1. Heated Toilet Seats: It’s not every day that you come across a toilet seat that’s heated, flushes on it’s own, and plays distracting music at the touch of a button. How the rest of the world hasn’t adopted Japan’s high-tech toilet seats is a mystery to me.
2. Little Kids in Hats: Japan undoubtedly has the cutest kids and since many of the school uniforms require hats, you’re bound to come across clusters of children with huge back packs on the subway; all of them wearing adorable hats.
3. 7-11 Snacks: Soba, gyoza, sushi, donburi, mochi, plum wine and matcha flavoured cookies – you name it, we ate it – and it was awesome.
4. Bullet Trains: Japan’s nothing if not orderly and efficient, and the Shinkansen bullet trains that traverse across the country make for a pretty interesting way to get around.
5. The Thrill of Not Knowing: If I could describe our time in Japan with just one emoji, it would be the shoulder shrug one. From not really knowing if your train’s going in the right direction, to not really knowing what you just ordered, the thrill of not really knowing was rather liberating.
6. The “No Tipping” Culture: Japan’s a place where people do their jobs with pride, not because they expect a tip. In fact, tipping is even considered rude here and cashiers will adamantly chase after you to make sure that you get your 2 yen back.
7. Everything Orderly: Japan’s also possibly the only country I’ve ever been to where people actually know how to use escalators and moving sidewalks properly.
8. Riding Electric Bicycles on Sidewalks: Once you go E-bike, you never go back.
and here are a few things that I won’t miss:
1. People Running Into Me While Riding Bicycles on Sidewalks
2. Copious Amounts of Rules: Only in Japan is it just as a hard to find a place to park your bike as it is to park your car.
3. Karaoke: Because no one should ever have to listen to me sing 5 Taylor Swift songs in a row.
Shout out to the homies xo
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