2001: The Short Version.

None of these shocked me when going for the first time this year, but I knew pretty much all of them going in. The more shocking differences are the depth and feel of the cultural differences which are hard to explain in a tour guide. The solitary feeling of Tokyo for example - millions of people in close quarters, but everything about their lives and culture distances them from one another. Don't get involved, don't do anything which may disturb others (which includes staying quiet and not showing emotional reactions to random occurrences), follow your route and get to your destination (reflected in driving, walking, biking and commuting). When required to interact, always be polite (which westerners used to frank responses often mistake for kindness - trust me, it's not always). Even knowing superficially that this difference exists, how that makes you feel while navigating the city isn't something you are likely going to be fully prepared for. In particular, if you have to have real interactions with people (business or social), learning how to read the situation properly can be a real challenge. That said, a lot of Japanese people understand and expect that, thanks to exposure to western culture, which helps.

You may not even realize how different that can be from what you are used to until you go -and even more fun - when you come back. The Japanese are so quiet and polite that I actually found it more jarring coming home and getting on public transit at the airport - suddenly everyone is making noise, strangers talking to each other, couples yelling at each other on the train... yeah, part of me definitely preferred the quiet solitary feeling. :)

I guess after a while some of these things become so common they lose their shock value. It's always interesting to see what the recently arrived find odd.

One thing Japan definitely isn't is quiet. It's loud, but in a different way to what Americans, and I assume other Westerners, are used to. There are speakers outside of shops playing music/ads to entice shoppers in, and once their inside, they're bombarded by small radios playing jingles on a 10s loop(I worked retail in school, and I think I'd have gone homicidal listening to the same tune that often).