Having lived in Japan for two years, what I'd add to this is to spend a lot of time walking, if physically able.
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.
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.
Tokyo is absurdly gigantic, I would not suggest randomly walking it. Also the subway system can be challenging, and the staff don't speak English, so if you get stuck they likely won't be able to help.
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.
> but Japanese people will go extremely out of their way to help you
> 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?
By this reasoning, if anyone asks you how you feel about someone you love/respect/admire/etc, you should refuse to speak of any significant qualities they posses.
“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.
I am anecdotally pointing out my experiences, which explicitly go against the comment I replied to which makes it seem like you will die on the streets in Japan if you wander too much.
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?
Tokyo's trains have some of the best signage in the world. Nearly all the ones in Tokyo and other major cities have English directions. All the stations have color coded numbers like G12 or N13 if Japanese names are hard for you.
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, ...)
>There is no exit from the JR lines that does not have clear signage to every other line
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.
that's because both directions will get you to the train you're trying to get to. Example: From JR either west exit (then turn right) or the east exit (then turn left) will lead to the Marunouchi line. Pick one and follow the signs. That's no different than a subway with multiple exits on to the same street at both ends of the station
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.
When was the last time you were there? I went in 2019 and 2020 and it was really easy to get around. All stations have signage in English almost everywhere. Google maps says which exit / entrance to come in or leave from, even which car of the train you're on is closest to the path you need to get off.
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.
Pre-Google Maps, finding specific addresses could be a bit challenging--because of the addressing scheme that I've not totally grokked to this day--but even then I don't recall the subway system being a particular challenge relative to other big systems like New York or London.
Don't worry. You're not the only one. Natives are often lost. Couple of times already I've been asked where the given address is by Japanese person and I am definitely not of Asian descent :) On the contrary, in 2008, before the mobile Internet I was looking for an address and couple of natives couldn't find it despite the fact I got address and a picture printed at hand. Turned out we've standing next to the building and all I had to do is to turn back to find it. Today I just follow uncle Google advice.
At least as of a few years ago, a lot of the Google Maps UI/feature work was done out of the Google Tokyo office, so it tends to be really useful there.
The subway system is sprawling but, as someone who doesn't know any Japanese, I've never had any real trouble navigating it. Didn't know about woman-only cars but I assume most Japanese would take it as just another clueless foreigner and wouldn't think much else about it.
> The subway system is sprawling but, as someone who doesn't know any Japanese, I've never had any real trouble navigating it.
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.
You really can't "get stuck" though. Carry a phone with Google Maps and get a Pasmo/Suica fare card, and it's easy to get back to your hotel from anywhere at all in the city.
Yep, Google Maps (and if I recall even Apple Maps) will route you through the transit system just fine. Those of us who can’t read Japanese might need to pattern match on Kanji for station names (maps app will show both original and romanized names) but I don’t think that’s too much of a challenge.
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 absurdly gigantic, I would not suggest randomly walking it.
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.
I went to Japan last in 2015 with my aging dad. Subway was hard since no escalators/elevators at most stations and that marble they use for stairs becomes slippery really quickly during a rain. I wouldn’t have noticed either of these problems if my dad wasn’t mobility impaired (I didn’t know he degraded so much before the trip, so it was a bit of a surprise).
If you stay contained to one system you can get nearly everywhere on the map using one transfer. Know where you're starting, know where you're going and then just look for an intersection between the lines. It probably won't be the fastest route, but since you're staying in one system it won't be that expensive. In an emergency where your phone is dead, you'll always be able to get home.
The women-only cars are only during certain times of day. Read the sign and it'll tell you: basically it's only during rush hour. Also, the women-only cars are at the ends of the trainset.
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.
I knew an Airforce guy stationed on Japan, he said the Japanese straight up made whole villages and districts off limits to foreigners. Not just to soldiers. He said it's to dissuade land flight of women.
Excuse my French, but bullshit. This is probably some game-of-telephone story of some bars near American military bases plastering "Japanese Only" signs on their doors so they don't have to deal with drunk GIs.
As a rule of thumb, the only places in Japan that do not welcome foreigners by default are in the sex industry.
I'm not sure when this post was originally written, but at a quick glance I can see some mentioned stores/restaurants that have since unfortunately shut down (like Deus Ex Machina which I used to frequent when it was in Harajuku but has since moved about 45 minutes away to Asakusa). This might not be the most up-to-date resource if you're visiting Japan in the future.
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 :)
* 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.
Even if you don't care about APA being a very weird business, the other chains that OP recommended are simply better. Cleaner, nicer, better service.
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.
Not my experience at all... I've used APA throughout the whole of Japan and they are consistently good. Especially in terms of furnishings and soundproofing. They're also extremely cheap and available in almost every city. What you say about the rooms could be said about basically any hotel of course.
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.
Notice that I mentioned that they get bad outside of touristic areas. I mean the ones where someone from the UK wouldn't normally stay, like a business area or a local transportation hub.
Meaning the ones used by drunks, drug addicts, and prostitutes.
I've stayed in a bunch of them across the country but maybe I haven't been to any particularly rough areas. They all have a practically identical layout (both building and rooms) as far as I can tell. Any examples?
I am not talking about layout. I am talking about unclean bathrooms and beds, mold, cigarrette smells in the corridors, people falling over in the corridors, weird noises at night, aircons that don't work.
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.
If I may, I would also like to recommend Richmond and Route Inn here. I have been to the Richmond in Sendai and Morioka in Tohoku on three different occasions. The best thing is that no one wants to take a copy of my residence card, which to the best of my knowledge (statement from the MHLW) they are not supposed to ask you for anyway, but a lot of hotels do ask and then suggest you go find another place if you don’t want to comply.
APA hotel isn't a great choice for most (American) tourists anyway - the rooms are extremely small. Most customers seem to be solo Japanese businessmen.
No, more that American hotels are a lot larger than European ones (I'm from the UK) and I assumed (with no real evidence) that Americans carry more luggage.
Although it is true that Japan is a bit of a struggle if you are overweight or especially tall.
One of the best room I ever had was in Norway. It was at most 3 times as large as the queensized bed, had at least 5 different lighting options and a fantastic black-out curtain (this was needed above the Arctic circle) and tons of small storage places and hooks - and this includes a tiny bathroom. Everything you need, and super cozy.
Americans are very fond of wide open spaces and square footage. Imagine being from Colorado, Wyoming, or Montana...or even California...and staying in a Japanese salaryman hotel. It's going to be claustrophobic for some people not used to the experience.
The hotel advice is if you're paying normal hotel prices you're going to get a room that's not absurd.
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.
There are hotels in Europe with rooms as small as cruise ship ones (I stayed at one like this called the cab-inn in Aarhus). Mountain lodges in national parks tend to have small rooms also, especially if built during the 19th century.
I just meant that you explicitly couched it as a distillation of advice you've given many times before, so it's perhaps to be expected if some of it isn't totally up-to-date.
> the boom in tourism in Japan over the last decade or so has made the beaten path… less than wonderful
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.
Looks like a lot of gatekeeping on your part. This was the good old days when you were travelling but now that other people travel, they are the worst because they take too many selfies.
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.
Doesn’t look like it. Poster differentiates tourists going in to enjoy places and people who fly in to use places as backdrops for something else.
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.
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. Think of a time when to pull off a trip to Japan you had to use a travel agent ($) to assist you in even figuring out what hotel to go to and how to get there. You’d rely on print magazines and books to even first decide where to go, and those only had so many pages to print. Rick Steve can only write so much.
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.)
There was a time when you didn't need a travel agent, but before the rise of social media and camera phones. Budget airlines like Easyjet and online travel agencies like Expedia were around a decade before the iPhone.
The raw availability of something existing in 1996 (when Expedia launched, a decade before the iPhone) does not mean it was accessible or widespread. How many homes had the internet in 1996? How expensive were the personal computers necessary to access those travel portals? I feel your example only emphasizes the thesis.
By that time you could easily buy second hand PCs for a couple hundred or build your own pretty affordably —even on part-time going to college. For the most part you could use the PCs at work as well.
> The raw availability of something existing in 1996 (when Expedia launched, a decade before the iPhone) does not mean it was accessible or widespread.
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.
I acknowledged that social media plays some part; read again.
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
> 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.
Is it not still dictated by the same things? Tourist heavy areas still optimize for people who have more money than sense, and it's not like it doesn't still cost thousands to get anywhere different. Even the hostel experience you mention isn't cheap bt any stretch. It's going to probably cost thousands, whether it's train tickets or accomodation or food or plane tickets.
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’s not gatekeeping to be nostalgic about a moment in time when fewer people were preoccupied with performing for others. To perform in these public spaces necessarily restricts others own freedom in that space (like movement). Everyone is entitled to these public spaces, but there are those who will be bad actors and encroach on others to achieve their performance. There are way more now than ever in history because it is so easy to do (i.e, cameras used to be more cumbersome and expensive and harder to use).
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.
When I visited the Great Buddha in Kamakura a couple of years ago, there were dozens of foreign tourists laying down, sitting, or posing on or next to the statue in a way that our native Japanese friend remarked how disrespectful they were being. I don't think it would've been as bad before smartphones and influencer/YouTube culture, but I can't really say.
It’s funny how tourism hasn’t changed for over 2000 years. Greek tourists of antiquity would write graffiti letting others know they were there and leave reviews on Egyptian tombs.
Yes, unfortunately, there are loads of people who look to someone like Logan Paul as someone to emulate and attempt to film their own wacky antics for online popularity contests, at the expense of ordinary folk.
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.
I generally agree with the comment upthread that it's as much about accessibility as the influencer angle. Although I might not get the best rate (and it is around the holidays) I could basically book a week in Tokyo without any assistance a few days from now if I wanted to.
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.
You have to remember, phones = bad, instagram = bad, and taking pictures = very bad. Other people aren't enjoying their vacation precisely to the parent commenter's tastes, so they are bad people who do vacationing badly.
As another long term resident of Tokyo (10 years and counting), I honestly can't understand why Patrick would recommend anyone give their business to APA Group.
Unfortunately, I think there are class of travelers (and ex-pats) who simply don't care about history or the current state of affairs. They travel to places for the picture. For Japan, many people stop at the soft power and pop culture. Chinese celebrities have gotten in trouble for posting on social media their visit to political controversial shrines. In those cases, I don't even think it's out of malice or making a political statement, but plain ignorance.
Having accidentally stayed there before, I can confirm that they have their weird in-house magazine, even translated to English, in every hotel room. Even more obnoxious than the Gideon bible.
As a human that attempts to respect other cultures, and also as a multiracial person with Chinese ancestry: then yes, I am against them because of their racist ideologies.
this is a horrid take, and one of the reasons why the world is so hateful and why people with hateful ideologies end up with more and more wealth and power. when i travel, or even just live my daily life, i try to not do business with individuals or enterprises whose modus operandi is to look down on others
This "avoid the beaten path for tourists" but also "pick Kyoto". Hmmm.
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.
> This "avoid the beaten path for tourists" but also "pick Kyoto". Hmmm
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 :)
I went to a railway museum and aquarium in Tokyo this past week, and the two you mentioned in Kyoto were surprisingly good, especially given how relatively small the aquarium was.
If you walk literally fifty meters in any direction from the tourist hotspots in Kyoto you’ll get an entirely different view of Kyoto, often including a reflection of the charms that brought people to the hotspots.
YMMV; I only lived there for a year and it was a long time ago now.
This is interesting, but not great Japan advice. I just went and had a blast and did the opposite of his advice. I think people are different and want different things and don't feel bad if you just want to see the standard Japan checklist. His talk of everyone being surly..you know what, be respectful, everyone in Japan is so polite and nice that you will be happy with the level of service everywhere.
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.
Yeah, I have spent a year in Japan and visited most prefectures and disagree with the article. Of course you should get off the beaten path, but if you avoid it like the article recommends, you will have a much worse time.
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.
Gifu is charming, but I don’t get this either. I had a friend there, so my experience is different, a good place to eat, hang out, not really a tourist place even with the castle (and you could see a better one in Osaka).
It reminded me of Milan: a lovely place to live, but a pointless place to visit as a tourist. And I'm at least a CEFR B1 in the language - it would be an atrocious place to visit if you have no Japanese. No clue why the article recommends it (except maybe as an attempt to establish credibility).
Lovely. Spent 3 months in Kyoto in 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, and loved Japan, more than my other quick business trips in the past.
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)
What about Kyoto vs Tokyo? Is there also the "small city" experience (calmer streets, slow people) in those cities, in places away from the center, perhaps?
Near Tokyo, you can visit the seaside towns, like Zushi or Enoshima, and get a small town feeling. But only on weekdays, as Tokyoites also want to flee the craziness from the city, and end up crowding the smaller places around it too.
North of Tokyo, you can reach Tsukuba, which is one of the most lovely towns in the Kanto region. Beautiful, spacious, very calm.
It's a very big city, so yeah there are lots of districts which are quieter. They are essentially small towns all jammed together. I've stayed in a place 15 minutes walk from Shinjuku that was almost dead.
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.
Yes. Those road stations(michi no eki) are a very safe, free option to get some rest or sleep in your camper / car / truck.
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.
> 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).
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.
Going off the beaten path always amuses me a bit as advice (what happens when everyone decides to do that?) but it's also quite true that you can often be literally tens of metres away from the most touristic locations with barely any tourists actually around you in most places (exceptions include cities that have become theme parks like Venice).
My top tip is, since everyone loves Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, there's actually a fantastic natural trail network there that I saw no one on. It takes you out through a valley of smaller shrines and graves, and nearly to the top of the mountain still. Then you can take the gates walk on the way down if you still want that experience. The trail had a beautiful uninterrupted view of Kyoto from a natural clearing in the forest canopy. Some of my best photos were from that little diversion.
When my wife and I went, I think we "accidentally" went on this trail. Our philosophy is to do the touristy things, but go just beyond what most do. This meant walking past the shrine and onto the trail network where we ran into a number of smaller shrines one the walking path.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
Well there are basically 10 places in Tokyo everyone goes to, and maybe they go to Kyoto or Osaka too. That leaves... the entire rest of the country. I've travelled around most of Japan and the majority of time I see zero foreigners.
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
I love Matsumoto (in Nagano Prefecture), it's a lovely city located right in the midst of some beautiful mountains. Nara is also nice, but I'm a mountain boy at heart.
I'm planning a trip to Japan (my first), and I'm mostly interested in small towns or villages as day trips from somewhere that is already well outside of Tokyo. Would Matsumoto fit that bill?
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)
You can get two really good day trips out of Matsumoto: one for Matsumoto Castle and the inner city in general, and one for Kamikochi (https://www.kamikochi.org/). It's also easy to go from there to Kofun or Nagano.
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.
One of my favourite memories of my travels to Japan was when in Kyoto my buddy and I were standing at the corner of... I think it was Shijo and Karasuma? And we were heading to Sanjo (I may have mixed Shijo and Sanjo up, don't mind it), and I had just double checked on a map that we were heading the right way when suddenly a guy on a bike saw us standing there with our map and stopped. He decided to tell me and my friend about all the great places around Kyoto to go see temples, buy souvenirs, get a good drink, and so on.
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.
Truly. Even if you want to land in Tokyo (since lots of flight deals take you there or Osaka). Grab the Rail Pass before you fly in, then take the bullet train to any number of cities. You'll enjoy relatively low-cost travel thanks to the rail pass, and you'll get to see a bunch of cities that aren't as popular.
Its perfectly doable to land, activate Rail Pass and then move to your starting city by Shikansen on the same day. In 2019 we moved all the way to Hiroshima on the first day and stayed in Tokyo at the end for a couple days.
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.
Babadani Onsen FTW! Just make sure the cold water hose does not fall out or selse the water ming be a little hot. ;-)
(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 )
> exceptions include cities that have become theme parks like Venice
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.
Agreed completely about Venice (and Cinque Terre). Sometimes just a couple of blocks away from the signposted route to San Marco is enough. Also, get out early in the morning, before the heat and the day visitors arrive.
I think the robustness of the advice is that there is a myriad of unbeaten paths in any place. And, if one particular unbeaten path becomes so popular among unbeaten paths fans that it becomes beaten, there will several others still unbeaten paths.
I’ve been 18 times and I had a good chuckle at this story and the comments. All largely inaccurate. Especially the bits about APA and Kyoto.
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.
I lived there for over six years and moved away because I got tired of the country - which is to say, I really get tired of reading Japan fetishism/worship/exoticism takes. The pedestal people place it on is absolutely not needed.
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)
When did you start noticing this enter the mainstream? For me it was ~2015. I remember when anime avatars were mocked and ridiculed, and "weeb" was used an an insult. (admittedly both by poeple who did and did not watch anime, but that itself is a point I won't touch on here.)
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.
>When did you start noticing this enter the mainstream?
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.
I visited Japan for the first time a month ago, and basically followed this advice. Got lost in Tokyo. Well as lost as you can be considering Apple or Google Maps and SUICA are pretty much universal wherever I went. And cash.
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.
Cool so we shouldn’t try to go to Japan if we don’t speak the language is what I got from this. Aka gate keeping. You are worse than the people you are trying to admonish in the beginning of your 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.
This is somewhat adjacent for which I apologize, but being a Japan Fan of the travelling variety I have noticed a trend on HN toward Japan related articles. My understanding is HN has no user-specific algorithmic feed changes, so is this just a natural increase in interest toward Japan in general I'm seeing since the borders opened up? Most of the articles aren't even travel related, just about Japanese culture or people from Japan.
I wouldn't say it's recent, I've long noticed that about HN. I learnt recently that there's a long history of Japanese influence on/immigration to San Francisco; so I think it's largely a symptom of SF-skew, and that influence rubbing off on others of course.
Japan’s just a fascinating place. There’s no place quite like it in the world and as cultures exchange and evolve and become more connected, it’s unlikely there ever will be.
But Japan seems less "fundamental" than many other cultures including the Greeks, Persians and Chinese for example who all lay claim to thousands of years of cultural significance.
Is there a Japanese equivalent of Budha or Aristotle or Confucius.
It's fair to say the culture is younger, but they have a very complete Shinto deity mythos that's just as lavish and nuanced as the Greek gods.
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.
>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.
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.
*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.
I have not read the whole blog, but at least one critical part of it is already out of date.
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 !
I actually like the "queue and stamp" and "queue and show"!
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.
> I have never had an experience like this with a machine, not even close.
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
The only thing you can't do (yet ?) is change a seat reservation already assigned to a different journey. You need to go to the counter for that .... or just use your JR pass without seat reservation.
Basically, they use the entire dynamic range. 3 stars for "as expected" is eminently sensible, but the west and especially the US suffers so much from review inflation that you could really remove 2 if not 3 stars of a 5-star scale: either a reddit/hn-style up/down, or possibly have a middle-ground "at expectations".
Yeah, a lot of review inflation in the US. I see loads of 4-star reviews on Goodreads as well as the restaurant review apps. I wish people would use the entire range as it makes the review more valuable.
But even if you encourage that it's still pointless, because you don't know how people have used it, or with what distribution.
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.
Yes this is practical in theory, but it's bad if their rating is mixed to rest of the world. Worldwide products like games review gets fewer stars by Japanese compared to others, some people think it's a problem.
I remember when I first started using rideshare, the drivers instructed people to leave 4 star ratings if bad, 5 star if good. That’s why everyone has a 4+ star ratingz
I mean, how else would you distinguish that restaurant from "Food was sublime, service ranged from movie-star charm to invisibly dealing with my every need, payment was waived in favour of a small donation to my favourite cat charity. 5 stars"
In my view scores are relative to expectations, usually tied to price. A restaurant with a $50 meal and a 3 star score will likely have better food than one with a $5 meal and 5 stars on an absolute scale, but the people who got their $5 meal were happy with it and the ones with the $50 meal were disappointed.
Mine too! I was drawing the comparison between the two schools of thought using an example. I imagine, but don’t have any evidence, that the absolute scale dominates culturally in Japan, and the relative scale in the west.
And American reviewers are pretty much the most generous out there. My rule of thumb is that a 3.5 rating by Japanese equates to a 4.5 rating by Americans. Seriously.
It depends. I've seen reviews like "Excellent food, loved the atmosphere, some of the best <local food> I've had. However, when I asked for the check, waiter came directly with the POS and told me explicitly that tip was not included in the check. 1/5".
I'm 3 days away from my return flight after spending a month in Japan (I'm here for the first time). I regret leaving the cities. Now I'm back in Tokyo and I feel back at home.
My trip was: Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima, Miyakojima, Tokyo. Miyakojima, except being tropical "paradise-like island" made me _finish_ two games on my phone.
Sounds like you went to five cities and Miyakojima. And yeah if you don’t like tropical islands (in winter) then it’s not surprising Miyakojima wasn’t your tea.
For context I’m an American born to a British expat who has family from Birmingham down to London, Exeter, Reading and Cornwall. I have been to the UK 30-40 times and spent considerable time (spans of weeks) in England outside London both in other cities as well as countryside over the last 40+ years.
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.
This is quite true, I've found. I have a very extensive pinned map of the UK that I share with people and most of the really interesting places are outside of London.
The same situation for people visiting the US and they only ever go to some major US city like New York City or Los Angeles. Visit some place that's more than 100 miles from the ocean and isn't an urban downtown center.
All the Filipinos I meet here say if they could go to the US, the first place they would go is Las Vegas. I tell them, "that's the last place you should go in the US, it's just a tourist trap" but it took me a while to figure out that culturally, they want the tourist trap experience and would prefer Vegas, LA, or NYC to someplace like Bozeman MT, Estes Park CO, Beaufort SC, or <pick your most beautiful town in the US>.
I realise this is more to reinforce your self concept of contempt towards flyover country than out of any familiarity with either place but did you do five minutes research?
I’d happily spend a week in Denver. Looks pretty nice.
Yep, I've visited both Phoenix and Denver before to see friends. I would not recommend someone coming to the US visit them.
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.
Thing is, I've spent a lot of time in Colorado and there's a lot of beautiful places in the front range of the Rockies that are a short drive from Denver. So yeah, maybe not Denver the city but you're not far from Estes Park or Golden.
Oh for sure, but I don't think most people travel for nature (with a couple exceptions like the grand canyon, Mt Fuji, etc). There's amazing natural beauty all throughout north America.
The coast is what the US actually is. There's more people on the coasts than not. I truly don't understand where the idea that the coasts aren't the "real" US comes from. They're more real than some city nobody moves to in a state barely anyone lives in.
There's a big difference between going to NYC and LA vs visiting small towns close to coast.
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.
It's not 50%, it's well over 50%. there's no hard numbers on this, but I would guess it's 70-80%.It's more than most people who live in the US have seen of it.
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've known practically all my life that I never want to visit NYC. I would like to visit a city like Pittsburgh though, or Charleston, or Milwaukee (and other US cities and towns smaller than these three too).
Never attracted me and the aesthetics of the city and its surrounding immediate environment put me off. (I would still like to visit other parts of New York state though.) There's a weirdness to the city, at least how I see it from afar and, to be fair, I'm sure in a somewhat distorted manner through media. Movies and TV shows set there put me off (even Seinfeld which I enjoy). Only The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill and The Chosen by Chaim Potok have shown me some charm in the place, and the music of New York native Suzanne Vega.
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.
Rome is amazing, so straight off the bat that piece of advice will not work for everyone.
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.
“Probably” does a lot of heavy lifting in my aforementioned rule of thumb. There are some major cities that are worth visiting despite the tourists.
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.
IMHO if you want to visit Paris the city (vs. Paris the symbol), you can ignore the Eiffel Tower and the Arch de Triumph, which are monuments that have not much to do with the history of the city itself, and instead wander around in Montmartre / Saint-Germain / le Marais / islands de la Cité and Saint-Louis / along the Seine and the canal Saint-Martin.
Can't resist taking this opportunity to link to my favourite ever piece of travel writing, about Huis ten Bosch: the enormous theme park near Nagasaki where the theme of the park is Holland.
I’m not sure about the off the beaten path as general advice. There’s people who will always go off the beaten path because that’s what they do. Getting around and finding things to do in large cities is much easier than rural ones.
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.
Get change (coins) and try things from vending machines - particularly, the hot milk tea on a cold morning, but be prepared to carry your trash all day until you get back home. Try foods in supermarkets or convenience stores, especially weird candy. Bring Google Translate to use live translation mode. If you're not sure if your phone has the right bands for high speed internet, or how to get a sim card, you can rent a phone, though a dude in a suit will come deliver it to you and make you sign the contract. Eat a giant bowl of curry rice at a curry rice place where you choose your order from a giant ticket dispensing machine. Make a friend and join them at an Izakaya. In Tokyo, definitely go to Golden Gai and do karaoke in a tiny bar. The Miyazaki Museum requires advanced tickets and is usually sold out. If you go to Hiroshima, do not miss the Peace Memorial Museum, Miyajima Island, the cherry blossoms, or the okonomiyaki.
> If you go to Hiroshima, do not miss… the cherry blossoms
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.
For some more inspiration, James May of Top Gear experienced the not-standard-tourist-stuff of Japan, although some of it is "he's from TV so he has access to things mere mortals don't": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JzeSxx0LC4
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
I have also lived in Japan for almost all of my adult life (age twenty-six to my current sixty-five), and the recommendations on the linked page all look good to me—better than any that I would be able to give. He has obviously travelled more around Japan than I have.
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.
The restaurant and drink recommendations in this post are... not great. I do agree that you want to aim for places that don't cater to tourists, but it's honestly pretty easy to give specific recommendations if you're into food and/or drinking.
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.
I'm in Japan right now. I've heard this advice almost word for word from other people and the best advice I can give is don't take anyone's advice.
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
I agree with you about not listening to anybody. Even here on HN. I mean, people saying "stay out of the cities" -- nope! Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, they are all beautiful and interesting and worth spending time in, if that's your "theme" as you called it.
"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.
> Oh wait, one thing. This is the only real advice. There's travel SIMs at convenience stores
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've traveled all 47 prefectures of Japan, and done all sorts of "edgy" stuff that AtlasObscura has yet to cover, such as trails where only several dozen people have crossed that season. I've also revisited tourist hotspots like Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto several dozen times.
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.
Regarding restaurants, I think you generally get pretty good mileage out of Tabelog. A key problem for short-term visits is that highly-rated restaurants (>= 3.7) tend to fall into two categories: Either the restaurant is cheap and has a long queue outside it (typically things like ramen, but also cheap+good sushi) or it is expensive and requires a reservation. You generally can't just walk into this kind of restaurant unless you get lucky and it just happens to not be fully booked.
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)
Yo you ever been to Nakiryu for ramen though? It’s fire. The instant stuff they have at 7 is also incredible. (Michelin rated instant noodles. Seriously.)
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.
Yup, I swept 3 ( only 2 are current) Michelin star ramen shops in a week. I was not able to visit Tsuta because founder passed away recently and the shop is closed indefinitely.
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!
I cannot think of a single “tourist trap” beyond Imahan that tastes better than any random place in the same category in Tokyo. Different story outside the city but Tokyo generally has pretty high standards, and places that focus on matching what tourists expect rather than just being good rarely come out well
Granted I guess I like stuff here so I’m not the target audience!
I meant relative to tourist traps in other countries, wherein all the tourist traps in Japan are still edible whereas there have been places abroad I simply just discarded. I would consider the tourist traps in Japan to be below average compared to same-category restaurants but they tend to have some experiential bit or decor that makes up for the lower food quality. It could be as simple as having an English menu.
This is a wonderful post, thank you :) I haven’t lived in Japan for an extended period, but it tracks with my experience exactly — particularly the bit about food, where I’ve had very limited success with scoring-based sites like tabelog and have come to greatly prefer explicit recommendations.
To use the physics sense, we found vacationing in Japan high friction. Yeah, it was totally different than anywhere we have been on n America or Western Europe. At times, it felt like we were looking at everything on the other side of a closed window, amazing yet inaccessible. This was ‘05 or earlier, and the lack of Roman lettering outside Kyoto was hard. Outrunning English has not been a problem elsewhere, but losing the ability to read was hard. We had a native set up our trains and hotels, and could not imagine trying to do it ourselves. Packaged tours suck, so that was never considered.
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.
I would agree that would have been the case years ago. Nowadays with the equivalent of babelfish on our phones, language barriers have come close to being almost non existent.
Totally agree with it - IMHO the main enabler being Google maps with public transit support. In both 2017 & 2019 we were able to get by with that + some rudimentary Japanese on some actually non-trivial trips sometimes.
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. :)
Was hoping that was the case, good to see. Seamless translation as part of my glasses would be great, as waving one’s phone about looks a little dorky. And I would have Arthur’s response to a babelfish I fear. The lack of subtlety in Roman lettering made pattern recognition easy, harder with complex symbology.
One thing that helps -- besides the Google translate app -- is to learn Katakana and Hiragana before you leave. There are only ~48 characters in each and they match each other 1:1 (think of Katakana as "printing" and Hiragana as "cursive"). Each character represents only one sound (unlike English) so it's easy to learn the symbol-to-sound mapping. Most signage and menus include one or the other and being able to sound out the phonemes dramatically increases one's feeling of being able to read. You can learn either from its Wikipedia page:
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.
> Outrunning English has not been a problem elsewhere, but losing the ability to read was hard
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.
I went to Japan in recent years and it was frictionless. Plenty of English signs, more people than I was led to believe spoke at least rudimentary English, and Google translate worked in a pinch.
Aside from not being famous or beautiful people, we liked and sorta related to lost in translation. They were good trips, and I encourage anybody from n America to visit the war museums in Tokyo and especially Hiroshima. Everybody should do Hiroshima. All in the spirit of “never again”.
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.
> I sort of liked old times when you had to interact with locals, nowadays you can just stare at mobile
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.
It misses out on the 2 best places I’ve visited in Japan (possibly ever visited):
- 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.
On the last point, luggage delivery hotel-to-hotel and hotel-to-airport is easy and one of my favorite unique services in Japan! About $15 per bag and then you don't have to carry your bag through the train station. Except on trains that specifically go to the airport e.g. N'EX / Narita Express, seems all local tourists use a luggage delivery service service.
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:
Its also a perfect combination for taking the Shimanami Kaido bike route over the Inland Sea islands (https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3478.html) - you can send your bags to the destination and then bike to route. Some friends of mine did that & it worked perfectly. :)
I've been to Japan on five visits. From my limited experience, I agree with what the blog suggests.
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".
I did notice the change in Japan from 2008 to 2016. Got yelled at by a surly JR ticket person, which I found surprising.
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.
So, he obviously knows better than me, but i prefered osaka over tokyo a lot. If you’re european, you’ll probably feel the vibe is a bit cooler and more familiar than the typical salaryman tokyo
Yeah that’s true. As a solo european traveler it was a little bit easier to connect and talk to others in Osaka than Tokyo. And way less tourists, because most of people go to Kyoto i guess.
Kinda felt that way - we spent a week in Shinsekai in Osaka - in an area Japanese people apparently consider a bit dodgy - it was a bit more dirty, people not following all rules 100% of time and some questionable businesses here and there - really reminded us of home back in Europe! ;-)
I would be careful with his advise on money. If you came to Japan in the past 3 months with no cash and a Visa card, you would be in deep shit. Visa cards are just not working here and it seems nobody cares to fix it.
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.
Yeah, I really doubt that would be issue for more than few days, any source to this wild claim?
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.
I literally landed in Japan today for the first time since COVID:
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.
This is interesting... when I visited recently I realized that Suica on Apple Wallet was more convenient than the physical card. The top reason is that you can use Apple Pay to top up your Suica whenever and wherever you are, without downloading any special app or needing to login to something.
However, one of my credit cards didn't work for that with no clear reason given, but a different one worked almost every time.
Interesting, perhaps it has been fixed. I need to try tomorrow. In August it was definitely broken for several weeks for multiple people.
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.
The part where it said that cards can be widely accepted made me chuckle. Don't fall for it, cards wouldn't be accepted in most places where you'd go, and in half of those places your card wouldn't be working because it wasn't issued in Japan.
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
This has changed immensely in the past 4 years. Night and day. I would not recommend going card only (and lots of restaurants will be cash only for lunch) but honestly at this point my cash spending in face to face transactions has plummeted immensely.
Though for countryside stuff… I feel like PayPay has a lot more success than cards
Is it still more or less socially expected to wear a face mask everywhere, even outside? My wife and I are interested to return to Japan, but it won't feel like much of a vacation if we have to be masked 16 hours per day.
I'm currently in Tokyo on holidays. Everywhere I've visited (Hakone, Nikko, Kamakura, Fujiyoshida), everyone is wearing masks both inside and outside. The only times I take my mask off are when I'm eating, drinking or in my hotel room.
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.
Tokyo has so much going on that you can pretty much follow your own highly niche interests and have a good time there. No need to get bogged down in people’s “takes” on how to do it right.
Takenaka Carpentry Tool Museum in Kobe. Most exhibits are in Japanese only but if you know woodworking you can probably piece together what the tools do.
What it’s like to travel and especially dine with small children? Our is 1 and 3 and not exactly behaved in Japanese nor European terms - they make mess and break things in restaurants. Will we have hard time in Japan?
If you just let them behave as normal you will have exceptionally hard time. Unless you're are really doing your best to correct them and meet behavioral expectations, then you'll find people are very forgiving. But truly, you'll have to show that you're trying.
Should tourism be disallowed for everyone except activists? How would local communities respond to outsiders coming in trying to solve local problems without the necessary cultural context?
> It’s super hard when the locals are drowned out by hordes of self-interested tourists who have no interest in gender equality, wage suppression, insane zero-consequence sexual harassment + power abuse, and a lot of other issues.
In what way does a tourist spending a week in an area drown out those issues?
What do you think that Japanese people are doing when they're travelling around with their 全国旅行支援? Are they not allowed to enjoy their vacation because the country has problems?
Of course Japanese people do it as well, including in their own country (see: Miyakojima). The escapist fantasy problem is something you see in almost every “cool” place. Island paradises, ski towns, Australian country towns, etc all have the same issue — people thinking they’re running away from their problems, but actually bringing them along to wherever they go (hence why all of these places to “rest and rewind” or whatever tend to be easy places to score drugs, meet alcoholics, and so on).
Japan attracts a disproportionate number of foreign people, especially foreign residents, who actively celebrate their ongoing escapist delusion. The difference is, Japanese society is too reserved and passive-aggressive to openly call people out on their BS. Thus, when other foreigners see this happening, we should call it out for what it is. Whattaboutism isn’t the answer.
This guy has lived in Japan for long enough to have a bit more balance than this ridiculous how-to guide to being blissfully ignorant of your temporary surroundings while attempting to extract maximum value from them.
You seem to be attacking an odd strawman here. patio11 is providing advice to visitors in Japan for a week, a large group of people that has almost zero overlap with the small but noisy "moving to Japan will fix all my problems" weeaboo crowd.
This reminds me of the "LBH" acronym that I heard about very often when Japanese locals describe typically western, especially American, tourists, who fit quite well into your identity description.
"Loser Back Home"
I didn't even know this stereotype existed until I got into a "so what do you think about all those escapist western tourists in your country" conversation with one of my Japanese friends (I'm from a very international UK area). Goes to show how withheld it really is. You are certainly right about that.
I've never heard anybody refer to tourists with that term? FILTH (failed in London, try Hong Kong) etc is for people trying to advance their life/career in Asia, not a visitor in town for a week.
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.