I visited my grandfather for the first time. I'm 1/4 Japanese. The rest is African and European.
You don't need to know much Japanese. Most of the locals do understand at least a little.
Bring an extra suitcase for souvenirs. Don't let people tell you they don't accept any kind of debit or credit card, they're accepted everywhere. I made the mistake of visiting in the Summer because of my birthday. Don't do it. I live in South Texas, and I'm used to the heat, but it's a different kind of heat, and the humidity is out of this world, it felt like it just rained despite no evidence of water falling.
For me, the biggest culture shock was not getting stared at like in the states. A few kids stared, and one man went out of his way to gawk, but overall, the most stares I got were from Western males. I thought I was going to get stared at because I'm a bigger girl with tan skin, but nope, it was such a relief. People had no qualms about sitting next to me on buses and flights because I'm a Westerner.
Overall, outside of Tokyo, I found people to be very humble and accommodating. Like I said, I expected people to be prejudice because my skin is darker than theirs, but nobody batted an eyelash. One thing that I did find strange was in the Tokyo airport, I felt like all the women, even travelers had nice and tasteful cosmetic plastic surgery and used bleaching cream. There were even adverts for cosmetic surgery at the Tokyo airport.
by AlyssaBea