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Polish that lives actually right now in Japan.
Thanks to my friend who right after joining secondary school showed me first episode of Death Note (yea, didn't watch it because it was popular, didn't actually know it was :P)... and i liked it.. so much that the very next day i watched rest of them. Since that they i started watch more animes and about year later i thought why not to learn Japanese. And pretty much it is how my story has started.
In next years I started taking part in various contests with even some achievements in this field and with time i started to realize that big inequality that Anime =/= Japan. I was blessed with meeting amazing people, teachers, masters who taught my lot of things about culture, Kendo, Sado, history, cooking (and i don't mean simple "how to cook 'karee', but eg. from zero how to make traditional way japanese pasta - soba etc) and much more. While learning a lot, there is especially one thing i fell in love with. That is Japanese mythology, Shinwa. This is amazing and big part of culture that saddly even Japanese don't know much about now. Had even few funny situations thanks to that, like when talking with Ehime's governor i was asked if i had any more questions, i asked about Ehime's gods (as that part of Japan is quite important to its mythology) because at the time didn't have much of a knowledge. In rospond i saw a little embarrased governor apologizing to me because he doesn't know much about it. Was quite funny :P

Saw many beautiful places like Okayama, Izumo, Island Rishiri and Rebun, Toyama, Shizuoka, (my beloved) Shikoku's "Shimanami Kaido", and thanks to all that experience i have much more respect to it's deep culture.

Don't get me wrong, with all that stuff, i had lot of bad experience too. Whole "gaijin thing" is one enough but like joining sect (by accident pretty much) and other stuff, i do still think Japan is an amazing place on Earth.

If you still read here, firstly thank you very much you wanted to read some random's guy summary of last years of life. But i have one more thing to say that not all people might enjoy reading.
I split "fans of Japan" to 2 groups. "Otaku" and "weaboo". For me (fact that original meaning of this word is totally different thing :P) Otaku are people who enjoy anime, or in (saddly) rare cases even other aspects of Japan. If it's about weabooss i am really a hater. While of course trying to be polite while talking with such person, i really can't stand self-called Otakus who just binge watch animes, colllect posters, figurines etc. Mainly people who not only don't know that Anime is just one small part of culture, but kind of don't respect, admit, acknowledge rest of it while being "fan of Japan".

I'm part of few polish-japanese groups mainly in my home country, and every time i see "love japan and go to tokyo and need some info about attractions" ish posts my heart cries. Mybe some of you do not undersand, never just tried to think about it, but Tokyo isn't really part of Japan's culture. It only represents Japan's moden, pop culture image, and it's not quite the Japan you always reffer to.
Of course i'm happy for every new person interested in Japan and coming here, but i'd like you to know that real Japan awaits you outside Tokyo and Anime "zone" (truth it to really understand culture, know it, you have to talk to people, that means you must learn Japanese (not only because many can't speak english, but because Japanese is big and important part of culture)) because sometimes... i happend to be ashamed when i have to explain some stuff to people :P

Thank you once more and see you somewhere!