Lifestyle

<p>One of the many pleasures of traveling is experiencing the small differences between cultures that you don&#39;t read about on Wikipedia. Small things like sidewalks, garbage cans, and daylight profoundly affect our ways of life, and it&#39;s exciting to learn how they vary across the world. A <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/nc0yya/what_is_the_thing_that_surprised_you_the_most/">Redditor</a> filled with wanderlust asked, &quot;What is the thing that surprised you the most when you traveled to a country you had never been to before?&quot;</p><p>Here are the most interesting answers.</p><p><span style="color: rgb(74, 74, 74); font-family: BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, &quot;Segoe UI&quot;, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, &quot;Fira Sans&quot;, &quot;Droid Sans&quot;, &quot;Helvetica Neue&quot;, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.35em; font-weight: 600; letter-spacing: -0.02em;">1. Thailand</span></p><blockquote> <p>In Thailand we were watching a movie and they played the national anthem and everyone stood up for their king.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/ihatepickingnames37/">ihatepickingnames37</a></p> </blockquote><h2>2. South Korea</h2><blockquote> <p>The incredible security in Seoul. I&#39;m from Latin America, so I&#39;m used to be very alert at everything, everywhere. I forgot my backpack in a small cafeteria and after 25 minutes it was completely untouched in the same spot.</p> <p>You could walk at 3 am with your cellphone in your hands and there&#39;ll be no fear about anything.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Lightthecandle123/">Lightthecandle123</a></p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>3. Czech Republic</h2><blockquote> <p>In Prague, when you open a camera in the street, it&#39;s like a force field! Ppl automatically moves aside to not stand in the way.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/itamarc137/">itamarc137</a></p> </blockquote><h2>4. From a country along the Equator</h2><blockquote> <p>From a tropical country near the equator, I was surprised to know that the sun would set completely before 4pm during winter or having the sun still up at 10pm during summer.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Natsning/">Natsning</a></p> </blockquote><h2>5. Finland</h2><blockquote> <p>Heated sidewalks in Finland! Absolutely life savers for me who had no idea how to walk on ice.</p> <p>No trash anywhere, either.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/momochicken55/">momochicken55</a></p> </blockquote><h2>6. Morocco</h2><blockquote> <p>The amount of eye contact and observation. When I went to Morocco, in the evening the streets would be packed full of families sitting and talking. These people would watch each other, in fact even the way I&rsquo;m describing it with &lsquo;watch&rsquo; shows how unwelcome and uncomfortable it would be in England. People would also make eye contact and keep it frequently on the street, just with ease. It felt so strange for me at first. -<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Greggy30/">Greggy30</a></p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>7. Egypt</h2><blockquote> <p>That it&#39;s possible to weave through Cairo traffic with the skill of a seasoned rally driver, while driving a manual transmission car, frequently using the horn and sipping tea (by holding the saucer, not the cup) at the same time. Shout out to our taxi driver in Cairo.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/greathandz/">greathandz</a></p> </blockquote><h2>8. Turkmenistan</h2><blockquote> <p>Ashgabat Turkmenistan - everything about it. The entire city (every building) is white marble. It lights up at night like a sterile Las Vegas however, there is no advertising except for billboards of the dictator holding onto puppies by the neck to show everyone how nice he is. He has pretty much positioned himself as a religious prophet. The aiport is shaped like a massive white marble eagle.it used to be a red building but soon after it was built they tore it down and built a white marble one. Also there is no white marble in Turkmenistan so it has to be imported. They were the largest importer of white marble in the world and drove the price up so high it cost them ridiculous amounts of money to build the buildings. Strange strange place.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/shazam7373/">shazam7373</a></p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>9. Singapore</h2><blockquote> <p>Singapore is unbelievably clean! As soon as I stepped out of the plane, I swear I did not see a single speck of dust at their airport, even the toilets were squeaky clean and completely dry. Every day I go out to explore the city by foot and come back to the hotel with almost no dirt on the soles of my shoes.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Fragrant-Seaweed-606/">Fragrant-Seaweed-606</a></p> </blockquote><h2>10. Malaysia</h2><blockquote> <p>The smells of a different country. I&#39;m from Australia and travelled to Malaysia a few years back. The city, the jungle, everything smelt different to any place in Australia.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/New_Nefariousness420/">New_Nefariousness420</a></p> </blockquote><h2>11. Denmark</h2><blockquote> <p>I moved to Denmark a couple of years ago and the biggest culture shock for me was julefrokost.</p> <p>Julefrokost translates to &quot;Christmas lunch&quot; which sounds like a nice, wholesome lunch to celebrate the holidays. The first time I went to one, my husband warned me not to eat anything beforehand because there is a lot of food. I didn&#39;t think much of it, I mean we have Thanksgiving in the U.S. so I just assumed it was a big lunch. No.</p> <p>No. We have nothing like this in the U.S. Julefrokost is on an entirely different level.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>You see, it&#39;s a <em>lunch</em> only in name. What it really is, is sitting down at about noon, and not getting up from your seat again until midnight or later. The food never stops coming. The schnapps never stop coming. It&#39;s course after course after course and the Danes can drink you under the table any day, so combine that with strong liquor over a 12 hour stretch and you are likely to die.</p> <p>My first julefrokost, I sat across from my husband&#39;s uncle, who kept my shot glass full the entire day. I was drunk by 2pm and full to the point of bursting at 3pm. I have never been so sick as I was the day after my first julefrokost.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Aelle1209/">Aelle1209</a></p> </blockquote><h2>12. Germany</h2><blockquote> <p>Probably in Germany when I bought a beer in a convenience store and they offered to open it for me so I could enjoy it on my walk.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Jinjonator91/">Jinjonator91</a></p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>13. The Southern United States</h2><blockquote> <p>I was surprised that in southern US (and many other parts of it too, I&#39;m sure) you actually <em>need</em> a car to get anywhere. As in, it doesn&#39;t just make life easier, it&#39;s a near impossibility to go places without it, even if you&#39;re in a major city.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/viitatiainen/">viitatiainen</a></p> </blockquote><h2>14. Italy</h2><blockquote> <p>The way time is experienced differently. I&rsquo;m from the USA, and when my dad and I fortunately had the money to go to Italy through a college program as a teen, the first thing that struck me was how laid back people were there. In a lot of places, it was a very stereotypically slowed down lifestyle, with people walking down the street, drinking during the afternoon, conversing and just causally dining outside. People didn&rsquo;t seem to be in a rush for anything, and while I&rsquo;m sure they have their problems as well, there was much more &ldquo;centeredness&rdquo; across the country. People were much more focused on what was happening right now and what was in front of them. This was in 2008 though, so before the explosion of smart phones and social media.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/snavsnavsnav/">snavsnavsnav</a></p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>15. Japan</h2><blockquote> <p>Japan has no garbage cans anywhere on the streets, but their streets were pretty damn clean somehow.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/pineappledaddy/">pineappledaddy</a></p> </blockquote><h2>16. England</h2><blockquote> <p>London streets having HUGE differences from block to block. Like, my daughter moved there and so we spent a weekend helping her apartment/roommate hunt, and so ended up walking around London a lot. We&#39;d be in some beautiful living area with little dog parks and nice playgrounds, round a corner and hit what was obviously &quot;buy all the drugs&quot; street. Walk a bit more and you&#39;re in a business area with super clean streets and well manicured grass areas. Hit the next street and get ready for the smell of piss and beer. Sort of wild (not to say other cities can&#39;t be like this, where I am in Budapest can be, but the changes between city blocks right next to each other felt jarring).-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/inostranetsember/">inostranetsember</a></p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>17. China</h2><blockquote> <p>China. Almost every store and vendor, including street food and vegetable stalls, use mobile payment.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/viv_cwm/">viv_cwm</a></p> </blockquote><h2>18. Ireland</h2><blockquote> <p>How extremely nice everyone is in Ireland. Spent the first days suspicious before I realized everyone weren&rsquo;t trying to trick me into anything. Fantastic people.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/H0eggern/">H0eggern</a></p> </blockquote><h2>19. Scotland</h2><blockquote> <p>American, grew up in a desert climate, visited Scotland at age 12. Green grass, <em>real</em> grass, was and still is one of the craziest things I ever have had the experience of seeing.</p> <p>At home, only 3-4 houses in the neighborhood had grass, and you&#39;d be lucky if it was under 80% brown and yellow most of the time, due to the fact that we couldn&#39;t run the sprinklers because of the drought we had been in since before I was born.</p> <p>As soon as we flew over Scotland in the plane, there was just so much green everywhere. Even around the cities and the highways. I had extreme anxiety of flying over the ocean for the first time, and a fear of heights in general, but I was glued to that window for the rest of that flight. I&#39;ve never been back, and I haven&#39;t seen grass anywhere close to that green since.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MaliciouslyMediocre/">MaliciouslyMediocre</a></p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>20. Russia</h2><blockquote> <p>Just how empty Russia is. There was this one town we were going to visit which was planned by our guide, a 100 or so kilometers away from Moscow and its a ghost town. We stayed in a hotel there with the other tourists and our guide. It was a 10-11 story hotel and we were the only people there. Outisde of the hotel in the city there were restaurants, shops etc. everything you&#39;ll find in a city but they were all empty except for their owners. We rarely found one or two customers there. You could literally walk in the middle of the highway there. It gave an eerie vibe but we enjoyed our stay.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/_furry_obliterator_/">_furry_obliterator_</a></p> </blockquote><h2>21. Spain</h2><blockquote> <p>I went to Spain and the sides of the road were smoking, and a bit on fire. No one said anything and the fire was getting pretty massive. It was just like, oh that happens here it&rsquo;s just on fire sometimes.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Cockwombles/">Cockwombles</a></p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>22. Vietnam</h2><blockquote> <p>The amount of stuff and people that can fit on a moped in Vietnam. I saw a moped with mother, father, grandma, two children and a dog!-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/mindsnare1/">mindsnare1</a></p> </blockquote><h2>23. Israel</h2><blockquote> <p>Israel. Didn&#39;t know what to expect, but what I wasn&#39;t expecting was cats. So many cats everywhere.-<a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/HarryTheGreyhound/">HarryTheGreyhound</a></p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

23 people share the surprising thing they learned about another country while traveling.

One of the many pleasures of traveling is experiencing the small differences between cultures that you don&#39;t read about on Wikipedia. Small things like sidewalks, garbage cans, and daylight profoundly affect our ways of life, and it&#39;s exciting to learn how they vary across the world. A Redditor filled with wanderlust asked, &quot;What is the thing that surprised you the most when you traveled to a country you had never been to before?&quot;Here are the most interesting answers.1. Thailand In Thailand we were watching a movie and they played the national anthem and everyone stood up for their king.-ihatepickingnames37 2. South Korea The incredible security in Seoul. I&#39;m from Latin America, so I&#39;m used to be very alert at everything, everywhere. I forgot my backpack in a small cafeteria and after 25 minutes it was completely untouched in the same spot. You could walk at 3 am with your cellphone in your hands and there&#39;ll be no fear about anything.-Lightthecandle123 3. Czech Republic In Prague, when you open a camera in the street, it&#39;s like a force field! Ppl automatically moves aside to not stand in the way.-itamarc137 4. From a country along the Equator From a tropical country near the equator, I was surprised to know that the sun would set completely before 4pm during winter or having the sun still up at 10pm during summer.-Natsning 5. Finland Heated sidewalks in Finland! Absolutely life savers for me who had no idea how to walk on ice. No trash anywhere, either.-momochicken55 6. Morocco The amount of eye contact and observation. When I went to Morocco, in the evening the streets would be packed full of families sitting and talking. These people would watch each other, in fact even the way I&rsquo;m describing it with &lsquo;watch&rsquo; shows how unwelcome and uncomfortable it would be in England. People would also make eye contact and keep it frequently on the street, just with ease. It felt so strange for me at first. -Greggy30 7. Egypt That it&#39;s possible to weave through Cairo traffic with the skill of a seasoned rally driver, while driving a manual transmission car, frequently using the horn and sipping tea (by holding the saucer, not the cup) at the same time. Shout out to our taxi driver in Cairo.-greathandz 8. Turkmenistan Ashgabat Turkmenistan - everything about it. The entire city (every building) is white marble. It lights up at night like a sterile Las Vegas however, there is no advertising except for billboards of the dictator holding onto puppies by the neck to show everyone how nice he is. He has pretty much positioned himself as a religious prophet. The aiport is shaped like a massive white marble eagle.it used to be a red building but soon after it was built they tore it down and built a white marble one. Also there is no white marble in Turkmenistan so it has to be imported. They were the largest importer of white marble in the world and drove the price up so high it cost them ridiculous amounts of money to build the buildings. Strange strange place.-shazam7373 9. Singapore Singapore is unbelievably clean! As soon as I stepped out of the plane, I swear I did not see a single speck of dust at their airport, even the toilets were squeaky clean and completely dry. Every day I go out to explore the city by foot and come back to the hotel with almost no dirt on the soles of my shoes.-Fragrant-Seaweed-606 10. Malaysia The smells of a different country. I&#39;m from Australia and travelled to Malaysia a few years back. The city, the jungle, everything smelt different to any place in Australia.-New_Nefariousness420 11. Denmark I moved to Denmark a couple of years ago and the biggest culture shock for me was julefrokost. Julefrokost translates to &quot;Christmas lunch&quot; which sounds like a nice, wholesome lunch to celebrate the holidays. The first time I went to one, my husband warned me not to eat anything beforehand because there is a lot of food. I didn&#39;t think much of it, I mean we have Thanksgiving in the U.S. so I just assumed it was a big lunch. No. No. We have nothing like this in the U.S. Julefrokost is on an entirely different level.  You see, it&#39;s a lunch only in name. What it really is, is sitting down at about noon, and not getting up from your seat again until midnight or later. The food never stops coming. The schnapps never stop coming. It&#39;s course after course after course and the Danes can drink you under the table any day, so combine that with strong liquor over a 12 hour stretch and you are likely to die. My first julefrokost, I sat across from my husband&#39;s uncle, who kept my shot glass full the entire day. I was drunk by 2pm and full to the point of bursting at 3pm. I have never been so sick as I was the day after my first julefrokost.-Aelle1209 12. Germany Probably in Germany when I bought a beer in a convenience store and they offered to open it for me so I could enjoy it on my walk.-Jinjonator91 13. The Southern United States I was surprised that in southern US (and many other parts of it too, I&#39;m sure) you actually need a car to get anywhere. As in, it doesn&#39;t just make life easier, it&#39;s a near impossibility to go places without it, even if you&#39;re in a major city.-viitatiainen 14. Italy The way time is experienced differently. I&rsquo;m from the USA, and when my dad and I fortunately had the money to go to Italy through a college program as a teen, the first thing that struck me was how laid back people were there. In a lot of places, it was a very stereotypically slowed down lifestyle, with people walking down the street, drinking during the afternoon, conversing and just causally dining outside. People didn&rsquo;t seem to be in a rush for anything, and while I&rsquo;m sure they have their problems as well, there was much more &ldquo;centeredness&rdquo; across the country. People were much more focused on what was happening right now and what was in front of them. This was in 2008 though, so before the explosion of smart phones and social media.-snavsnavsnav 15. Japan Japan has no garbage cans anywhere on the streets, but their streets were pretty damn clean somehow.-pineappledaddy 16. England London streets having HUGE differences from block to block. Like, my daughter moved there and so we spent a weekend helping her apartment/roommate hunt, and so ended up walking around London a lot. We&#39;d be in some beautiful living area with little dog parks and nice playgrounds, round a corner and hit what was obviously &quot;buy all the drugs&quot; street. Walk a bit more and you&#39;re in a business area with super clean streets and well manicured grass areas. Hit the next street and get ready for the smell of piss and beer. Sort of wild (not to say other cities can&#39;t be like this, where I am in Budapest can be, but the changes between city blocks right next to each other felt jarring).-inostranetsember 17. China China. Almost every store and vendor, including street food and vegetable stalls, use mobile payment.-viv_cwm 18. Ireland How extremely nice everyone is in Ireland. Spent the first days suspicious before I realized everyone weren&rsquo;t trying to trick me into anything. Fantastic people.-H0eggern 19. Scotland American, grew up in a desert climate, visited Scotland at age 12. Green grass, real grass, was and still is one of the craziest things I ever have had the experience of seeing. At home, only 3-4 houses in the neighborhood had grass, and you&#39;d be lucky if it was under 80% brown and yellow most of the time, due to the fact that we couldn&#39;t run the sprinklers because of the drought we had been in since before I was born. As soon as we flew over Scotland in the plane, there was just so much green everywhere. Even around the cities and the highways. I had extreme anxiety of flying over the ocean for the first time, and a fear of heights in general, but I was glued to that window for the rest of that flight. I&#39;ve never been back, and I haven&#39;t seen grass anywhere close to that green since.-MaliciouslyMediocre 20. Russia Just how empty Russia is. There was this one town we were going to visit which was planned by our guide, a 100 or so kilometers away from Moscow and its a ghost town. We stayed in a hotel there with the other tourists and our guide. It was a 10-11 story hotel and we were the only people there. Outisde of the hotel in the city there were restaurants, shops etc. everything you&#39;ll find in a city but they were all empty except for their owners. We rarely found one or two customers there. You could literally walk in the middle of the highway there. It gave an eerie vibe but we enjoyed our stay.-_furry_obliterator_ 21. Spain I went to Spain and the sides of the road were smoking, and a bit on fire. No one said anything and the fire was getting pretty massive. It was just like, oh that happens here it&rsquo;s just on fire sometimes.-Cockwombles 22. Vietnam The amount of stuff and people that can fit on a moped in Vietnam. I saw a moped with mother, father, grandma, two children and a dog!-mindsnare1 23. Israel Israel. Didn&#39;t know what to expect, but what I wasn&#39;t expecting was cats. So many cats everywhere.-HarryTheGreyhound 

One of the many pleasures of traveling is experiencing the small differences between cultures that you don&#39;t read about on Wikipedia. Small things like sidewalks, garbage cans, and daylight profoundly affect our ways of life, and...