People describe the feeling of arriving to Japan for the first time as experiencing parallel universe, another world or just strange. For us, the best description is like from “Back to the Future” movie. Everything seems familiar but with some twisted features. Welcome to our first impressions of Japan! Yes, that had to be the first thing to mention. Almost every Japanese toilet is high-tech. Each one has at least 5 buttons, which you obviously don’t understand. It took us two days to switch off the seat heating at our new place. When you search for apartments, in Europe you usually have additional features to choose such as parking space, elevator, etc. The first spot amongst the Japanese ones is toilet separate from the bathroom. We haven’t had a chance to use a talking one yet, Tokyo just seems to think we don’t deserve the best in life...

This is probably the most difficult part, it’s insane how no idea you have what’s what if you have no knowledge of Japanese. We honestly didn’t feel that clueless in any other country visited so far. It also seems that the Japanese people, or at least those in Tokyo city centre, do understand English but they rarely talk back in it. The language on the streets seems like a maze of polite formulas that have to be repeated frequently and, since English simply doesn’t have those in such abundance, they stick to what’s familiar. Another funny thing is that you need to be very focused, as it might turn out they actually are speaking in English. The accent is super strong and, to make things worse, the Japanese language has adopted a lot of English words and adjusted to its ways. You will probably have a lot of suupu (soup), eating with soopoon (spoon) and just sometimes using foky and naify (fork and knife) and in the shop you’ll be paying with kaado (card).

Japan is famous for its infrastructure, which in Tokyo reveals itself mainly with the metro map. When searching for an apartment, no one asks which neighbourhood you want to live in, but how far from which metro station you would like to be. With the metro you can get anywhere and some of the transport cards such as Suica can be used nationwide. Owning one also saves you money, as each trip will cost slightly less. An interesting fact is that there is nothing such as "all you can ride" pass for long term stays; you can buy a commuter pass on a specific route and it tends to pay off only if you're making the trip more than 18 times a month. Also, be prepared that topping up your transport card can only be done with cash.
There’s some magical fear of owning a car in Tokyo. When in Europe it’s quite common to own and use one and in the States you wouldn’t survive a day without it, in Tokyo most people will look at you like on a crazy person, if you ask. Using a car is very expensive - even though it’s relatively cheap to buy a domestic one, you will need to pay a lot to prove you have a parking space for it and then to be able to go anywhere - the tolls are super high throughout the country. This is what makes most people using public transport and causing Tokyo traffic to be quite light.
Taxis are the most "Back to the future" thing in Japan so far. They are usually old, say from the 80's, with the seats covered in a drapery-looking covers and mindblowing self-opening door. When a car approaches you on the street, the back doors on the side opposite to the driver open up and then close behind you. Maybe that's why the ride is so freakishly expensive.
An interesting thing we haven’t seen anywhere else are the crossings. Near Shibuya especially, the traffic is stopped completely and the pedestrians have the entire junction to pass, whichever way seems the most convenient.

I don't think we'll do without a post dedicated to the food. There’s more restaurants in Tokyo than you can imagine, serving both local and foreign cuisine. What surprised us is the price amplitude. There are good spots, even in very touristic places, where a meal for two costs less than 10 euros. On the other hand, the most exquisite restaurants are much more expensive than those in Europe - it’s not uncommon for a place to charge about 30.000 yen a meal or more, which is the absolute highest in Barcelona for example.
Overall, sushi is definitely less expensive than its European version and you get much more variety. Generally speaking, eating out is cheaper than in European big cities which for a short stay is a very good news. That being said, you should probably avoid buying fresh fruit and veggies you know from European supermarkets, they are very good quality but really expensive. Coming from Barcelona at the end of July, we would have never expected to experience even worse heat in Tokyo. We’ve been very close to the equator before and although Tokyo is quite far away from it, the real feel temperature is even higher. Good thing there’s a convenience store on every other corner and you can make small stops to enjoy good air conditioning on your strolls through the city.