Do you think that in Tokyo you can just sit in a sushi bar (or other Japanese diner type of place) as long as you want? Well, not exactly. As fancy as sushi bars are in the West, where people go there to actually meet, talk and eat something, where it's rude to stay there shorter than an hour, here those places are just for eating. You place an order, you eat, you fill up your stomach and then you are gone. Reasons: not much space, long queues. I realised this when a waitress in a sushi bar came to me and my friend to tell us how happy she is that we were here for so long. Translation: “you are here way too long, please go away already”. Apparently we were there for 80 minutes (in our defense, we were having fun and it takes time to make all those types of sushi we wanted, so most of the time we were waiting for it since they make one to three at a time, and they also had ice-cream and cakes and we were ordering all the time! Plus they still had at least ten free tables). Normally we would have heard it after 40 minutes, but they made an exception for gaijins. As polite as it sounded and as widely as she was smiling at us and even though I can understand why they have this rule, it was not a nice experience and I would prefer being able to eat in peace, without worrying how much time it takes. 

Something you will notice right away in Japan: no trash bins. Anywhere. You can find them only on stations, near vending machines and in konbini. Japanese find it normal, but everyone used to trash bins on the streets was a little confused about it. I for example can't imagine going to a konbini just to get rid of some trash. And when you find the trash bins, you have to figure out the recycling system. Believe me, it doesn’t work the same as in Europe. They have burnables for example, but many of the things they put there are not burnable where I lived (add kanji and different colour coding to this). So basically, if you buy something; a sweet bun, a bottled drink, a candy-bar, an SD card for your camera, a package of three pens; you have to be prepared to carry all your trash with you all day long, until you’re back home. And then try figuring out which trash bin they should go to.

Everyone told me that Tokyo is a hectic city, always in a rush. Nobody told me how... slow is this rush. People not only walk so very slowly, they also have a habit of just stopping in the middle of the road, to look at something, chat with someone or check their phones. Which wouldn’t be so bad if not for the fact, that streets are crowded. One person suddenly standing on the sidewalk stops everyone behind. And the true horror: the stairs and escalators. People so often just stop at the end to do something on their smartphones. Really, on Asakusa station there was a guard whose main job was telling people that they can’t stand idly at the end of the escalator.

For a hectic city, somehow nobody seems to be in a rush there.

In Japan my common face was suddenly very exotic. I (for Japan) am tall and have bright hair and apparently that was enough for some guys to hit on me. Constantly. It was nice at first but what make it far less nice was that:

It’s very impolite to eat while walking down the street in Japan. As simple as that. No drinking coffee on the go, no eating snacks when you’re late for a meeting. No. You want to eat? Stay in one place. Best if that’s the place you’ve bought your food in. For me, a person used to eating while walking from place A to place B to not waste time, this was a real nightmare. The funny thing: I once asked a Japanese guy what he liked most during his stay in Europe. He said: I was able to eat fries while walking. 

To sum up, while my stay in Japan was mostly pleasant and I really liked it, there were things I really didn’t like or which surprised me so much that for a moment they made me want to go back home.