Controversial title given how generalising it implies. Of course, there are many angles of experiences one can take anywhere.

Last time we were in Japan, we witnessed plenty of built-in racism, for example (no-foreigner bars, unfair treatment of us by shoving us in the back corner table to hide us from view and not serve us, this kind of thing). It's a lesser-known generalisation of Japan but still very prevalent in places, particularly the big cities, I'd imagine.

This time, we moved away from the big cities to Hokkaido, and the 'local' experience was significantly different.

Sure, there was still that almost suffocating forced politeness one comes to expect, with full on 90-degree bows for even the most basic services, but on one fateful night in a town called Otaru, my wife and I saw for the first time, truly relaxed Japanese in their natural habitat.

Otaru

I'm actually skipping several days, as this experience came after the skiing part of our trip. Otaru was a place we decided to visit for a more down-tempo, relaxed finale to our trip. It's a small town but only an hour or so train ride from the Airport.

Honestly there was nothing much going on there. It's hardly a tourist town; it's main attractions being a canal and some glassworks. The glassworks are pretty cool, but the canal is literally just that: A canal.

If you've ever seen a river before, it's like a less interesting version of that. There's even a boat you can go on which covers a total of about 20 metres of canal before returning lol. I'm from England and I've been to Venice and Florence so... yeah. Yawn.

The true memorable moments didn't happen until the evening when we were walking about and stumbled across a shop with a LOT of sake bottles from floor to ceiling. Yum.

As we went in to browse, we noticed quite a ruckus happening somewhere in the back of the shop. A closer inspection showed us there was a kind of secret staircase with some Japanese-only instructions which I promptly attempted to translate on my phone.

It turns out there was some kind of ticket-based system you had to follow in order to partake. After being shooed away to find an ATM - this place was cash-only - we went up the stairs and saw a small room of 3 tables and an old man at the counter, smiling away and bantering.

There were two groups of people, one of about 5-6 people, and another just 3. And then there was us!

The old man spoke almost zero English, but he was more than happy to engage with us and show us the ropes. The ticketing system was... about as confusing as it was seemingly unnecessary, but mighty fun!

It took us ages to figure it out but long story short, it turned out that you choose a drink from the fridge and pay for it with cash. Instead of giving you change, they give you these tickets, which you can then collect and hand in for another drink once you have enough.

If you don't finish the night having used up all the tickets, well, you have to come back next time! I suppose it encourages loyalty or something perhaps?

To me the function and purpose wasn't why I liked it, it was the way this old man and his wife downstairs came up with this idea themselves for their local little area and clearly created a loyal, familiar group of friend-customers in the process.

And these friend-customers were friendly indeed! It didn't take long before one of the ladies drew her attention to my wife and started calling her kawaii (or correcting us and using the more correct term - language barriers and all). Before long they were drunkenly embracing each other and handing each other gifts; My wife gave a fluffy hat-scarf thing this lady said was nice, and in return she disappeared and came back with two homemade cinnamon cake things for us to take home!

Speaking of freebees, the old man's assistant poured us drinks and, after telling us shhhh - don't tell the boss - she overflowed our drinks so a large amount of extra sake spilled into the glass drinking bowl beneath it.

Shortly after, the old man himself gave me a FREE beer AND gave us both free extra snacks.

Getting caught up in the spirit of it all, my wife then decided to give the ladies' table - now 3 - a round of orange plum wine - met with more hugs and bows and cheers.

Finally, towards the end of the night, an entire round was given to the the room by the old man, on the house!

Things were quickly wrapping up and everybody suddenly started leaving so, a little confused we followed suit, but not before getting some pictures with the old man, whose T-shirt is unbeatably cool!

Then, without any time to digest the fact that we will never see these people or share this experience ever again, we simply said our goodbyes and left.

In a way I felt quite sad after the fact. For all we knew, this was the final opening night of the year, or perhaps they were final farewell drinks they were handing out. I mean, they were pretty old.

A kind of melancholy hit me later, too. This was the one and only time I feel we actually saw genuine Japanese people, with genuine smiles and joy, unrestrained. Of course, it's not some rare thing that Japanese experience joy, but it's rarely shown in any environment we outsiders would partake in. You don't see it in hotels or resorts or the streets of tokyo or any services.

It must be exhausting. We've said a few times in the past that we could almost feel the gritted teeth behind the bows and smiles being thrown in our direction. But here in Otaru, they felt so... normal. Happy.

And they were more welcoming than any of those being paid or socially expected to be welcoming. They just were welcoming to us as if there was no distinction between us.

So, out of my two trips to Japan so far, this evening alone stands out as the most genuine. Perhaps @selfhelp4trolls can weigh in on this, since I assume he experiences that 'real' Japan on the daily.

[//]:# ([//]:# (!worldmappin 43.19229 lat 141.00729 long A local experience d3scr))