We took the kids to Japan last month. It was my 3rd trip, Sara’s 2nd, & their 1st. They of course loved it. But a few days into Tokyo they said something that was more profound than I think they realized, “It’s not futuristic.” Before the trip they had watched a bunch of videos showing how Tokyo was going to feel like the future (It’s how we ended up at a capybara cafe.) And they really did love Japan. In Tokyo we ended up at the fish market almost every morning because they wanted to keep going back and try different foods. Blowtorched scallops, oysters, and BBQ octopus were the favorites. We had Kobe beef, made our own chopsticks, went to the Nintendo Museum, had deer bow to us in Nara. It was an incredible trip. I highly recommend it, especially with elementary/middle school-age kids. But their observation was quite specific. There were no Cybercabs, no Waymos, no delivery robots on the sidewalk, all things they see every day in Austin. I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s (don't do the math please 🙏). I grew up on anime and cyberpunk, and later Blade Runner and Akira. Tokyo was the image of the future. Even one of my kids’ favorite movies, Big Hero 6, imagines the future as a mashup of San Francisco and Tokyo. My kids went all the way to Tokyo expecting to see the future and instead the future was at home. We may be leaving the cyberpunk era and entering the cowboy futurism era.