Recommendations for Japan Travel
kalzumeus.com
kalzumeus.com
For example, in my opinion the best way to explore Tokyo is to simply leave your hotel in the morning, wander around all day, and stop anywhere and everywhere that looks interesting. The excellent mass transit system means that it won't be a problem to get back.
In more rural parts of Japan, there are signposted walking trails. Here are three which I highly recommend, in whole or in part.
Yamanobe Road: https://www.japan.travel/en/destinations/kansai/nara/the-yam...
Kyoto Trail: https://kyoto-trail.net/trail_course_e.html
Shikoku Henro-Michi: https://www.henro.org/shikoku-pilgrimage/map
These places are wondrous for their natural and human-made beauty, and have tons of temples, shrines, and historic sights along the way. I strongly second Patrick's advice to get out of the big cities, and virtually anywhere you go you will find much that is beautiful.
Another random thing about the train system: there are women-only cars. I didn't realize this until I had already boarded and (as a man) I was absolutely mortified.
A few years ago, I was lost in Ikebukuro trying to find the Metro station. I had already walked over half an hour but only found the JR stations. I asked one of the security guards “Tokyo metro eki…. Doko??” And even with my absurdly broken Japanese, I not only got directions in Japanese back to me, but the guard walked with me until the station was in sight to make sure I understood and could get to it.
You 100% don’t need English to get around, and, yeah, it’s going to be awkward to talk to someone in a language you don’t speak, but Japanese people will go extremely out of their way to help you if you make even the smallest gesture of trying. The little exchange above is only one of several I had throughout the country, and every time I made a small bit of effort, I got the world moved for me.
> I got the world moved for me
I'm somewhat uncomfortable with these characterisations of Japan and the Japanese people. Yes, Japanese people can be helpful to (obvious) visitors but with more and more people visiting Japan visitors shouldn't expect this to keep being the case, nor do visitors necessarily deserve this treatment. It probably will hold true but I don't think we should encourage an entitled attitude of "I'm a visitor, therefore the always helpful Japanese people will help me out of any tricky situations I get into while visiting their country".
Sorry that the Japanese people are generally far more courteous than anyone else I’ve met when tourists are in need of help and make an effort to get help in their language. Apparently, pointing out that every person I’ve encountered has been great to visitors is a bad thing or something.
If someone is going to be a tourist in a foreign place, would you prefer they have a breakdown in the middle of the city because they should expect the locals to be assholes that never help people who don’t speak Japanese out? God forbid someone try and interact with a local, that’s apparently entitled behavior now. What even is this take?
No, visitors should not rely on locals to help them out, but you also have no proof that the kindness shown will go away anytime soon. It’s not like tourism hasn’t been booming for the past few decades and nothing has happened. What makes you think something will suddenly change?
You are setting an expectation.
“Hey, I haven’t met your wife/husband yet, but if they’re anything like you, they must be a quality person, and can’t wait for you to introduce me to them!” — “Oh, yeah. I mean, they’re definitely a human being, just like me, if that’s what you mean. And they, like… eat, drink, sleep — all the usual human being things, you know.”
Sounds like a bleak way to relate to others, downplaying your feelings out of fear that someone will irrationally believe they are entitled to similar experiences with said person.
Maybe we should expect people to not feel entitled, instead of desiring that people would bottle up how they feel.
Sorry not sorry that my experiences irritate you so much.
And, once again: What, exactly, would you prefer? A gaijin in the middle of Kyoto wailing about not being able to get back to their hostel because they’re too scared to approach a local? That person never even experiencing Japan because they’re too scared they’re going to get lost and be beaten to death by the horrible locals?
Signs on the tracks tell you what station you're at, what the previous station was and what the next station will be.
Every exit has a number and signs on the walls and ceilings tell you which way you need to walk to get to your destination or transfer.
At the gates there are always maps of the area on the walls to lookup where to go if you don't have a smartphone.
I've been all over the world and I can't think of another transit system that has all of those features. Others are always missing one or more.
As for the person below that mentioned they got help in Ikebukuro station, it's great they got help, but I suspect in their panic they didn't notice all the signs. There is no exit from the JR lines that does not have clear signage to every other line (tobu, seibu Ikebukuro, fukutoshinsen, Marunouchi, Yurakucho, ...)
Several times I have come across a station (like Shinjuku) where I can see the same sign for the same train line placed in 4 or 5 different areas (all visible at once) all pointing in different directions.
Similarly there's at least 3 perpendicular corridors connecting the JR tracks themselves so the exit to each corridor (of which there are 2 each so 6 exits) will all be labeled as leading to the other tracks because all of them actually do lead to the other tracks.
As for walking, you don't need to walk _everywhere_ but it really is cool to spend a few hours like OP said and just walk around your hotels neighborhood or other places.
I usually stay in Higashi Shinjuku when I visit, and if I hadn't done that I wouldn't have known about this really quiet residential area that leads to a nice quiet park. Or the little Korea town neighborhood that's about a twenty minute walk away.
The buildings are numbered in the order they were built :P
The Tokyo subway was never difficult to navigate. But as someone who has recently returned from a trip to Japan for the first time since COVID I can tell you they've made substantial improvements since (mostly as a result of the run up to the Olympics).
There is now substantially more English signage on the subway than ever before. The ticket machines even now have extensive English language menus.
Suica is great with how you can reload it from your US credit card, and works in many places besides just transit stations. It saved me several ATM runs last time I was there.
Tokyo is not really a big city like London, New York or Paris. It is like a bunch of smaller cities clumped together. In fact administratively, Tokyo is a prefecture, not a city.
So sure, it is huge, but you can random walk one of the "wards" like you would a smaller city. You can also walk between wards, but expect to walk a lot, and you are unlikely to make it your primary way of moving around, but I still recommend you do it at least once. Biking is also common (note: biking is done on the sidewalk there).
The Tokyo subway system is massive but not challenging. Everything is surprisingly systematic and consistent (unlike NYC's MTA which is legacy with express/non-express trains and cars with doors that don't open in certain stations) and with Google Maps, I had no problems getting anywhere with no backtracking. Announcements and notices are bilingual Japanese/English. Staff don't speak English but I've never had to speak to anyone -- the system is just so intuitive. In most subway systems around the world, you really almost never have to speak to anyone. Don't have Google Maps? Look at the subway map. It's big, but all you have to do is locate your destination and know where you are -- easy. The Japanese are great at creating intuitive visuals.
The female-only cars are common around the world (Rio has them too), not sure why it is a cause for mortification. There's a reason why they exist, and that reason exists in North America too.
Tokyo is big but extremely navigable for a foreigner.
Trains stations were mostly fine in comparison.
I have no clue how anybody could navigate that city without something like Google Maps.
There are certain cities that have made their women-only cars 24/7. More or less because the level of traffic they experience doesn't really make the loss of 1 car to 50% of the population any real detriment.
As a rule of thumb, the only places in Japan that do not welcome foreigners by default are in the sex industry.
Also, this list specifically recommends the APA hotel chain, whose president leaves copies of his revisionist history book denying the Nanking Massacre in their hotel rooms, often in foreign languages[1]. There are quite a few nationwide hotel chains in Japan like Dormy Inn and JR METS as well as thousands of independents, most of which are listed on price comparison websites and will come in around the same cost as a room at APA. Please consider supporting another hotel, ideally a local one, before APA :)
[1] = many sources, see: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/01/25/national/despit... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/book-foun...
Other major business hotel chains:
* Toyoko Inn
* Dormy Inn (almost always has a bath on the top floor!)
* Candeo hotels (same!)
* M's hotels (there are many variations on the "M's" name)
* Unizo
* Smile hotel
* Hotel mystays
* Hotel livemax
* Daiwa Roynet
...and tons of others that are less universal. While there are subtle differences between them (e.g. some have better beds, others have laundry facilities, some have public baths on the top floor), virtually all "business hotels" have the same set of features, down to the layout of the rooms, and can usually be had for $50-$100 a night. That said, they are small, and you will not be happy if you're the kind of tourist who lugs multiple large suitcases everywhere you go, or if you're seeking a "luxury" experience.
Business hotels are cheap places to crash for a night and little more.
Avoid APA at all costs, especially outside touristic areas. APA is used by everyone for all things, legal or not, and the state of your room may vary wildly.
I'm from the UK where even a crap hotel costs $80-100/night, so being able to pay under $40 for the quality APA provides (even if the rooms are small) is insane to me.
Meaning the ones used by drunks, drug addicts, and prostitutes.
APA does not provide top notch maintenance for its hotels in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, Nishi Kasai, Meidaimae, or any non important area.
If you stay in the hotel close to the central station of a small town - that's touristic. Japanese tourists are staying there.
What I mean is that APA is really bad off the beaten path, and since the article recommends branching off, using APA is a very bad idea.
Although it is true that Japan is a bit of a struggle if you are overweight or especially tall.
It's more that Japan (and many other places) have a product class at a pricing point that Americans do not so Americans think they've gotten a great deal but instead it's a product they're not expecting and not familiar with.
Maybe you want that, just know what you're buying.
It's not just Japan. I've been travelling a lot for many years, for work and pleasure, in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. In this time, the experience has become consistently much worse everywhere I go. I personally blame social media and camera phones for this. In the past, a place might be busy, but people were mostly enjoying the place which is all good. Now it's all about people taking the same photo 100 times with slightly different poses. Wannabe influencers using their boyfriends as personal photographers. Youtubers being loud and not caring whether you want to be in their video or not. The list goes on. I'm definitely jaded but between that, airport insanity, and recently covid measures, travelling has never sucked more than it does today.
Negative impact of tourism have been documented for a while. There’s just more people traveling because flights got cheaper. But new travellers aren’t worse than you were, there’s just more of us traveling and it makes our impact more jarring.
In other words the new tourists isn’t going in to enjoy a place for themselves but does it to amuse people elsewhere and couldn’t care much about actually taking in the places they visit.
Now thanks to the internet and other technology advances, travel is more accessible (Google Maps), cheaper (flight and hotel comparison tools), and more people are doing it. You also have entire nations that are traveling now in ways they didn’t 20 years ago (e.g. China).
Yes, this all means more crowding and it is less pleasant. But social media is just one small input in all of this. The only way it returns to “how it was” is a return to a more exclusionary travel world.
(I expect someone will make a comment about hostels and backpacking. I’m not refuting there were means of travel that were more affordable and accessible. But we’re talking about mass accessibility and availability across all markets.)
Sure, but the same is true for the iPhone.
After all, iphone sales in 2007 were <2 million, not like today when they're >200 million. And that was for a product with no 3G and no app store. So I doubt tourist sites were clogged with Instagram influencers in 2007.
You tell me what’s more impactful. Literal data that says the number of international tourists growing 350% over 30 years (from 400 million global international arrivals in 1990 to 1.4 billion in 2018), or some dataless notion that “actually it’s because of selfies”.
You can’t build more ancient collisseums and temples. See also why aged whiskey prices have soared.
> I personally blame social media and camera phones for this. [...] people taking the same photo 100 times with slightly different poses. Wannabe influencers using their boyfriends as personal photographers. Youtubers being loud
I think my interpretation, that teerak is complaining about social media and camera phones, is better supported by data - namely, the text of the post - than your rather uncharitable interpretation that he or she preferred a time when the world was less connected, and one’s ability to travel was dictated more by wealth, status, and education
No, I started travelling frequently around 20 years ago and was by no means wealthy. Just single with a normal job and willing to spend all my money on it. I've also always been able to plan my own travel and never used agencies.
> But social media is just one small input in all of this.
I really don't think it's small. For example just yesterday I visited an island nearby with a very nice beach. It was mostly unusable, all the good areas were occupied by people taking photos and videos, with others queueing to take that spot and do the same. A constant stream of activity and noise, the opposite of relaxing. I left. I get that's a rant and people have every right to do that, but I stand by my point that social media has very noticeably made things worse.
Maybe before the internet it might have required the equivalent of tens of thousands instead of single digit thousands, but you still need to put some cash down.
It is gatekeeping to say these people (influencers, youtubers) don’t deserve to be there too because they are doing that in this space. I don’t think that is what was happening though.
As in YouTuber Logan Paul making a video of Aokigahara "suicide forest", among various other shenanigans in Japan for views?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Paul#2017%E2%80%932018:_...
It’s more than that. People think there is a financial payoff if they win the influencer game.
And when they do make income, their taxable income is likely not going to these countries which they are profiting off of. I guess it’s a sort of negative externality.
That said, there is an influencer angle and probably some reasonable number of younger people who see a few people becoming YouTube or TikTok stars and thinking there's a chance they could become one of them.
As others in this thread have mentioned, this hotelier group is abhorrent. They are led by an anti-Semitic, anti-Korean, anti-Chinese history revisionist. The hotel leaves its disgusting diatribe in their company issued magazines conveniently laid out in every room within their hotels. This is just the tip of the iceberg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APA_Group_(Japan)#Controversy. Here's another link: https://www.ft.com/content/d35ec458-df07-11e6-86ac-f253db779....
Given Patrick is a long-term resident of Japan, it's shocking to me that he isn't aware of this, or he simply doesn't care.
For anyone reading this, please do not support that company. It may seem a small thing, but this ruined the entire tone of the post for me.
If you really do want to go (slightly) off the beaten path, try Yokohama (a short hop from Tokyo), Kobe (rebuilt and revitalized since the ruinous earthquake, Fukuoka, Nagano (Winter Olympic city) or Sapporo. Or even take a domestic flight down to Okinawa and visit Naha.
To go off the beaten track in Tokyo, stay in Ikebukuro an unfashionable but IMHO awesome Tokyo hub. For amazing coffee there check out the insanely superb Mermaid Coffee Roasters and its stunning top two floors featuring the owner's curated furniture. Add their knock out baked goods and you won't want to leave. Minami-Ikebukuro park is a nice spot to relax on bright days (next to Blue Bottle coffee) though avoid the in-park Racine's Farm to Table and check out their sister Vietnamese restaurant Raindrop on the trendy Azuma street. Also be sure to walk further along Azuma to the Toden-Zoshigaya Station of the Tokyo Sakura tram line, the last surviving tram in Tokyo, and take it all the way to the Minowabashi terminus and explore the adjacent covered arcade for a taste of old Tokyo.
People conflate Kyoto with the Gion + Kinkaku-ji + Arashiyama + Fushimi Inari. Kyoto city is much wider than that, and every street, especially in the Gion, is dense with history. There's dozens of bridges crossing the Kamogawa river, but most tourists are likely crossing over the one at Gion-shijo. Most tourists don't even stray 1km away from there to see there are stones you can hop over the water with. Sanjo bridge, the first bridge north of Gion-shijo, has sword marks on it from a famous shinsengumi battle. Kyoto, like Jerusalem or Rome, is filled with history on every block. Nearby Sanjo bridge is the temple where Nobunaga Oda was ambushed and forced to commit suicide. Also nearby is a random milestone during the day but at night a fortune teller sets up a shop claiming to channel the spirit of a politician who was assassinated in the exact spot. Most tourists and even Japanese locals would not ever notice the network of mahjong gambling dens hiding in plain site throughout Kyoto city, even in the subway station, but that's not going to be obvious from Google Maps, AtlasObscura, or what have you.
Obviously I'm biased because our startup is based in Kyoto and the company name is based on the Kamogawa river.
But, honestly, even the tourist hotspots are nice to visit. Kyoto has so many amazing things to see, both popular and off the beaten path, that it’s absurd not to recommend if you want to learn more about Japanese culture.
- randomly encountered local summer festival, including nice juicy karage and an exhibition of harvesters! :)
- the marvelous Kyoto Railway museum
- Kyoto auqarium with dolphin show
- a Budhist temple that looks like a Shinto shrine (as couple years ago when state required the amalgamated Shino/Budhist institutions to split tehy decided to be a temple)
Looks like the inky nainstream thing we managed to visit was the amazing Kyoto Railway station :)
YMMV; I only lived there for a year and it was a long time ago now.
I've been many times and there is a time to venture out and there is a time to enjoy what everyone enjoys and both are fine.
Additionally, the advice to visit Gifu is terrible. I spent a week in and around Gifu-shi per Patrick's advice years ago and, while the area is charming as the article states, it is not somewhere you should visit before seeing a dozen other places.
Some of my notes, specific to Kyoto, but unsure whether they also apply elsewhere:
Typical food in KYOTO:
- aristocratic kaiseki ryori course dinners
- vegetarian shojin ryori of monks
- simple obanzai ryori home style cooking
- Kyo-wagashi (Kyoto sweets)
- Yudofu (tofu cooked in hot broth vinegar sauce) - try it at Yudofu Sagano. It is famous for tofu kaiseki in Arasihayama
- Yuba (tofu skim)
- Nishin soba: It is a local herring fish soba noodle dish with flavored soy sauce broth. The herring fish perfectly smoked with into sweetness and salty tastes (eat it at Matsuba Soba)
RESTAURANTS in KYOTO you should try if you have the budget for it (expensive, but not REALLY expensive): Cenci (Italian fusion, 1-star Micheln): http://cenci-kyoto.com/menu (I am Italian, I can tell you that this restaurant is a gem)
North of Tokyo, you can reach Tsukuba, which is one of the most lovely towns in the Kanto region. Beautiful, spacious, very calm.
As for Tsukuba - haven't been there but I have noticed there is a dedicated express rail line linking it with Akihabara station. :)
- Rent a car, better yet, rent a cheap camper van[1]. Save a ton of money on hotels.
- Get a local 4G internet card. Save on roaming charges.
- Set the option to "Avoid tolls" and "Avoid motorways" on your favorite navigation app. Slower, cheaper and much better scenery.
- Sleep on Road side stations(free and safe), bath on hot springs, wash your clothes on funny laundrettes.
- Use an app[2] with offline mode and content in English.
[1]https://www.japancampers.com/
[2]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/michi-japan-road-guide-offline...
1. Driving is on the left and the lanes are narrow. UK visitors will have no problem; Americans will find it trickier.
2. Japanese police have zero tolerance and complete discretion w.r.t. driving under the influence. Just don't do it; drinking even one beer and then driving is enough to get thrown in jail. And you do not want to get thrown in jail in Japan.
Many, if not all, will also have clean public toilets available 24 hours, amazing local produce for sale, and, those Japanese vending machines with hot coffee(those are specially awesome after business hours). Some(very few) will also have a place to dispose of the camper waste.
Another tip: in a real pickle, if it is late and if you are very tired, and you can't find a campsite or road station, a Japanese convenience store will almost always have large parking for cars. They usually don't mind if you park for a couple of hours, specially if you buy some stuff from their store. Plus, they always have clean public toilets.
They are incredible, and a testament to the highs of Japanese culture. I biked across most prefectures in 2019 and was blown away by michi no eki. The local produce as you mentioned is fantastic - I ate local cherries, peaches, chestnuts, as well as more types of soft serve ice cream than I ever thought could exist on this planet. More than that, many have sento/onsen attached, with entry costing less than $5.
The same concept should be repeated all over the globe, and is to some degree, at least in the US. However the average is far worse in the US whereas michi no eki in Japan are consistently good to excellent.
Overall I was very impressed with the number of managed walking paths when we were in Japan. Allowed you to get away from the crowds pretty quickly if you'd like.
> Is climbing Mt. Fuji worth it?
> Yes, though it is very on the beaten path, and you can infer some things from that about what the human experience of a Fuji trip will be like.
As for the hiking trail and the major mountain stations, this is very true. On the other hand - it really is very concentrated and the vast majority of tourists will just head straight to the hotspots.
Case in point: I happen to live here (Fuji 5 Lakes area; technically on Mt Fuji) since a couple of years. Been in and around Tokyo for several years prior. This summer, for the first time since the start of the pandemic, they finally threw the famous usually-yearly fire festival in town here.
It was really something, and even having been to more matsuri than I can count, this one really stood out in how lively it was, and the fact that it went on throughout the evening (the event peaks with the fires after sunset). Packed with locals and even more tourists - many thousands of people, including hundreds of foreigners. The air was electric. You could feel the fires bring out something different in the people. Many were drinking, of course.
At the tail end of the event (around 10pm), I went down to the local bar area and hung around for a bit. 'twas totally dead. Maybe even more than a normal weekend. I didn't see a single non-local soul out on the streets or in the few couple of bars. It was eerie. You'd think at least a percent or two of the visitors would stick around or explore instead of heading straight out or to their private accommodations on the dot?
Anyway, apart from just reinforcing your point and OPs about the beaten path being very narrow: Do come to Fuji, even off-season there's a lot more around here to see and experience than that hike itself and locals are still very much in want of business.
Please do tell!
Seriously just pick a random city from Japan Guide or go to an onsen. Visit Kyushu, it's beautiful and nobody seems to travel there because it's too far away :P
Ideally I'd take a train out of the city and rent a car or bike in whatever smaller city I make my hub. Would love any other advice you have, and open to DMs/emails/etc. :-)
- Kurobe Gorge (industrial train ride into a beautiful deep mountain gorge)
- Kanazawa (middle size town with a beautiful garden and castle ruins - near Kurobe/Touyama)
- Izumo (100% inaka, one of the oldest shrines in Japan, traditional iron working museum, nice coast with a beautiful lighthouse, in day trip distance from the only real desert (!) in Japan in Tottori)
- Kinosaki (gorgeous onsen-only town, reachable by express train from Osaka)
- Kagoshima (has the huge active Sakurajima volcano right on the other side of the bay, many Meiji restoration landmarks, don't forgot to check what the satsuma maid group is up to)
- Hitoyoshi (a little town in a mountain valley pan in Kyushu, the mid point of the Hisatsu Line - a bit less reachable right now due to some washed out railway bridges, setting of Maitetsu VNs)
- Ikede (day trip distance from osaka, home to the Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum & nice view of Osaka from the hill)
- Beppu (a not so big city that is effectively the onsen capital of the world, really - the Kannawa district that hosts the 7 hells is just bonkers)
- Enoshima (go by hanging monorail with tunnels (!!) from Ofuna, visit a beautifula island with calves, shrines, temples and botanical gardens, go back to Kamakura via Enoden - a cute old electric train that hugs back dors of peoples houses and runs on regular streets part of the way)
For other advice I would recommend that at least one of your group speaks enough Japanese to ask directions, order food, use a laundromat, shop at a supermarket, describe what you want at a barber's, tell a doctor what you're ailing, ask a staff member where the lost and found is, that kind of stuff. Also note that New Year's and Golden Week are really awkward times to go and summer is hot and humid. Make sure to talk to your GP to make sure you have whatever vaccinations you need, I'm thinking of Japanese Encephalitis (JE) in particular. Also make sure you take enough cash to get the most basic necessities if the airline manages to bungle your luggage. In short, just keep all the basic travel advice in mind and you'll be fine.
A ways through his explanation someone else came up to us to ask us where we were going, and told us that our destination was simply straight ahead, and after saying our thanks we just kept listening to the guy rattle on. That kind of thing is what I really like about travelling, being a couple of thousand miles away from home, just listening to someone go on a ramble about whatever they think is interesting to talk about.
This order also very useful if you want to buy stome stuff, as usually Tokay has the best selection but you don't want to lug it all over Japan with you - best do the shopping at the end of the trip.
This doesn't seem to be a must now that JR themselves is selling it online (though at a slightly higher price):
(Elevantion 800 above see level, 1 hour walk from Keyakidaira, which itself is 1 hour industrial train ride from Kurobe. Coincidentaly the very first onsen bath we took in Japan back in 2017. And without the cold water hose - but back then we didn't know an onsen should not be that hot. :D )
Even in Venice, if you leave San Marco and if you cross into San Polo, you just have to leave the Ponte Rialto behind. It also helps if you arrive by boat and land at Fondamente Nove and just don't take the "straight" route to Piazetta San Marco.
Cinque Terre is a similar "theme park" in italy. We've been there on an holiday weekend in spring with really nice weather. The trains were packed like in Tokio during rush hour. But even there, as soon as you left the main route, ascended some stairs, you had amazing views all for yourself and the only other tourists were those you saw down below.
People are just too lazy to take even small detours.
Y’all reek of FOMO and exoticism. Chill.
Just go with it. You’ll be fine. Live your normal life, just in a different place. You can gaijin smash through anything if you’re a jerk. If you’re not, I’m sure you’ll find a way to be less shitty as a tourist and someone will appreciate it at the time - and forget about it the next day.
My favourite dining experience was going to Savoy and leaving it to the staff to make whatever they’d recommend. おすすめは何ですか? They have a pizza that’s not on the English menu. A woman from Boston sat at the counter and annoyed absolutely everyone in the restaurant with her loud, obnoxious behaviour, poor Japanese accent, and “I’m the main character” vibes. Classic Roppongi.
She didn’t get the secret pizza.
That said, Patrick’s takes are pretty much as bad as people in this thread are pointing out.
(Side note: take a shot for every random article about Japan that gets to the front page and you’ll start to see the tech industry’s penchant for it in a different light - this doesn’t happen with other countries)
Yet I find "thing, Japan" to be 10x worse than that. So much so that I stopped watching anime completely. I see the most boring, time wasting and irrelevant videos on youtube in the default youtube homepage (no cookies) that simply have "Japan" in the tittle with millions of views and thousands of comments half about anime and half about how Japan does the thing in the video 10x better than everyone else. And 90% with anime avatars. So much for escapism... Japan is now everywhere.
>take a shot for every random article about Japan that gets to the front page
Just this or last week there was a Japanese university compsci cirlce-jerk here on HN. Apearantly, Japan is known for it's unbeatable hardware design programs, unrivled by any gaijin education. And yes, Japan is of course a top country in tech. But these claims are ridiculus and unfounded, especialy as Japan's hardware industry has been on the delcine. For example, Samsung is rapidly removing them from their supply chain (even the chemicals that ONLY Japan can produce, or something) and Chinese cameras have made it into the S23 Ultra. Of course little to no mention of Korea in the replies to that post desipte being a leader in almost all hardware tech: DRAM (1); Fabs (2); display (1); smartphones (2); SSDs (1 or 2) and recently some "heavy industry and chemicals" that Japan is still known for.
I don't hate Japan, far from it, but this needs to stop.
I'm unsure of a specific time period that I'd feel comfortable putting on it, partly because it's honestly been an underlying aspect of tech/cyberpunk culture for as long as I can remember. I mean, go back to the early William Gibson stuff and the "Asian-Megacity-Tokyo-Aesthetic" is shoved down your throat - and I say this as a guy who thinks Neuromancer is one of the best books ever written.
I think the other issue I have with the Japan pedestal-ization that happens is that, if you actually live there, it's got its own arguably fucked up societal issues and isn't necessarily better than here - just different.
Didn’t speak the language, didn’t try to make people speak English - asked for the Japanese menu and used Google translate to figure it out.
Kyoto was incredible.
Hello
Please
Thank you
Excuse me
I’m sorry
Most notably - speaking Catalan instead of Spanish in Barcelona will endear you to locals in a way you wouldn’t believe.
You do you, though. I had to google the hiragana for that phrase. I can’t read Japanese worth a damn.
Just don’t be an rude boisterous tourist and you’ll be fine. That’s the actual message in the parent comment.
I've traveled all 47 prefectures and I had a good chuckle at OP's comment. Among locals, Roppongi has a reputation of having one of the highest concentration of trashy foreigners. Classic with main character vibes.
Is there a Japanese equivalent of Budha or Aristotle or Confucius.
The isolation provided by being an hard to reach island has, in my opinion, made their culture quite differentiated and useful to contrast my own culture with.
For example, I learned from the Japanese that children are much more capable than my own culture thinks they are. So I don't coddle them as much as my peers do.
Not really. Vast portions of pre-modern Japanese culture was borrowed from China. From fashion and art to language, philosophy and religion. Even the "very complete Shinto deity mythos" is not what you claim:
>Even among experts, there are no settled theories on what Shinto is or how far it should be included, and there are no settled theories on where the history of Shinto begins[0]
And true Shintoism has been dead for centuries.
>I learned from the Japanese that children are much more capable than my own culture thinks they are.
It's actualy the opposite. Modern childhood innocence, to the extent that it is a new development*, is a western export that has it's roots in romanticism. It isn't really unique to Japan to not have it to the same extent.
People like Japan because of anime, which does have it's roots in Japanese art, although it has become somewhat overstated and in any event was borrowed from Chinese.
What it is in my opinion is that Japan was the first of the east asian countries to become rich. So people who like east asian culture "found" Japan first, then came up with all this Japanese exceptionalism. Which is really shockingly ignorant being that China was the culture for almost an entire millennium. Chinese silk, jade, tea, and what else, fine china were found in all royal palaces around the world. You can even see it's effect on fashion in some 16-17th century english art.
None of this is to say thag Japan doesn't have a unique culture, but it is heavily overstated in the last two decades. It was also used to explain Japan's economic rise in 1980. Now that Taiwan and Korea have done the same that element has been conveniently forgotten.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Shinto
*That is, to the extent that it didn't already exist before. High childhood mortality prevented the concept childhood innocence as it exists and is manifested today (such as coddling).
Foreigners have exotified Japan well before anime, I think your point about exceptionalism stands though and points to what I think is the real reason for it's popularity; To explain modern day infatuation, if I were to be a little shallow, I would say Japan is just the east-asian country that's most accessible to the west, since it's cultural shifts somewhat met the west in the middle after WWII.
It's still an exotic location and culture to a westerner, but it's safe and easy to engage with, and it's acceptable to enjoy it. It has no political tensions, it has no religious tensions (for travelers), it has a very agreeable set of social rules, and it's extremely safe to visit even if you go off the beaten path. It's like East-Asia Easy Mode for travelers.
The bit about the Japan Rail Pass, in particular the statement "and which you must purchase before you get here".
This is no longer the case. In the run-up to the Olympics, Japan made serious improvements in relation to the JRP:
1) You no longer need to purchase it abroad. You can purchase it in Japan on presentation of your passport with your visitor visa label. Yes, you will pay a small (10%) premium for buying in-country, but the point is the "abroad only" requirement is no longer there.
2) The whole "queue and stamp" palaver to get seats is no longer a thing. The whole "queue and show" palaver to get through the gates is no longer a thing. You now get a ticket which you can use at the machines to get your reservations. You now get a ticket which you can use at the automated gates. If you have never been to Japan before, I can't tell you how FRIGGIN AWESOME an improvement this is over the historical way of doing things !First, because queues were usually short. For showing the JR pass, usually no queue at all, sometimes faster than the automatic gates. For reserving seats the experience has always been great, even as a non-Japanese speaker. The guy will find you the time, changes, etc... will ask you if you want to be together as a group, smoking or non-smoking cars (if that's still a thing), etc... and will find what's best for you taking into account what's available, often in less than a minute. I have never had an experience like this with a machine, not even close.
Maybe you travel mostly at rush hours, where the queues can get longer, but no "palaver" for me, everything has been as efficient as it could be. Generally I find machines to be strictly worse than competent staff, and the JR staff is among the best.
Ah, but you haven't seen what they've done to the machines !
Its equally awesome:
1) Login using the QR code on your JR Pass
2) Enter your route and desired date/time
3) Machine shows you available next scheduled options
4) Machine shows you available coaches
5) Machine displays seat maps and allows you to choose seats
6) Yes you can do this as a group, you scan multiple QR codes and choose as group
7) The machine even has a "least busy" button so it will show you the seat map for the least-busy carriage
No kidding, I see lots of reviews like: food is tasty, service was friendly, price reasonable. 3 stars.
This annoys me with ratings used to train recommendations too, e.g. Netflix, where I don't know how they want me to use it. What if I know it is something I would absolutely not even try watching, should I rate it? Or am I telling it I tried it, and that's a higher rating (because I might give something similar a go too) than none at all? Not to mention the old stars not being mapped into thumbs, or the later addition of double thumbs up meaning only more recently encountered favourites get that accolade.
5 stars: "it was amazing"
4 stars: "really liked it"
3 stars: "liked it"
2 stars: "it was OK"
1 star: "did not like it"
I wonder how many people, without any other context, would interpret "I'd rate this book 2 out of 5 stars" as "yeah, it was OK".
Now up these in anyway and star rating should go to 4 or 5.
Same situation for visitors to the UK. I've given up trying to tell tourists to get out of London, they never listen.
I’d tell tourists to start with and stay in London unless they’re on an unusually long trip. It’s the second greatest city in world history and all, the rest of the country is pretty drab by comparison.
Assuming we are talking about England. Scotland and Ireland are another story.
I’d happily spend a week in Denver. Looks pretty nice.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g33388-Activities-De...
There's a nice cities that are forgotten by international tourists. New Orleans, Nashville, Chicago to name a few. But imo you can skip pretty much anything west of the Mississippi without missing out on much until you get to the coast. I'm not saying all those places suck, just that they're not tourism friendly.
Traveling should be about experience the local reality, not cherry picking.
It's like going to London and Paris and claiming you have seen „real“ Europe. No, it was just few cherry picked non-representative bits.
It would be like going to most of Europe, and then someone complaining you didn't see the "real" Europe because you skipped Portugal and Croatia.
And visiting a one-sided 50% is still missing a big portion. That's like saying that if you visit Germany/France/UK, you've seen all the europe. Nordics and East be damned because it's less than 50% of population so who cares. But then you end up with very skewed view of what europe is.
The ones with a skewed view of the US are the ones that think small towns are representative of the country in any major way.
Sorry, but I hate this when people claim they „travelled europe“ but turns out they've seen the usual Paris/Rome/London/etc central areas. No, that means you visited those cities. Getting to know a region requires visiting diverse places.
I appreciate that it's an important city, has many cultural attractions and many people love the place. But for me it's too big, too chaotic and, as I say above, too weird, and I would prefer to stay away from it entirely.
And I have more examples: Cinqueterre is out of this world. In same cases it's true though: Florence left me unimpressed, but I think it was the fault of the huge influx of tourists and peddlers that ruined everything.
In some cities, like London, the rule applies fractally. Avoid anywhere listed in tourist guides and there are lots of great suburbs to explore.
Whereas a city like Paris, great as it is to lay eyes on the Eiffel Tower and the Arch de Triumph, the city is ultimately a dilution of its former self. These days most major cities are very same-same.
https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/huis-ten-bosch-o...
Seriously: read the whole thing. There's a bit where bankers take investing advice from a psychic ceramic toad. It's wonderful.
When we visited Japan we made a special trip there and it was every bit as amazing as this article makes it out to be.
And also a Hello Kitty/Sanrio one:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g1121559-d1745...
I love going to onsens and the best ones are off the beaten path and usually vary hard to get to without access to a car. (If you’re into driving Japan is a lot of fun. I particularly like driving along the coastline through the Atami Ito area. Mountain driving with steep incline/declines and switchbacks is also fun.)
In small towns there’s often just one central train station and everything else is by bus, taxi, or car. Buses and taxis are terrible options so it basically leaves driving. While it’s easy to rent a car I don’t think it’s a realistic option for most travelers.
While there’s things to do in small towns it’s often a lesser experience. Shops and restaurants close earlier and there’s less variety. It’s a lesser experience than what you’d get in a major city.
Moreover there’s tons of things to do on the outskirts of large cities. Take Koedo (小江戸) as an example. You often don’t have to go very far out for a different experience and still have all the accessibility of the city.
This is kind of inverted. I followed the cherry blossom bloom West to East across Japan over a span of 2 months. I wouldn’t put Hiroshima on the top 10 cherry blossom spots. Sure, if you’re already in Hiroshima at the right time, then why not, but if people are actively seeking out cherry blossoms, they’d work backwards from where they want to go, then time it.
In case people were wondering, I thought the cherry blossoms in Hirosaki Castle were the best.
It's also charming to see Tokyo/Japan in the background of some Japanese YouTubers' videos, e.g. this one where they try to walk from a station to another but have to stop at every convenience store and roll a dice to get something: https://youtu.be/_yT32QAyv6s
Just two comments:
He recommends APA Hotels, but the couple of times I stayed there the rooms were unpleasantly small—around twelve square meters. There was barely enough empty floor space for a single suitcase. I try to choose hotel rooms with at least eighteen square meters. (Some commenters here have raised other issues with APA Hotels.)
He says nothing about COVID. While people in some countries are talking about the pandemic in the past tense, not in Japan. Around a hundred thousand new cases and a hundred and fifty deaths are being reported each day, with numbers rising again. In just the past couple of weeks, I’ve heard from three acquaintances who have recently gone through rather serious cases. Almost everyone is wearing masks, especially indoors. Because of my age, I continue to work only from home and to avoid crowded places. I will be getting my fifth vaccination in a couple of weeks.
I have a pretty extensive list for Tokyo: https://wanderlog.com/view/mhwjfphqda/tokyo-guide/shared
In the past 5 or so years, the craft beer and craft gin scenes have been really blowing up. I highly recommend seeking those while you're here.
For ramen it's totally acceptable to go to the popular places. I'd actually generally avoid the advice from the post. You probably don't want to go to the places that cater to salarymen, because they're looking for a cheap place that's open late. Avoid places like ippudo and ichiran, but for the most part, if it has a crazy amount of reviews on google maps or tabelog, and isn't a chain, it's probably really good.
Otherwise I really like extensively trying izakayas. There's so much variety, from cheap salaryman places, to expensive spots that cater to foodies. Some specialize in sashimi, others yakitori, and lots of izakayas seem to take the jack of all trades approach. The hardest part of the izakayas is that they tend to have their menus on the walls, on wooden or paper signs for each dish, making it pretty difficult if you can't read japanese.
Japanophiles, shockingly, have different interests than a casual tourist which are dramatically different yet again than someone who is, say, a vegan coffee connoisseur or a car fan who probably wants to drive on the roads and not take transit or say a typography nerd who would be attending printing and stationary museums. Want to get sloshed and spend the night with hookers? Lots of that as well. Have fine tea on a windy road overlooking Mt fuji? Fuck it, go ahead.
Here's an example. I went to a sword museum. I overheard someone leaving saying how incredible and wonderful the place was. All I saw were nearly identical looking swords that had won awards. It was dull and repetitive for me, just metal chunks behind glass but that sword dude was doing backflips over it. Whatever. Maybe that was like famous celebrity swords, I've got no idea.
The point is, don't listen to anybody. Theme it though to narrow your scope. Whatever your interest is let it guide you. Maybe you're a fan of shopping mall architecture, there's plenty of that here. Maybe you like say, umbrellas, there's umbrella stores, people making them by hand, umbrella technology displays, it's very Japanese.
You don't need to know Japanese, sure, just like you don't need to know English in the US. But being able to read and talk to people is surprisingly helpful. Important things are English-enough but don't be scared of Japanese, children master it fine, you can do it if you put in the hours. There's plenty of half-assed guides for busy people. Functional Japanese isn't insane. Receipt is reshīto, elevator is erebētā, they know the words toilet, taxi and metro...you'd be surprised how quickly you can get to non-clueless.
If you can set aside at least 2 weeks and you don't mind spending say $300/day or so you'll likely fill that time pretty easily. It's vacation, take it easy. Next time you get laid off, don't rush to the next job. Do stuff like this instead.
Also don't worry, you can always come back later.
Oh wait, one thing. This is the only real advice. There's travel SIMs at convenience stores. You'll probably be throttled at 256K with your foreign carrier, it's painful. The modern web is bulky and unforgiving. But maybe that's fine for you.
You can download Google maps for offline use and take photos of things with Google translate - it's not terrible for descriptive things and menus.
Hotel room sizes are fine. The crazy small ones are super cheap. Pay normal hotel prices and you'll be ok. The toilets are indeed high tech and weird and trash cans and napkins are mysteriously absent most places. Go to Starbucks if you need that, they're identical to the US ones
"Stay out of tourist traps" -- nope! Takayama is amazing. And there was a Wasabi farm (I forget where) to which we went biking which was one of my favorite experiences in Japan. I'm sure it was a tourist trap and there's much to be derided by HN connoisseurs -- to hell with them.
Osaka at night, just looking at its tall and futuristic-looking buildings, is amazing.
So don't skip the cities. Or do. Don't pay attention to me, just theme your visit according to your interests and screw everyone else's advice.
As if everyone liked the same things and there was a single way to enjoy your vacations.
These days, I'd recommend getting a travel eSIM so you set it up in advance and hit the ground running (what with the entry vaccine check being a web site QR code you need to load on flakey airport wifi)
I'd recommend people follow the beaten path. Is the most touristy spots in Japan and Kyoto "overrated" (given how popular it is)? Yes. But if you take out the crowds, is it grander and more significant than obscure site seeing spots off the beaten path? Yes. Efficient Market Theory applies to site-seeing places, especially with the internet.
There is a tendency in SV and on HN to be contrarian, but there's a good reason touristy places are popular. You get the most value for your time, especially if traveling is an expensive luxury for you and you don't want to take the risk. The best travel experiences I had in Japan were in obscure places, but the reason I've been lucky is that I went to hundreds of obscure places, most of which were duds. Popular places have also been vetted by other foreigners plus the feedback loop of the business ecosystem being ready to handle a wide range of tourists.
Take restaurants for instance. The Japanese taste palette is rather muted/bland compared to what Americans are used, and even most other Asian countries. Consider how Japan only has two Hai Di Lao restaurants, a relatively pricy restaurant for most of the population, while a much lower income country like Vietnam has at least 10. Sure, there are some things that are "objectively" universally loved, let's say sushi, but the random Japanese hole in the wall with a line of locals waiting might be interesting, but not necessarily delicious, to a foreigner. If you read the Google Maps review for restaurants, you'll find two separate ratings distributions between English-writing reviews and Japanese reviewers. There's also a matter of price sensitivity. When you've already spent the fixed cost on flights, accommodations, you might as well make the most of your trip and try the best of the city has to offer. It's kind of outside the sunk cost fallacy. If you're living there, it's not financially sustainable to eat a Michelin star restaurant everyday. You'll evaluate restaurants based on relative value, wherein you have the option and leisure to go to tens of thousands of other restaurants, whereas a traveler only gets a few shots. At any rate, if you follow the beaten path for restaurants recommended by foreigners, you'll likely like it. If you pursue restaurants that Japanese people like, sure, you'll get some arguably authentic Japanese food for the experience but doesn't necessarily mean you'll enjoy it day in day out.
Personally, I would never go to the Ninja restaurant OP mentioned, as my taste palette has been calibrated to the Japanese. It's just screaming tourist trap. There is nothing wrong with that since the "tourist traps" in Japan are still pretty good. I just know it'll be over-priced. If I wanted Ninjas, I'll just go Mie prefecture where they incubated. But if you're visiting Tokyo, power to you for checking out the Ninja restaurant. If you're visiting Kyoto, I recommend "Menbaka Fire Ramen". The Japanese locals I know in Kyoto would not spent that kind of money ($15?) on ramen, especially one they think is way too salty, but I just took a guest who was visiting and it's been their favorite ramen shop in Japan.
Placing a reservation requires a Japanese phone number (which you can get easily for the duration of travel) and most restaurants only accept reservations by phone. Some can be reserved on Tabelog directly, but this also requires a Japanese phone number, and some restaurants will call you back to confirm the reservation, so I'm not sure I would recommend this if you don't speak at least some Japanese. Even if you do reservations by phone, you should expect that most restaurants are already fully booked out for the next week. The best chance to get a reservation are restaurants that are a bit too expensive for their rating.
Ideally you would do reservations before you travel, but I'm not sure what the best way to do that would be in practice.
A third category is Japanese chain “fast food” restaurants such as Sukiya.
It’s cheap, fast, no reservations needed, can accommodate English speaking guests (as a chain, they have English tablets/vending machines), a relatively unique Japanese travel experience (that locals eat too), the food is more flavorful to non-Japanese taste palette.
For would be travelers reading this, see also Matsuya and Yoshinoya. Kura sushi, Ichiran Ramen, and Ikinari steakhouse kind of fall into this category too. Just avoid the “flagship” stores such as the Ichiran in Shibuya where the line is out the door recently. You can find an Ichiran at some random less touristy station and there would be no wait.
For a one week trip, there’s enough of these chain restaurants to try. There’s also Denny’s which, for those unaware, has a distinctly Japanese menu (Japanese interpretation of Western dishes)
Also I can’t remember the name of the place (Aka something) in Shinjuku but they do a spicy AF Nabe and a chicken wing that is literally the hottest thing I’ve ever eaten. I took a tiny bite and felt like I was going to die. They give you disposable gloves to handle it. My partner was in agony the next day.
Eh. It’s a whole country. There’s something for everyone. I’ll take Ootoya or Matsuya or Pepper Lunch any day. Will never eat at Coco Curry again though. Got food poisoning there once.
Nakiryu is good, especially for the price, but I wouldn’t wait more than an hour for ramen. Fortunately I went when the border was closed. Nakiryu is novel because it is spicy, and it’s unique/rare for Japan, but the rest of Asia has spicy Chinese noodles (ironic cause Ramen is spelled in Katakana and literally means noodle in Chinese).
Not sure which nabe / chicken you had in Shinjuku. Sounds good, I’m interested. Are you sure it wasn’t a izakaya? There’s way too many to know. If you want chicken wings, don’t forget to try the wings in Nagoya. Furaibo is one spot. Again, surprisingly flavorful and unique for Japan, but similar stuff exist throughout Asia.
> Will never eat at Coco Curry again though. Got food poisoning there once.
It happens. You probably paid for that extra spice.
Wow. I'd love to read more about your experience. Please consider writing something for the rest of us; or point to things that you have written. Thanks!
Granted I guess I like stuff here so I’m not the target audience!
In the end, the sheer wonder lost to the effort of appreciating it. Which, of course, is a commentary on us not Japan. I suspect they encounter the same problems doing the reverse, possibly the same wonder and friction as well.
To add, we were amazed by the politeness and helpfulness of the people we met everywhere. We were obviously tourists trying to navigate and trying not to annoy.
Also, even when comming from Europe (Czech Republic) Japan always seamed much more convenient & more civilized than at home! :D Like, like everything is clean, there are vending mashines, convenience stores and public toilets everywhere + super public transport. EVen in reasonably remote/inaka places. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana
Kanji is a whole different deal: That's the writing system with tens of thousands of characters. It helps to learn the most common few of these, but it's completely unnecessary to learn more than that to have an enjoyable time as a tourist.
Losing the ability to read is really a hard but also interesting experience. It really felt like losing one sense. While main tourist spots had romanization, more local places did not.
On the other hand, not being able to read made me more aware of my surroundings.
Like observing what other people did before doing something myself. Or having to stop for a minute before entering a store or ordering from a food stall to recognize what was sold there. I also remember being less distracted by ads and signs.
We’re talking almost 20 years here.
I think Kyoto and maybe one other city wasn’t bombed in ww ii. Let the old temples and statues survive.
I always refer only to numerals as Roman, the alphabet/writing system always as Latin
Btw your 2005 pre smartphone experience compared to nowadays is not relevant anymore with everyone having GPS maps and translator in hands even if no signage were changed, I sort of liked old times when you had to interact with locals, nowadays you can just stare at mobile and no need to talk to them at all.
Disconnecting from home is something harder to do now.
Back when I travelled in the late 2000s, early 2010s, I'd usually just do a three minute phone call home to let them know I arrived well, and perhaps send an email every couple days with one or two photos from a cyber cafe, later with the laptop from the hotel wifi.
From the late 2010s onwards, with roaming packages, local sim cards wifi even on flight is harder to disconnect without turning off notifications.
One one hand it's quite cool to make a video call to family from the other side of the world, but it also means that suddenly you'll end up dealing with day to day home stuff from a trans pacific flight.
- Naoshima island: a beautiful serene island dedicated to contemporary art. Such a surreal experience.
- Shimanami Kaido: a 60km bike path linking an archipelago of rural islands in the sea of Hiroshima. The bridges looking the islands are something out of Blade Runner.
* currently everyone wears masks everywhere all the the time. There are stores here and there that sell masks in a variety of styles, so you can color-coordinate with you outfit if you want.
* submit your vaccination card before arrival. Otherwise you are going to be in a long line.
* all iPhones since the 8 have native Suica support. You can add it in the wallet up. It’s the fastest way to use the train and pay for stuff in general. It has fairly wide acceptance for lower value transactions: vending machines, convince stores, restaurants, taxis.
* for faster internet, you can get an eSIM before you go. This is much easier and cheaper than buying a SIM on arrival. Having faster network access is handy for checking train schedules and using QR code ordering systems that are in some restaurants. Try not to read hacker news all the time ;-)
* bringing large luggage on trains is a pain (stairs in stations, crowded trains, limited baggage area in reserved trains (besides Narita Express)). Carry on size is ok. If you need the large luggage for a long trip to Tokyo, it’s probably easiest to take a bus from the airport to Tokyo City Air Terminal (or the Yokohama version) and then a taxi or Uber Black to your hotel. Then use a duffel bag for trips further out like to the beach or a ryokan. An advanced option is using a mail currier between hotels and the airport, but I have not personally tried that way.
There's a long form to fill out in Japanese, but any hotel front desk has been able to help me with it. Most convenience stores also have a sign with the distinctive yellow cat-carrying-kitten logo of Yamato Taq-Q-Bin:
https://www.global-yamato.com/en/hands-free-travel/scene02.h...
Best side-trip was when we departed the bullet train halfway between Tokyo, Kyoto and opted for a few days in the Kiso Valley — primarily to hike a stretch of the ancient Nakasendo highway. That also allowed the family to stay one night in a ryokan, and another night at a fairly luxurious onsen.
Never mind the English signs had more for less disappeared and you got to feel a little more of a sense of being "on your own".
Didn’t like Kyoto as much the second time around but I spent a lot of time outside the big cities and it is such a beautiful country with lovely people.
Japan is very safe so it's probably fine to just bring your budget in cash. Also outside of the beaten path like he advise people to go it's still very cash heavy society.
Your taxi driver will not be happy when you pay 1200 yen trip with 10000 yen. So please keep some change with you.
Only thing I could find is that foreign cards might not work in some online payments or mobile payments, which is quite normal everywhere in world, but giving bold statement that your foreign card is useless and you can't even withdraw money from ATM seems like spreading fake news.
https://atadistance.net/2022/09/19/foreign-visa-cards-blocke...
Had problems creating and topping up Suica/PASMO with multiple foreign Visa cards (ended up using Amex), but had absolutely no problems paying with Visa in stores that accept the usual myriad of cards.
However, one of my credit cards didn't work for that with no clear reason given, but a different one worked almost every time.
I still recommend some cash. In many cases cashiers have hard time using foreign cards since there might be prompts they are not familiar with. It's sometimes slow and awkward to pay with foreign cards. But if you prefer it and stay around Tokyo you are 95% fine with a charged IC-card and a credit card.
Actually I have even noticed some places and events in Tokyo do not even accept cash.
Try the Gala resort. Train from Tokyo right to it. Onsen on-site for after a full day of skiing is a plus: https://gala.co.jp/winter/
Would also recommend jigokudani for onsen and monkeys. There is a good ryokan nearby: http://www.jigokudanionsen.com/guide/
The only place where card would be almost guaranteed to be accepted is konbini. Everywhere else it would be better to rely on cash. Especially if it is inaka
Though for countryside stuff… I feel like PayPay has a lot more success than cards
Going card only would not get you anywhere. Suica/Pasmo is more accepted than visa/mc/jcb.
60% of my transactions by volume is genkin, 20% pasmo, 20% visa/mc.
Unexpectedly they sprung up and walked us 3 solid blocks to a near by laundromat. It was the most amazing service I have ever received.
We spent 2 weeks traveling around the country and this was our experience in a nutshell. Everyone was so kind and helpful.
The only people I have seen that aren't wearing masks outside are foreigners. This is only a subset of people visiting. Most tourists also wear masks outside.
What can you expect in Japan when they misbehave? Bad food, service or getting kicked out?