Let's no writing:

While at an Osaka bookseller's the other day, I was writing down some basic hiking information from a book, when out of the blue a bookstore employee swooped out of nowhere to inform me that taking notes was strictly forbidden. So it must be inferred: in Japan, buying the book is the preferred method.

This served as an interesting contrast to my overseas bookstore-parusing experiences, as I used copied travel information in Korea all the time without the workers there batting an eye.

As it turns out, I ended up buying the book. Kinokuyniya Books, I bite my thumb at thee!