Which Week Is It Here in Japan?

When you move to Japan, especially from the West, you quickly learn that whatever you used to call “normal” is more correctly named “normal for my culture.” The default for many things—actually, for basically everything—is entirely different from what I assumed to be standard in the United States. The side of the road you drive on, the number of volts coming out of the electrical socket, the number of holes in that socket, the availability of gallon-sized containers of milk—in almost any area of life, “normal” is different here.(6 more paragraphs)