This is a highly romanticized view imo.

I sit alone in cafes all the time, for many reasons. I don’t feel particularly joyful about it nor weird. I just do it to take a break and have something to drink, or wait for someone or something. Often I don’t look at my phone at all. That doesn’t feel weird either, or rebellious, or whatever the author experiences.

I don’t understand the post at all.

I’d have gone to Japan. I’ve been to Japan, it’s awesome.

It shouldn't feel weird not to look at your phone, but approximately 98.5% of the population will do so (unless perhaps they're the older generation).

When you're so addicted to checking at your phone (like me and many others), it does feel weird to sit and not look at it.

I say this to help you understand, nothing more.

Agreed, Japan is 1000x better than any staycation especially for some privileged enough to get time off and as well compensated as the author.

Part of the magic of being human is the interplay between our external world and internal states.

Two people can go to the exact same venue, do the exact same things, and have radically different experiences because of how our different internal worlds collide with that same external world.

And a further part of the magic of being human is that we're then able to share those experiences with each other. I wouldn't want to diminish someone else's experience of a place simply because I didn't have that same experience.