I just learned to read hiragana in under 2 days, in prep for a trip next year. I still go blank on a character now and then, and confuse one character for a similar one, and I'm reading syllable-by-syllable rather than just looking at a word and knowing instantly what it says like you do when reading your own language. But considering just over a day ago it was all meaningless lines on a page to me and I was pretty sure I was incapable of learning it I think I've done alright. I don't speak Japanese so I don't actually know what the words I'm reading mean but it's a start lol.
Oh and even though I can identify hiragana characters and know what syllable it makes I can't do the reverse - IE if you asked me to write the character for "se", for example, I'd struggle. But show me "se" and I can tell you it is "se". Don't ask me to explain how that's even possible but it is. But I figured I probably don't need to know how to write characters for a simple holiday, being able to read them will be more important, so I'm not too bothered. If I was moving there permanently that'd be different.