I found a kind of cultural difference here in Osaka. It will be a commonsense among people who often move between Osaka and Tokyo, but I have never known it until yesterday. When I arrived at Osaka and got on an escalator in the airport, I was confused because everyone except me was standing on the right side of the step on the escalator and walking up on the left side. It is opposite in Tokyo and same in Vancouver. I didn't notice it when I lastly visited Osaka because there was no such manner related to escalators decades ago. I was thinking that this manner was related to the traffic rule; we are supposed to pass a car ahead from the right side in Japan and from the left side in Canada or the U.S. However, in Osaka, they pass from the left side on escalators which is different from the traffic rule. It will be interesting to investigate this direction rule on escalators in other cities. Anyway, I have once heard that this manner on escalators is not stipulated and positively recommended by the escalator makers. Each step of an escalators is made symmetric and it is not always good that all the pedestrians stand on a side. I think we had better not to walk on escalators because we could save such a short time by walking on escalators.
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