a fifty-pound suitcase up and down subway stairs. Watch how Japanese travelers board the bullet train. They walk on with a cup of green tea, a small shoulder bag, and both hands free. Where is their luggage? It is already in the next city, waiting for them. In Japan, the system is called Takkyubin, recognizable everywhere by a logo of a mother black cat carrying her kitten gently in her mouth. When you check out of your hotel in Tokyo at eight in the morning, you hand your heavy suitcase to the front desk, fill out a tiny slip, and pay about twenty dollars. You can even send it straight from the corner convenience store. Then you spend the entire day wandering through mountain temples or eating street food with nothing on your back. When you walk into your traditional inn in Kyoto that evening, your suitcase is already standing neatly in your room, wiped clean, with the handle turned toward you. In fifty years of handling millions of bags a year, lost luggage is virtually unheard of. A society runs smoothly when you can hand your belongings to a stranger at a convenience store and know they will beat you to your hotel.