Such "inconveniences" always exist in most, if not all, foreign countries w/ different languages & cultures, & are hardly unique in Japan lol - I was just saying that the Japanese people are generally more tolerant/accepting towards foreigners these days.
I guess right now I can't make up my mind if I want to visit Japan in the near future or not since I have "on and off" doubt of something majorly awkward I may run into there such as:
How does their currency work?
I've heard that 100 Japanese yen is equivalent to one single lousy US dollar bill!
That's insane. I don't want to imagine how much yen is going to fit in my meager wallet. And It would take forever to count each one. I can buy an anime figurine or plush back in the states for a fair price about twenty, thirty or sometimes forty bucks instead of purchasing a couple items that cost over a thousand yen each. Ripoffs.
Do most signs and storefronts have at least some English text or they all written in Japanese?
Don't get me wrong, I do want to learn some Japanese with basic simple words such as "konichiwa", "arigato", "sayonara" and a couple others that will come in handy while getting around in Japan but not all of the language where I can decipher the hiragana, kanji and the katakana because that would take ages for me to learn those. I don't want to get lost in a country where I don't know much of the language.
The most awkward part of touring, the cultural differences. Oh boy.
I've read on some websites of traveling to Japan, is that they seem to have way too many rules and regulations of "dos" and "do nots" when exploring Japan. It make it seems like Japan is this strict nation who still holds on to their ancient traditions and customs which they take very seriously and would often get easily offended by outside tourists or foreigners who know a little of their culture and didn't mean to disrespect them just because they are dressed casually by wearing informal fashion (shorts, tanktops, baseball caps, sneakers, etc.) or doing common human habits such as scratching an itch, blowing their nose or even innocent gestures they do to other fellow tourists such as hugs, high fives or fist pumps just because they find it rude, disgusting or it just reminds them of something so unpleasant in their country's past. Ouch.
Sometimes I feel discouraged of visiting to Japan just to avoid from having extremely awkward trouble which I don't really mean to but there's always going to be that part of me that I feel curious and fascinated of what's it actually like over there. Hopefully someday when I finally have the courage to visit there, I just want to feel at ease, be confident of not getting into these difficulties and just have fun in the land of the rising sun.