Hey everyone, it's Norika here ( @rodens ), and although there are already two chapters on Japanese characters, I thought maybe I could contribute by talking about the basic aspects of everyday life as a person living in Japan. Of course, this might not apply to every single person in Japan, but I'll try to include a variety of options under each subject. I'll be covering detailed topics on food, social media, hangout places, and pop culture!

Japanese people have the highest life expectancies, and one of the reasons behind that is probably because they properly eat their three meals, and in quite a filling portion as well. I'll provide a couple of examples for each meal.

Breakfast

The most traditional Japanese breakfast would be white rice in a "chawan", or tea bowl, miso soup in an "owan", or bowl, and "tsukemono", which is just preserved vegetables ("takuan" and pickled cucumbers are my favourite). Grilled fish like salmon, and egg rolls called "tamagoyaki" can also be served in a traditional Japanese breakfast. "Natto" (fermented beans) is also pretty common to have for breakfast (you put the beans on rice).

Another example would be toast. The toppings would be the same as a typical American toast, usually with margarine, jam, or whatever else there is to put on a slice of toast. Be careful, though, if you're character is making toast, don't say they pop the bread in the toaster! A lot of Japanese households have toaster ovens instead of a regular toaster.

The last time I was in Japan, I was on a diet half the time there, so I usually ate yogurt for breakfast. What's different about some Japanese yogurts is that usually you can buy them in little cups and they're very dense!!

Cereal isn't commonly eaten for breakfast, but I've seen like little cups of instant cereal in Japanese grocery stores, but not the big box cereals you can get in bulk. Fruit is very rarely eaten for breakfast, since a piece of fruit like an apple can cost more than a couple of dollars.

My grandfather likes to drink "ao-jiru" (kale juice) after his meals, and although it tastes sort of nasty, a lot of people drink it for their health. People also drink milk during their meals. A lot of kids and adults drink "yakult", which is sort of like a yogurt drink which is beneficial for your digestive system.

Lunch

I guess it depends who your character is (a high school student? a parent?), but most people aren't home for lunch. A lot of people pack "bento"s, which are lunchboxes. A bento can have a lot of different things, but rice is the main carb, and there's "okazu" (little side dishes) in the box like tamagoyaki, steamed vegetables, sausages, meatballs, spaghetti, potato salad, etc. (My mom used to make a bento for me to take to school everyday, even though I live in Canada.)

If your character is at home, it's usually some sort of side dish served with rice. Or, it could be some sort of noodle dish instead, like ramen, soba, or somen. I won't be able to go in depth with all these different types of noodles but they're all commonly eaten! Look them up if you want to know the differentiation.

If your character is planning to buy a lunch, the cheapest option would be to go to a convenience store and buy a savoury bread (such as "yakisoba-pan", curry bread, etc.), "onigiri" (rice balls), instant ramen (the employees can serve you hot water), something from their hot display case (fried chicken, corn dogs, "oden", etc.), or something from their refrigerated section (noodles, sushi, etc.).

If you're character is going out to eat with friends, I'm going to cover a list of common places to dine later.

Snacks

At home, snacks vary from household to household. There's a saying in Japan called the "three o'clock snack", so I guess it wouldn't be strange if I said snacks are typically eaten at three o'clock.

Since the country is insanely hot during the Spring/Summer, a lot of people stock up on ice cream. Not like tubs of ice cream, but usually popsicles or ice cream bars.

If you want a list of common snacks that I like: "Jagarico", potato chips, yogurt, Haagen Daz ice cream cups, milk ice cream popsicles, "kaki no tane", Hi-Chews, meiji chocolate, green tea kit kats, shortbread cookies, "youkan", "warabi-mochi".

Dinner

Similar to lunch.

Most people are usually home for dinner. If, lets say, Dad isn't home for dinner, then someone would put his portion on a plate and put a little food cover cage over the plate, or that's what my family did.

Dining Out

If teenagers are dining out, family restaurants are popular go-to places because their menu items are insanely cheap. Some popular family restaurant chains are Saizeriya, Jonathan's, Gust, and Denny's (YES DENNY'S BUT IT'S WAY BETTER THAN ITS NORTH AMERICAN COUNTERPART). They have a large variety of choices so I can't say everything, but a popular thing to order, especially for females, is the doria which is like gratin but the base is rice, and the meat sauce doria is the most popular item at Saizeriya at only 299 yen which is like $2.50! Pasta is also popular, especially the seafood flavoured ones. Japanese restaurants can create twists in Western food by adding seafood (especially shrimp).

Family restaurants have the "drink bar", which is where you can basically pay around 100-200 yen to have unlimited access to a drink fountain. Common drinks at the drink bar would be oolong tea, calpis, calpis soda, Qoo fruit juice, Fanta grape, water, and melon soda. Usually there's also a hot drinks station where you can get coffee, various types of tea by steeping tea bags, and hot chocolate.

Teens also dine out at McDonalds. I highly advise you check out the Japanese McDonald's menu because it's way different than the one in North America! They have avocado burgers, egg patties in their burgers, and even ice cream floats!!

Honestly, there are tons of more places to dine out with a family. There's conveyor belt sushi, Chinese food, ramen houses, and yakiniku (Japanese barbeque). And of course, family restaurants.

Although more and more people are starting to use Twitter and Facebook, the most common form of communication nowadays in Japan is through a mobile app called LINE. You can text, call, video call, and you have a timeline like Facebook. People use this app instead regular texting or iMessage. Instagram users are starting to increase. Snapchat isn't really used, nor is YouTube.

On their LINE timelines, some people like to post pictures of them being with their friends if they went somewhere exciting, or write a little diary of their day. There's also this photo booth thing in Japan called "puri kura" (please Google it, it's so cool) and people like to post pictures they took from their puri kura onto to their timeline or put it as their profile picture.

Instead of asking people for their number, they ask them for their LINE, if that makes sense.

A lot of people joke that if you take a selfie in public by yourself, you're being a narcissist. Haha.

For contacting someone other than your friend, let's say, someone higher up or you only know them as a formal contact, then you would contact them by email or phone, sometimes even fax.

Here's a list of hangouts for teens. It's common to sometimes go out with your friends after school with your uniform to go have a little break.

Karaoke - Self explanatory. There are usually two microphones in a karaoke room, and sometimes tambourines and maracas to liven up the atmosphere. There's also English songs to sing, if you're character can't speak Japanese for some reason! They also have a drink bar (go back to the F O O D section if you want to learn about the drink bar), and some even have an unlimited soft serve machine station. If you want drinks, though, you have to leave your room and walk to the front of the store to get the beverages. You can choose songs you want to sing from a tablet, and people usually go karaoke with their friends to have fun and have a good time!

Round One - This is an amusement building that has a lot of things, including a gigantic arcade, bowling alley, and something called spo cha (which is my favourite and where most kids go to at Round One). Spo Cha is an entertainment center that you can enter if you pay a fee (you can pay for an hour, three hours, or "free time"). At Spo Cha, you can do a variety of activities such as karaoke, free arcade games, batting, indoor sports such as badminton, mini golf, volleyball, soccer, and running around in a hamster ball, rollerblading and motorcycle riding, kids play area, and even a mechanical bull! This is a good place to go if you want to do a lot of things in one day.

Going to a fast food chain - It's cheap and convenient for everyone to go hang out at a place like McDonalds, where friends can have chit chat, and even do some homework while sipping on a drink.

All the above places are also great options for a date!! If you're character is going on a date, other places could be the aquarium, amusement park, or just walking around a busy street eating food. I highly recommend spo cha to be a hotspot though!

Okay, so there are some hardcore fangirls of Justin Bieber and One Direction here, there can be A LOT of hardcore fangirls and fanboys, and "wotas" in Japan. Even middle aged men with real jobs can get sucked into the Japanese entertainment industry, especially with idols.

MY FRIEND, yes someone I actually consider to be one of my best friends, has lived in Japan all her life, and she's obsessed with this certain all-boy idol group and she would spend hundreds of dollars on merchandise of her favourite member (stickers, towels, keychains, posters... and everything else that I find honestly pointless). Her favourite member's image colour is yellow so when I went shopping with her once all she was looking for was for yellow clothes. She would even lie to her parents that she's going to sleep over at a friends place, when she would actually be taking the bullet train to a far away city and spend the night in a hotel to go see the idol group's concert.

Trust me, there are a lot of people like her. I hope you got a little taste of what it's like.

Some popular artists that you can use in your story if your character's friends are obsessed with any singers are AKB48, Nishino Kana, May J, Sekai No Owari, Exile and Sexy Zone. You can look them up to see what kind of audience they attract. It's really fascinating.

Clothing can actually be quite similar to the western style, but cute short skirts are popular, especially those with a pattern on it. If you want to know more about Japanese fashion, just google the Japanese magazines "Pichi Lemon" and "Popteen" and you'll have a better idea. A lot of girls don't wear makeup to school, mostly because they're school doesn't allow it, but girls who go to schools that don't care much about academics allow you to wear make up. Some girls like to go all out; false eyelashes, raccoon eyes, extreme blush. Some also like the "natural" makeup look as well, as if they aren't wearing any makeup.

So this turned out to be a little longer than I expected it to be, and I actually have a lot more to write, but I'll stop here. I just want to say not all Japanese people are like this, or go to the places that I mentioned! A lot of this applies to teenagers, but some also apply to a lot of people. If you have any questions or want something about Japan explained, don't be afraid to message me on my main account @rodens.

The last thing I'll say is that just because you meet someone that's half Japanese, don't expect them to know everything about the country!! There are a lot of half Japanese kids that have never been to Japan.