Iwate is one of the most rural, poorest, coldest, least educated, and least known prefectures in japan.

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/japan/map/
https://www.iwate-u.ac.jp/iuic/english/about/outline/outline-of-iwate-prefecture-and-iwate-university.html

i live in Iwate.
it's 500 km (300 mi) away from Tokyo and takes 3 hours by bullet train (costs ¥13,000, like $130).

•i've never been abroad.
•never climbed Mt. Fuji.
•i've been to Tokyo and Hokkaido several times and Kyoto¹ once.

¹ near Osaka (never been)

note the CIA uses the robinson projection, another one.

mercator projection is confusing in some aspects. there's a thing called the azimuthal equidistant projection.

if you face east in japan¹ and go straight, you'll arrive in chile, not the US.²

¹ mainland tokyo
² you'll go through hawaii, tho.

I N D O N E S I A seems to be one of the widest countries from east to west.

russia 9,000 km (5,600 mi)
canada 5,500 km (3,420 mi)
china 5,200 km (3,230 mi)
indonesia 5,100 km (3,170 mi)
contiguous united states 4,500 km (2,800 mi)

i was shocked to see how small and shabby japan is.
the world's superpowers seem to be canada, united states, greenland, brazil, russia, china, and australia.

CIA world map.
i've only ever seen japan-centered maps, but the real center of the world seems to be africa.
now i know why japan is called the “far east”.
https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/static/7236711e3e48e1a71e1210107f15e7b4/world_pol.pdf

i want to learn chinese as my third language after japanese and english.
learned that china has weibo, bilibili, and xiaohongshu instead of x, youtube, and ig.
for genshin research.