Kids spending fortunes at the dentist getting their teeth knocked wonky (a bizarre current fashion trend) and buying underwear from vending machines (pretty handy, you must admit), to the suicide forrest, which is exactly what it sounds like - life in Japan is so far removed from life as we know it that most of us simply can��t believe what we read. To say that Japanese customs seem somewhat strange to those in the western world is a drastic understatement.