1. 01Buy the book first — a goshuinchō, around ¥1,500–2,000 at any shrine office. Futami Okitama in Toba is your first chance.
2. 02Pray at the hall before you ask. The stamp records a visit you actually made, so the visit comes first.
3. 03Find the desk marked 御朱印 or 授与所, open the book flat to the next blank page, and hand it over with both hands: goshuin o onegaishimasu.
4. 04Leave ¥300–500 in coins on the tray, then wait quietly — it is written by hand and takes a few minutes.
5. 05Keep the book for goshuin only. Station stamps and tourist-site stamps go somewhere else.

It is not a souvenir stamp but a priest's handwritten record that you came and paid respects — which is why the order matters, why nobody will write one for a friend who stayed on the ship, and why turning up at closing time may get you a polite no.

1. 01Buy a wooden plaque at the shrine office — usually ¥500–1,000 — and use the pens set out beside the rack.
2. 02Write on the blank side and leave the painted face alone, unless the shrine's own sign says otherwise.
3. 03Be specific. A wish is addressed to this particular kami, so 'a calm crossing home' beats 'happiness'.
4. 04Add your first names if you like; the traditional address line is entirely optional for visitors.
5. 05Hang it on the rack with the picture facing outward, and leave it there.

The temptation is to take the plaque home as a keepsake, but the whole gesture is the leaving — the shrine gathers up the year's ema and ritually burns them, releasing the wishes.

1. 01Wrap the right panel against your body first, then bring the left panel across over the top of it.
2. 02Check a mirror: seen from the front, the collar should make a lowercase 'y'.
3. 03Let the dresser tie and re-tie the obi. It is meant to feel firm and held, not loose.
4. 04Take short steps, keep your arms low, and lift the hem slightly on stairs — the sleeves catch on everything.
5. 05Sit by smoothing the back of the skirt underneath you rather than dropping into the chair.

Right panel over left is how the dead are dressed for burial — hidari-mae — and it is the one mistake a Japanese passer-by will genuinely notice, so if a staff member reaches over to fix your collar without asking, let them.

1. 01Rest them on the hashioki, the little ceramic rest. No rest? Fold the paper sleeve into one.
2. 02Never stand them upright in a bowl of rice — that is exactly how rice is offered to the dead.
3. 03Never pass food chopstick-to-chopstick. Set it down on the other person's plate instead.
4. 04Don't point with them, wave them while talking, spear food, or dig through a shared dish for the good bit.
5. 05Take from communal plates with the serving chopsticks when they are provided.

The upright-in-rice and chopstick-to-chopstick taboos both come straight from Buddhist funeral rites — that is why they land quite differently from ordinary clumsiness, and why a Japanese diner will wince rather than laugh.

1. 01Watch for the step up and the rack of shoes. That raised lip — the genkan — is the border, not the door.
2. 02Step out of your shoes onto the raised floor, then turn and set them neatly pointing back the way you came.
3. 03Wear the house slippers on wood and lino, but take them off before you step on tatami. Socks only on the mats.
4. 04Change into the toilet slippers waiting inside the washroom — and change back out of them on the way out.
5. 05Pack shoes you can slip off standing up, and socks you would be happy to be seen in.

Walking back into the restaurant still wearing the toilet slippers is the classic foreign-visitor mistake in Japan, and every single person in the room will spot it before you do.

1. 01Bow from the waist with a straight back, hands at your sides or folded in front, eyes down rather than on the other person.
2. 02Match what you are given: a small nod for a shop greeting, a slower and deeper bend when the thanks really means something.
3. 03Learn four things and use them all day — sumimasen, arigatō gozaimasu, onegaishimasu, hai.
4. 04Point at the item rather than the person, and hold your translation app out to be read instead of reading it aloud.
5. 05Don't offer a handshake unless a hand comes out first, and never a hug.

The instinct is to apologise at length for not speaking Japanese, but a bow and a sumimasen have already done that job — it is the over-explaining in English that actually makes the exchange awkward.

1. 01Carry cash. Shrines, temples, market stalls and owner-run shops still take coins and notes only, and goshuin desks always will.
2. 02Hoard your coins — small ones for offering boxes, ¥500 pieces for goshuin. Exact change is the courteous way to pay.
3. 03Put the money on the little tray on the counter rather than into the cashier's hand, and lift your change back off the tray.
4. 04Pass notes and cards with both hands, and expect your change to be counted back to you aloud.
5. 05Never tip — not the driver, not the guide, not the restaurant.

Japan has gone far more cashless than its reputation suggests, but the exact things you will want to spend on here — offerings, charms, goshuin, street food at Nakamise — are precisely the ones that never took cards; and a tip left on a table reads as money forgotten, so someone will chase you down the street to return it.

1. 01Look for the 撮影禁止 sign before you raise the camera. Inside temple and shrine halls, assume no unless told otherwise.
2. 02Never photograph an altar, a statue behind its screen, or a priest mid-ritual.
3. 03Ask before photographing a person — camera raised, questioning look, and a shake of the head means no.
4. 04Step out of the walking line to shoot. Blocking the approach through a torii or a shop doorway is the real offence.
5. 05Silence the shutter if your phone allows it, and put the camera down entirely while someone beside you is praying.

On your kimono day in Asakusa you will be the one strangers want to photograph — the courtesy runs both ways, and you are completely entitled to smile and decline.

1. 01Don't worry about the ship. Izumi is run for an international passenger list and does not turn tattooed guests away.
2. 02Ashore, assume the opposite — roughly half of Japan's baths still refuse, and the person on the desk cannot make an exception.
3. 03Carry waterproof cover patches for anything small; plenty of places will accept a covered tattoo even where the sign says no.
4. 04Ask whether there is a kashikiri, a private bath you can book by the hour, which sidesteps the question entirely.
5. 05If you are refused, take it lightly and move on.

The rule is a leftover from the days when a tattoo meant yakuza membership, and it is genuinely loosening — Japan's tourism agency now asks operators to hand out cover stickers — but the staff member saying no is enforcing a house policy, not passing judgement on you.

1. 01Give and receive with both hands — money, a card, a bag, a shopping basket — or steady your right forearm with your left hand.
2. 02Never pour your own drink. Fill your partner's glass, let them fill yours, and hold your glass with both hands while they do.
3. 03Take your shoes off at floor-seating restaurants and guesthouses, exactly as in Japan.
4. 04Bow shallower than you have been — a nod of the head, not a bend from the waist — and skip the tip here too.
5. 05Treat Jeju as its own place rather than a Korean footnote or a Japanese near-miss; the history between the two countries is not light conversation.

Two hands is the whole of Korean etiquette in miniature — it means 'you have my full attention' — which is why handing something over one-handed reads not as casual but as dismissive.