Before coming to Japan I did a lot of research about the country, so as to not have as much of a culture shock experience I guess.
But the things I researched about were big things, like for example, gender equality, school system, work life etc. I didn't even think about doing research about small things that might seem insignificant, but that might still affect you in some way.
Anyway, I made a list of some of the things:
1. The heat! - I knew Japan would be hotter than Sweden but I thought I would be allright. I was wrong! I did not think about the humidity here, which seems to always be very high, and it makes everything feel several times hotter than it is. In the summer you just have to stand outside for about 2 minutes and you will be drenched in sweat (or atleast I am, lol).
2. Cheese - Japan has no real cheese! Atleast you wont find it in any of your common grocery stores. What they have is this pre-sliced very bad excuse for a cheese. It doesn't taste nor smell like cheese. If you melt it in the microwave it will look like melted plastic, which is probably what it is, cuz it aint cheese! I've tried to find cheese online, but so far I've only been able to find Gouda, which is not that great but 1000 times better than the pre-sliced plastic.
3. Bread - (Yea, there will be a lot about food) They don't have "dark" bread in Japan (full grain bread etc). The only bread they have are these white square toasts which suck ass. Don't ever wanna eat toast again thanks to Japan. Sometimes you can find sorta home baked style bread but it's never full grain, the packages are very small (like 3 pieces in one pack), and kinda expensive.
Thanks to this I've been trying to make my own bread, but it hasn't gone that well so far, lol.
4. Fruit is too expensive! - There are not a lot of fruit options here compared to Sweden, and the prices are sky high, so, wtf!
5. Vegetables are flippin small! - The cucumbers in Sweden look like they're on steroids if you compare them to Japanese ones.
6. Gendered toilets - Maybe this is normal in most countries but not in Sweden. So I was very surprised about the fact that the toilets are ALWAYS separated by gender. Meh.
7. Square cars - I thought Japan exported all their cars, but I was dead wrong because I've never seen these square types of cars in any other country. Here you can see them everywhere.
They are small and slim, incase you couldn't see that.
8. Houses have no gardens - sucks.
9. Bikes hold 2 kids at a time - and the kids almost never wear helmets.
10. Umbrellas on bikes - They have contraptions on their bikes to hold the umbrella for a rainy day! It's actuallt illegal but no one cares.
11. Umbrellas for the sun - I've talked about this before but people here use umbrellas to cover from the sun. Some people are so paranoid that they use the umbrellas when there is neither sun nor rain.
12. Cakes/coffeebread aren't that good. I basically don't order dessert anymore because I probably wont like it anyway.
