When visiting Japan, how often would I be taking off my shoes?

Question:

i'm just curious

Answer:

Taking them off when you enter someone's home is kind of a no-brainer but there will be other situations that come up that you wouldn't assume you need to take your shoes off for, but the Japanese are finicky about such things. Case in point, I went to buy some dress slacks with my girlfriend at a clothing store. You could keep your shoes on in the store, but there was a mirror that you could stand in front of to see how the pants fit, in front of the mirror was a small wooden area that couldn't have been more than 2X2 (the rest of the store was carpeted). I made the egregious error of NOT taking my shoes off before I stood on the little wooden thingy and the store clerk just about went ballistic on me! She was going off in Japanese and bordering on screaming at me to take my shoes off. My GF translated for me.

Now I'm sure I offended some Japanese gods by not taking my shoes off in such an instance, but how unprofessional to treat a customer that way!

We also had to take them off in the office building where I worked - which I always thought was stupid since no one ever visited the office but us and we were all foreigners teaching English over the phone/Internet. This is my point that sometimes they (the Japanese) are just very finicky about such things they consider tradition and you as a foreigner are expected to know & obey even if it isn't obvious.

And the other guy is right about many people pissing in the streets, you will see old men do it all the time! Japan isn't as "clean" as you might imagine, at least not in Tokyo anyway.