One thing I have learnt on all these distant travels is that the romantic image of things that lead with 'local' or 'traditional' usually have little to do with reality. 'Local breakfast' in Japan is a full dinner including your own bubbling stew with mushrooms next to your plate and a private grill with, by no means odourless, sardines and something tough, cartilaginous. There are as many as eight dishes around my plate with all kinds of things in it. I realise just in time that in the bowl of, ostensibly, bean sprouts, each sprout has two tiny black eyes. The hotel room that night is also... traditional. The bed is a mat on the floor. Next to the mat is a small coffee table with a flat cushion beside it to sit on. The room has no bathroom or shower, just a washbasin. This is one of those moments when you realise how the washbasin got its name.

There is no nation as law-abiding as the Japanese. Whereas in the Netherlands the biggest crowd barriers won't stop anybody from trespassing, in Japan a small piece of string is enough to make everyone go the long way around. We adapt well, but the pressure to take a good panoramic photo is increasing. Japan turns out to be less photogenic than we had hoped. It is either boring everyday buildings or mega-touristy temples. We haven't found anything in between. In a tourist tea garden, we have to make do; there is a nice corner with two old, red, Japanese maples. Between flocks of tourists, I do something our guide has never seen before. He probably doesn't even know it can be done at all... I step over a barrier string that runs along the path 30 cm above the ground and sit down on a boulder in the little garden. Our guide gets so nervous that I immediately feel like a criminal. In the end, this will be the panorama we use for our invitations and exhibition wall. At least our guide flushing with embarrassment was not in vain.

Besides being law-abiding, Japanese are also very nice. Really, really nice, in fact. When I'm about to walk out of the elevator in our hotel near Nagano, the lady from the reception desk is waiting to get in. She sees me standing there, startles, bows quickly and then squeezes out a smile with a face as if she was on the toilet after having eaten spoilt oysters. It really is a kind of severe 'laugh-birth'. She squeezes so hard that, had it not been a laugh but real childbirth, the gynaecologist would probably have gone in search of a forceps. I am impressed by her dedication and reciprocate her kindness with a typically subdued Dutch smile.

Via Osaka, Kyoto and Nagano, we end our road trip in Tokyo. Nothing can prepare you for how big Tokyo is. Underground, you have at least three more layers of city with metro lines, shopping malls and tunnels everywhere to connect everything. For a stranger, it’s impossible to buy the right ticket for the metro, but they’ve thought of that. When you press the help button next to the ticket machine, a metro employee pops out of a small hatch next to it to assist. With his body sticking halfway out of the hatch, he leans over the machine and helps you with all the buttons and options. I’m going to take this idea home with me! We are going to install a hatch next to every computer in the office.