it was nice! i liked it!

the most striking difference for me as a north american was just how easy it was to get around, at least in the cities i visited. there's frequent public transit which covers a lot of area, and things are dense and close enough together that it's an easy walk afterwards.
i didn't see huge parking lots much bigger than the buildings they served, and off the main roads you had much narrower streets that only one car could fit through, and aside from the uncommon occasion that one would actually come along they were basically pedestrian paths. (there would sometimes be paid parking on these streets that could fit, like, 2 cars lol)
one of the really nice things about this is that you can kinda just walk around without a destination set ahead of time and stumble into some cool stuff! street performances, events, shops, parks and gardens, and such
i really appreciated the convenience stores, even if they may not be the healthiest option, being able to just pop in and pick up a meal was pretty nice. it was very helpful especially in the smaller cities we were at, where there'd be times where restaurants just weren't open, or when my food problems kept me from eating at restaurants we did go to

if i ever go back (and i'd like to! but losing an entire day each way to travel is uh a bit of an investment) there's a couple of things i'd like to deal with first:
- figuring out what my deal with food is: i missed out on some cool food because i was being very cautious with ingredients i haven't vetted yet.
- mental health: there were some awesome things we did, like seeing mt. fuji from pretty close up, and a couple of live shows that i'm told were sick as heck. unfortunately, i am emotionally numb and failed to be moved by those :)
- getting better at japanese: most of our group only spoke english and got by just fine, but having a couple of us have some ability in the language was helpful for things outside of tourist scripts like learning about stuff going on, dealing with emergencies, and just having conversations with people. i scraped by the JLPT N3 and struggling with these things made it apparent just how far i have left to go (in a motivational way).

at any rate i'm really glad i went, it made for a good vacation :)