Yeah the cleanliness is…subpar. But honestly after a while you realize what things are actually important to your quality of life. And to me, whether or not there is graffiti and how clean the streets are are not factors that greatly influence how I feel on a day to day basis. Shure it would be nicer if cleaner, but the dirt doesn’t hurt me. The greater issues to me are cultural: the major culture shock came from how blunt Germans are and how impolite from a Japanesw view. And I say that even though I am originally German.

I spent 15 years in Tokyo and moved to a German city with around 500k inhabitants. The change definitely took a while to get used to. I still miss japanese public transport more than 10 years later and adjusting to the different safety levels wasn’t easy. However it also has its upsides: I love not having to deal with earthquakes anymore. I love actually having space to breathe on the way to work in trains. I love that as a woman I don’t have to worry as much about creeps on public transport. The adjustment was difficult in the beginning but it got easier with time, as it does everywhere I guess.