Constant Vigilance

If you've read the fourth book and beyond in the Harry Potter series, you're familiar with the catch phrase of Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody: "Constant vigilance, Potter! Constant vigilance!" While Mad-Eye intended his warning for Hogwarts students who were unaware of the perils of the wizarding world, I do find the phrase coming to mind every so often during my daily-life activities in Japan. For your reading pleasure, my top 5 dangers to a foreigner in Japan (in no particular order):

1. Bathrooms
It's something I've become used to - the idea that "bathroom" means "porcelain-lined hole in the ground that just so happens to flush."

Of course, that's not all - two surprises wait for you outside of the stall:
A. No soap. I'll never understand why, in a country where cookies come individually wrapped instead of in sleeves for the fear that someone might get their cooties on it, there is not a shred of soap to be found in most bathrooms.
B. No hand-drying apparatus. This is a 75% inevitability - I'm occasionally pleasantly surprised by an air dryer that, unlike its American cousin, does the job quickly and effectively. In most places, though, you'd best hope you remembered to bring your handkerchief/wash cloth.

2. Pizzas
If you bring home a frozen pizza, expect it to have three toppings: cheese, pepperoni, and corn. Corn makes its way onto more pizzas than I can say, and I'm still confused as to why. Also, anticipate an encounter with a pizza that is topped with seaweed, egg roe, or mayonnaise...if not all three. (Yes, I have seen/eaten such a thing.)

Point in fact, anticipate mayonnaise to make a sneak attack on any dish you order. And, of course, Japanese mayonnaise is very different from the American kind, in that it is thicker and stronger in taste. (Read: Ew. Ew ew.)

3. Man Purses
Men will wear purses that in no way scream "manly." These man purses will also come in forms of man fanny-packs. To top it off, they will be name brands - as in, men spending small fortunes on their DG-covered purse. Do your best to not laugh.
Don't believe me? A picture's worth a thousand words.

4. Fashion and the Concept of Matching
I'm no longer scared or startled when I see a young woman wearing shoes a size too small (or a size too large) and an outfit with the coordinating colors of purple, gold, black, and either a blue somewhere between periwinkle and electric or some bright shade of orange. Fashion is just a different monster here, and (outside of affording some amusing Engrish on t-shirts) is in general just ... a frightening phenomenon you accept over time.

5. Katakana English
A lot of foreign words have made it into Japanese, and a good number of those words are from English. Great! I'll have an easier time understanding and being understood, right?
Wrong. Ooooh so so wrong.
Say "McDonalds" (even with a Japanese accent) and you'll get nothing but confusion. Say "Maakku" and suddenly everyone around you is thinking of burgers. "Beeru" means "building," whereas "beeeru" means "beer." (Do you hear the difference? I'm just barely able to, and it's rather a bad thing to confuse the two.) "Pah-so-con" means "personal computer" or "PC," and "depah-to" means "department store." In short, prepare for the most foreign of all languages to be your own.