The high-tech version has an electronic eye that automatically starts the flow of water when you hold your hands under the faucet— no touching anything required.
Not exclusively Japanese, but (except for disabled access) what’s wrong with a regular squat toilet?
I was going to say, even better if cheap hot/cold/alcoholic drinks are sold at convenient vending machines, but that will never be as cheap as a discount supermarket.
I’ve never flown on a plane without assigned seating, which makes it less of a problem to find space in the overhead luggage, because everyone wants it near them. One time there wasn’t any space in the compartment above me, and the stewards made someone else move their luggage so I could put mine in.
AFAIR - it’s been a long time since I’ve flown without special assistance which gives you priority boarding - flying out from the UK you’re called up in groups, seats 1-49, seats 50-99, etc. You don’t need any extra staff for that, just the standard ones checking your boarding pass.
But not always having assigned seating does have the advantage, I guess, that you don’t have to book well in advance to make sure you’re sitting with your friends.
in the US almost every supermarket , convenience store sells low-cost wine/beer (Trader Joes has 2-buck chuck) except if local laws forbid
The gate lice problem exists even when seating is assigned, because
A) human beings in general are anxious to board and get settled in as soon as their boarding group is called, and
B) people who need overhead bin space are scared of not having any space left if they are slow to board.
The latter fear exists because passengers often bring carry-on luggage that’s well over the official size limits, and carry-ons are more common these days because airlines often charge for checked bags. On my most recent flight, the gate crew were practically begging people to check their carry-on for no charge so as to avoid running out of overhead bin space. By the time I got aboard with my modestly sized carry-on, I had to stow it five rows behind my seat. 
This surprises me - every supermarket across Europe and the UK stocks all manner of alcohol, including spirits.
Yes, the province of Ontario has little excuse for having such draconian rules in place around the sale of alcohol, considering that many, many other jurisdictions have much looser restrictions with no particular ill effects (that I know of).
I think that the overhead bins are sized so that on a completely full flight, if every passenger had an carry-on bag of the approved size, there still wouldn’t be enough space.
Maybe that person was an employee and they were acting to make a learning experience. Or not.
Whenever they offer to check my carry on for free I take them up on it. Means I don’t have to worry about no overhead space. Worked out beautifully on our trip to Dallas: my bag came out second and dad’s fifth. I wish airlines cracked down on carry on sizes and quantities. Sure they say only two and I know some are exempt because that third item is essential medical equipment t but I have seen way too many people with three.
You are talking about a province that locked the playground swings on Sundays until the 1950s so that no one would not offend god. When I was a kid in the 1970s, the liquor stores were not self serve and you filled out an order form and received your purchase in a brown paper bag. It’s a big change for a city like Toronto which now has a cannabis store on every 3rd corner.
Grocery stores are only allowed domestic wine, beer, and cider and spirits are prohibited. They loosened up the rules with Covid to allow restaurants to sell alcohol for takeout that will be kept permanently.
I don’t know… but the “99 Cents Only” stores have stuff whose prices end in ‘.99’.
That said, the vast majority of their stuff is $0.99. But not everything.
I’d kind of like to flip the OP around a bit; one thing we have in the US that I wish was worldwide is retail that stays open past the early evening. I have always found it a bit frustrating to go to foreign countries, go see the sights during the day, only to have them roll up the sidewalks at 5-6 pm, leaving only the most touristy of retail outlets, restaurants and bars open. Sometimes it might be nice to do a little shopping in the early evening without having to choose to do that over some sort of more touristically significant outing or location.
Do you think this might be because you’re in different areas of cities? You’re often in a city centre when you’re on vacation whereas in the USA, you’re likely in a residential district.
I’m not sure… the main thing I noticed is that most US city centres don’t have much in the way of retail in the first place, and what there is tends to cater to workday customers. But a lot of them aren’t necessarily touristy either.
I do the same. My theory is if it’s checked at the gate, it’s the last bag loaded and the first one unloaded.
What sort of shopping are you looking to do in the early evening? Most places I’ve been in the US don’t have much open after sixish except for supermarkets ( which are generally not in touristy areas) malls, drugstores and restaurants/bars.
We try to travel without checking bags to save time. So I’ve been leery of “We’re running out of overhead room, we’ll check your bag.”
But the last couple of flights I was on, the (Delta) gate agent offered to “gate check” our carryons and said to drop them at the end of the jetway (the tunnel to the door of the plane), and we’d get them back right there as we got off the plane.
Luckily, in the top of my bag, I had a pouch with my in-flight essentials (like noise-cancelling headphones!), so I pulled that out and didn’t have to schlep it down a crowded aisle and bench-press it into a bin. Yay!
Really? That just sounds bizarre to me. I grew up on Long Island and most places there are generally open til 8-9.
I was also surprised when I was in England a few years back and everything except restaurants and pubs seemed to close at 5pm.
Most places here are only open that late on Fridays; and many of them even on Friday not as late as 9.
Some of the drugstores also close at 6 on most days; and some groceries do also, though not all of them.
I’m not sure whether some of this is an urban/rural split.
Wow, I just looked up a bunch of CVS and Walgreens stores near where I lived on LI and the earliest closes at 9-10pm, several close at midnight and a bunch are 24 hours. It’s smack in the middle of suburbia. (I now live in NYC which I am not including because that’s an outlier and most places here close very late or not at all.)
I live in Queens and I have rarely seen non-mall/shopping center stores in NYC or Long Island open much past 6. Chain stores are but they are almost always in malls/shopping centers. I’m not sure exactly where in NYC you live, or what exactly you are including when you say everything is either open late or never closes - but locally owned small businesses often close earlier. If I want to buy hardware or paint after 6 pm I have to drive to Home Depot or Lowes because the neighborhood hardware/paint stores close by six. When there was a Payless in my neighborhood, it was the only store open past 6 for blocks that wasn’t a restaurant/bodega/drugstore