My introduction to Japanese culture was swift. The evening I arrived the menu was noodles followed by a course of karaoke. Until this point, my perception of karaoke was of people standing on a stage in a bar full of drunk people and making fools of themselves. In Japan it is much more serious. You go and hire a "box" for the hour - that is a small room with a couple of seats, a karaoke set (comprising TV, amplifier, mikes and 3000 songs) and as much drink as you could want. So, rather than making a fool of yourself in front of strangers you do it in front of your friends. And it is surprisingly good fun. No one seems to mind bad singing, or are at least too polite to say anything. Indeed, karaoke is treated here as the same kind of evening out as say going to the cinema, a restaurant or bowling is in Britain.

The impressions I have built up of Japan over the last couple of days are hard to quantify. Some elements are familiar from western cities, far more so than Bangkok or Bombay, but there are also things that set it apart. In Thailand, just about everyone I met or came into contact with was cheerful or at least smiled. In Japan everyone really is, or at least gives a good impression of being, incredibly polite and considerate.

The other thing that I noticed as soon as I arrived - and my cousin confirmed this as a national trait - is attention to detail. Everything has been considered and designed, and is continually improved. This, together with the politeness, has resulted in a world where all the sharp edges have been smoothed off to avoid offending, including sharp edges I was never previously aware of. Announcements at the train station are preceded by a soft gentle melody and the announcement itself is in a soft musical voice. Quite a contrast to the harsh barking unintelligible noise I remember hearing at Birmingham New Street station. Traffic is quieter, traffic lights play melancholy tunes to you, and even mobile phones ring less intrusively. Visually, things are designed with soft edges and colours - the interior of the airport was not the cold futuristic white I have come to expect of modern airports, but an odd mixture of pastel shades.

Despite the outward trappings of the west, Japan seems more unusual in some ways than even India. Consumerism is writ large - lending it an air of the familiar, yet the Japanese seem to draw social messages from these ideas that seem strange and unfamiliar. I feel a slight jarring, as if in following two identical arguments, I have arrived at opposing conclusions.

Tomorrow I leave the sanctity of my cousin's flat and Shinkansen south to Nagasaki via a hopefully successful rendezvous with Gaynor and her Lonely Planet which, if the hours I've spent wandering lost in the confusing neighbourhood of Paul's flat are anything to go by, will be crucial to my future survival here!