It has always amused me that the tourists to the US that I’ve spoken to are often very excited to see raccoons, and disappointed if they don’t see them before they leave.
Some others I’ve noticed on the east coast of the US are blue jays and cardinals. Boy, do people get excited about those if they’ve never seen them before! Very pretty birds of course, just very easy to get used to and see as uninteresting as well.
I’m from the US but lived in Japan for a while. They have squirrels, but they’re not very common. They went nuts when they would see a squirrel. At least where I was (Tohoku).
They’ll probably go even more nuts once they start seeing the Indian Giant Squirrel. They look like something out of a Studio Ghibli movie.
They are beautiful creatures.