We lived there 2.5 yrs and it was a real shock to all the foreigners we met. The Japanese people also would not touch second hand furniture etc as it was bad luck to move old furniture to new homes. When someone lived most of the furniture was left at the side of the street. Some foreign teachers had started "garage" sales and it was a novelty but beginning to catch on. English teachers furnished their whole homes with these free roadside cast offs. There was even a specific word for it.

All I can guess is that there has been a cultural revolution in the last 30 years or Tokyo etc were very different from our smaller city(850thous)

Our students even explained that personal cleanliness was truly next to godliness but the streets etc were not part of that. Men urinated on the streets anywhere. We would sometime see elderly women yelling at them and one even reached between a man's legs and twisted. He jumped a foot and our four kids watched in awe before we could destract them. If you ask my kids that is one of their prominent memories. Garbage piled up esp at roadside stops and in the mountains and men peeing in public! That was just our experience of 2.5 years many years ago. I am glad yours was different