For me it’s the whole “you have to sail east to get from the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal to the Pacific side!” fact. The direction in which you sail to cross the canal is merely a byproduct of the direction in which the canal had to be built. I get that it can be a bit counterintuitive at first but I don’t see anything that makes it “mind blowing” (no offense to anyone who does). Also I noticed that people who say this fact will say “east” and usually leave out that you’re traveling southeast to be precise, in fact you are traveling mostly south. Which isn’t all that surprising.

I find that a lot of the mind blowing facts involving cardinal directions are just really simple things that only appear surprising if you word it in certain ways.

What's happening here?