Oh, I forgot to answer your question... This entire time, I have avoided masks. Most places don't say anything. Once at a grocery store, a woman came up and was all virtuous about masks and asked if I had one. I simply told her that I don't need one, nor does she. She had no response and I kept going. Sometimes I might say "you watch too much TV." Once I was refused service by a crepe truck. I was standing OUTSIDE and he still refused to serve me. I was about to plop 1700 yen on crepes, so I walked away. I didn't have one because I had just driven my daughter to get her hair cut and all I had been doing was waiting for her in the car. Last weekend I was in Utsunomiya with my friend visiting from AZ and went around everywhere without a mask and nobody gave any grief. Then we went into Yellow Submarine and a clerk came up to my friend and asked him to wear a mask, and he was surprised and suddenly compliant. If the clerk had approached me instead, I would have said, "Mask? Oh no! I don't wanna die!"