• spicy pancake@lemmy.zip
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    21 hours ago

    It was a pretty fun and educational experience

    Having visited as a weeb high schooler ca. 2012, who mostly knew about Japan through anime/manga and Japanese language classes, very little of my previous ideas were confirmed, lol. Except that the public transit kicks ass and the food is absolutely bomb.

    Surprises included:

    • how emotionally reserved everyone is (especially coming in with a very anime mindset lol)
    • how RIDICULOUSLY GOOD ALL THE COFFEE IS
    • my host family’s microwave had a heating element in the top, making basically it a combo toaster oven. this was mind-blowing future technology to my idiot American brain
    • the touch screen in the car in 2012 was similarly mind-blowing
    • the prevalence of cash and relative unavailability of card payments
    • my ability to just go places and do stuff as a teenager without parental accompaniment without it being seen as weird or like i was up to no good
    • fruit and dairy was crazy expensive (this was Okinawa so it being a relatively isolated island didn’t help)
    • the US military Ospreys and other aircraft were EXTREMELY loud and disruptive. I was so ashamed to be American given how disrespectful my county’s military was being to everyone on Okinawa.