In Osaka, the Nineties are still alive and kicking

It is quite clear that I’m not alone in my nostalgia for the ’90s as women are now sporting midriff-baring flannel shirts and Vans sneakers; remakes of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Roseanne are being advertised; and bands like Smashing Pumpkins and Backstreet Boys are back on tour.

But it was during a two-week family holiday in Japan last fall that I felt as though I had stepped back in time and straight into the decade that defined my teenage years. I moved from New York to Tokyo in the ’90s and at nine years old, the city felt incredibly futuristic. Taxi doors opened on their own, vending machines provided both cold and hot drinks on every block, noodle shops had ticketing machines that took your order and sushi restaurants allowed diners to select from freshly prepared plates as they passed by on a conveyor belt.

Almost 30 years later, wandering down the streets of Osaka, I found those electronic devices still in use. Even the green public phones I inserted countless cards into when calling my parents to beg for a sleepover somehow still serve a purpose in a city that – like most of our planet – has the majority of its residents attached to their mobiles.

And while that crackling sound vinyl lovers can’t live without somewhat justifies the comeback of record shops, it was surprising, too, to see that DVD and CD shops still had a purpose here. A substantial number of old bookshops also seemed to have survived the Kinokuniya – and eventually – Amazon takeovers, with stacks of hardback reading watched over by (possibly) the same shopkeepers.

I found comfort in long-standing vending machines promoting drinks and cigarettes for the same price as back in the day

Long before the green revolution had begun to kick off in other parts of the world, Tokyo felt so ahead of its time with all of the recycling measures being enforced. But here I was in Osaka, where the amount of plastic waste was rampant. And while the island of Bali has managed to ban single-use plastic, the hotels and restaurants in Japan still stock disposable toiletries and utensils.

Stepping inside a Family Mart or 7-Eleven, onigiri (the seaweed-wrapped rice balls I’d snacked on as a kid) is still wrapped in several layers of plastic to ensure freshness, straws are everywhere and most candy is still individually packaged. Even Daiso, a franchise of 100-yen shops founded in the ’70s, is chock-full of plastic waste.

That said, as my trip came to an end, I spent the last night wandering down one of the neon-lit streets dotted with restaurants with giant mechanical red crabs and long-established takoyaki stalls filling the air with the delicious smell of grilled octopus. I found comfort in passing by long-standing vending machines promoting drinks and cigarettes for the same price as back in the day, and seeing hungry diners stuffing coins into the ramen ticketing booths – part of a more modern heritage of Japan and just two of the many things that don’t seem like they’re going anywhere. And as I had come across an article announcing that 7-Eleven had begun wrapping rice balls in biomass plastic, I even enjoyed a guilt-free onigiri.

So, while choker necklaces and scrunchies no longer serve a purpose in my life, it’s nice to know that quite a few things from the memories of my childhood in Japan still exist.