[HN Gopher] Recommendations for Japan Travel
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Recommendations for Japan Travel
Author : rugsdirect
Score : 331 points
Date : 2022-12-04 10:57 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.kalzumeus.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.kalzumeus.com)
| roobs wrote:
| 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 :)
|
| [1] = many sources, see:
| https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/01/25/national/despit...
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanhatesthis/book-foun...
| zerocrates wrote:
| He posted mentioning this on Twitter quite recently so I think
| the post itself is new, but the content within may not be.
| patio11 wrote:
| I was surprised Deus Ex had shut down, but it is not exactly
| like they had an obligation to send me a memo.
| zerocrates wrote:
| 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.
| valenterry wrote:
| Dormy Inn is awesome. Has really become my favorite hotel chain
| in Japan.
| bluepizza wrote:
| 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.
| rjh29 wrote:
| 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.
| bluepizza wrote:
| 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.
| rjh29 wrote:
| 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?
| bluepizza wrote:
| 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.
| kalleboo wrote:
| I've stayed in an APA that literally had a sign outside
| advertising short stays (=love hotel) and even that one
| was really nice and well-run (lol)
| bluepizza wrote:
| You got lucky, the short stays is a hallmark of bad shit
| going down
| wirthjason wrote:
| Interesting. My wife worked for APA. I never heard about this
| before, I'll have to ask.
| timr wrote:
| Yes, I do my best to avoid APA for this reason.
|
| Other major business hotel chains:
|
| * Toyoko Inn
|
| * Dormy Inn (almost always has a bath on the top floor!)
|
| * Candeo hotels (same!)
|
| * M's hotels (there are many variations on the "M's" name)
|
| * Unizo
|
| * Smile hotel
|
| * Hotel mystays
|
| * Hotel livemax
|
| * Daiwa Roynet
|
| ...and tons of others that are less universal. While there are
| subtle differences between them (e.g. some have better beds,
| others have laundry facilities, some have public baths on the
| top floor), virtually all "business hotels" have the same set
| of features, down to the layout of the rooms, and can usually
| be had for $50-$100 a night. That said, they are _small_ , and
| you will not be happy if you're the kind of tourist who lugs
| multiple large suitcases everywhere you go, or if you're
| seeking a "luxury" experience.
|
| Business hotels are cheap places to crash for a night and
| little more.
| rjh29 wrote:
| 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.
| Razengan wrote:
| Is this a reference to American obesity or something else..?
| wyclif wrote:
| 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.
| kristopolous wrote:
| 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.
| rjh29 wrote:
| 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.
| kaybe wrote:
| 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.
| justusw wrote:
| 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.
| netsharc wrote:
| 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
| wirthjason wrote:
| 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 (Xiao Jiang Hu ) 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.
| jleyank wrote:
| 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.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| 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:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana
|
| Kanji is a whole different deal: That's the writing system with
| tens of thousands of characters. It helps to learn the most
| common few of these, but it's completely unnecessary to learn
| more than that to have an enjoyable time as a tourist.
| gniv wrote:
| Your comment reminded me of Lost in Translation (which came out
| in 2003).
| jleyank wrote:
| 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.
| pverghese wrote:
| 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.
| jleyank wrote:
| 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.
| ncpa-cpl wrote:
| > 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.
| Klonoar wrote:
| It has gotten so significantly easier post '05 that I would
| discount your entire post and encourage you to go again if you
| wanted to try it.
|
| We're talking almost 20 years here.
| the_af wrote:
| 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.
| Markoff wrote:
| TIL people call Latin alphabet Roman lettering
|
| 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.
| ncpa-cpl wrote:
| > 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.
| majewsky wrote:
| The term "Latin alphabet" is correct in English, but the
| Japanese do indeed call it romaZi ("roomaji", i.e. Roman
| characters).
| ncpa-cpl wrote:
| There's the term romanization which is the word used when
| another writing system is converted to roman/latin letters
| donatj wrote:
| 2008, pre-smartphone we were staying at a hotel in Osaka. We
| asked the English speaking concierge where we could do our
| laundry.
|
| Unexpectedly they sprung up and walked us 3 solid blocks to a
| near by laundromat. It was the most amazing service I have ever
| received.
|
| We spent 2 weeks traveling around the country and this was our
| experience in a nutshell. Everyone was so kind and helpful.
| monokai_nl wrote:
| Went to Japan in 2019 and made a one page photo diary of the
| places I visited. For those interested:
| https://monokai.nl/2019/japan/
| ianpenney wrote:
| 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. osusumehaHe
| desuka? They have a pizza that's not on the English menu. A woman
| from Boston sat at the counter and annoyed absolutely everyone in
| the restaurant with her loud, obnoxious behaviour, poor Japanese
| accent, and "I'm the main character" vibes. Classic Roppongi.
|
| She didn't get the secret pizza.
| Klonoar wrote:
| 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)
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| 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.
| tannedNerd wrote:
| 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.
| ianpenney wrote:
| Learning to say the following in the language of the land
| will get you further than 99% of tourists.
|
| Hello
|
| Please
|
| Thank you
|
| Excuse me
|
| I'm sorry
|
| Most notably - speaking Catalan instead of Spanish in
| Barcelona will endear you to locals in a way you wouldn't
| believe.
|
| You do you, though. I had to google the hiragana for that
| phrase. I can't read Japanese worth a damn.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| > Aka gate keeping.
|
| 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.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Where, exactly did you get that? By the fact that there's a
| single secret item only in the Japanese menu? _Oh no how
| exclusive!_
|
| Just don't be an rude boisterous tourist and you'll be fine.
| That's the _actual_ message in the parent comment.
| firemanx wrote:
| 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.
|
| Kyoto was incredible.
| riko41 wrote:
| Here are some additional ideas for off the beaten path Japan:
|
| - Rent a car, better yet, rent a cheap camper van[1]. Save a ton
| of money on hotels.
|
| - Get a local 4G internet card. Save on roaming charges.
|
| - Set the option to "Avoid tolls" and "Avoid motorways" on your
| favorite navigation app. Slower, cheaper and much better scenery.
|
| - Sleep on Road side stations(free and safe), bath on hot
| springs, wash your clothes on funny laundrettes.
|
| - Use an app[2] with offline mode and content in English.
|
| [1]https://www.japancampers.com/
|
| [2]https://apps.apple.com/us/app/michi-japan-road-guide-
| offline...
| mysecretaccount wrote:
| Can you sleep in a camper at michi no eki that lack campsites?
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Two caveats about renting cars in Japan:
|
| 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.
| hn30000 wrote:
| 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.
| wittyusername wrote:
| 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.
| mysecretaccount wrote:
| 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.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| 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 !
| GuB-42 wrote:
| 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.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| 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.
| npinsker wrote:
| 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.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| > I've traveled all 47 prefectures of Japan
|
| 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!
| nikic wrote:
| 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.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| > tend to fall into two categories
|
| 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)
| [deleted]
| rtpg wrote:
| 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!
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| 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.
| ianpenney wrote:
| 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.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| tkgally wrote:
| 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.
| impendia wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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.
| TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote:
| Don't worry, any places foreigners are forbidden from entering,
| are clearly marked.
| BonoboIO wrote:
| Where would that be?
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| 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.
| rippercushions wrote:
| 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.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| 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.
| raylad wrote:
| If you don't have good or any phone service, organicmaps
| works well.
| awslattery wrote:
| Google Maps + Suica worked wonders in 2019!
| greggman3 wrote:
| 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, ...)
| mnky9800n wrote:
| I feel like if you followed the advice and kept inside
| yamanote this is totally feasible
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Highly disagree.
|
| 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.
| oska wrote:
| > 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".
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| I don't even know how to respond to this take.
|
| 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?
| oska wrote:
| > but Japanese people _will go_ extremely out of their
| way to help you
|
| You are setting an expectation.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| 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?
| spookthesunset wrote:
| That is what you have a backup for. When I was in Tokyo
| google maps and it's transit info was all I needed.
|
| I have no clue how anybody could navigate that city without
| something like Google Maps.
| Larrikin wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > 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.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| > 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).
| spike021 wrote:
| 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.
| packetslave wrote:
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| barking_biscuit wrote:
| >because of the addressing scheme that I've not totally
| grokked to this day
|
| The buildings are numbered in the order they were built
| :P
| lordbigglesby wrote:
| 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.
| b4je7d7wb wrote:
| 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.
| Markoff wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://atadistance.net/2022/09/19/foreign-visa-cards-blocke...
| ValentineC wrote:
| 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.
| kondro wrote:
| That's because you generally can't use foreign credit cards
| to top up Suica.
| erjiang wrote:
| 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.
| asutekku wrote:
| YMMV but my visa worked perfectly fine during my trip there
| last month.
| b4je7d7wb wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| teerak wrote:
| > 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.
| jeromegv wrote:
| 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.
| tbcj wrote:
| 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.
| keb_ wrote:
| 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.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| > YouTube culture
|
| As in YouTuber Logan Paul making a video of Aokigahara
| "suicide forest", among various other shenanigans in Japan
| for views?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Paul#2017%E2%80%932018:
| _...
| keb_ wrote:
| 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.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| > online popularity contests
|
| 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.
| ghaff wrote:
| 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.
| jonnybgood wrote:
| 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.
| mc32 wrote:
| 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.
| bentlegen wrote:
| 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.)
| michaelt wrote:
| 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.
| bentlegen wrote:
| 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.
| mc32 wrote:
| 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.
| bentlegen wrote:
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/269387/revenue-of-
| expedi...
| simonw wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://spikejapan.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/huis-ten-bosch-o...
|
| Seriously: read the whole thing. There's a bit where bankers take
| investing advice from a psychic ceramic toad. It's wonderful.
|
| When we visited Japan we made a special trip there and it was
| every bit as amazing as this article makes it out to be.
| wyclif wrote:
| There's also "Amerikamura" (America Town) in Osaka:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerikamura
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| 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).
| rjh29 wrote:
| 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
| ehnto wrote:
| 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.
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _Grab the Rail Pass before you fly in_
|
| This doesn't seem to be a must now that JR themselves is
| selling it online (though at a slightly higher price):
|
| https://japanrailpass.net/en/purchase.html
| rjh29 wrote:
| That's good to know. Last time I looked at agencies in my
| country, they were charging more than it costs to buy one
| in Japan!
| tmtvl wrote:
| 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.
| FunnyLookinHat wrote:
| 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. :-)
| rjh29 wrote:
| Nice, not had the chance to visit Matsumoto yet! I lived in
| Kyoto and being surrounded by mountains was definitely one
| of the nicest parts.
| ehnto wrote:
| 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.
| chasely wrote:
| 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.
| davidkuennen wrote:
| That's the way I walked by accident when I was at that shrine
| 4 weeks ago. Very beautiful.
| Legogris wrote:
| For sure. Slight tangent from OP:
|
| > Is climbing Mt. Fuji worth it?
|
| > Yes, though it is very on the beaten path, and you can infer
| some things from that about what the human experience of a Fuji
| trip will be like.
|
| As for the hiking trail and the major mountain stations, this
| is very true. On the other hand - it really is very
| concentrated and the vast majority of tourists will just head
| straight to the hotspots.
|
| Case in point: I happen to live here (Fuji 5 Lakes area;
| technically on Mt Fuji) since a couple of years. Been in and
| around Tokyo for several years prior. This summer, for the
| first time since the start of the pandemic, they finally threw
| the famous usually-yearly fire festival in town here.
|
| It was really something, and even having been to more matsuri
| than I can count, this one really stood out in how lively it
| was, and the fact that it went on throughout the evening (the
| event peaks with the fires after sunset). Packed with locals
| and even more tourists - many thousands of people, including
| hundreds of foreigners. The air was electric. You could feel
| the fires bring out something different in the people. Many
| were drinking, of course.
|
| At the tail end of the event (around 10pm), I went down to the
| local bar area and hung around for a bit. 'twas totally dead.
| Maybe even more than a normal weekend. I didn't see a single
| non-local soul out on the streets or in the few couple of bars.
| It was eerie. You'd think at least a percent or two of the
| visitors would stick around or explore instead of heading
| straight out or to their private accommodations on the dot?
|
| Anyway, apart from just reinforcing your point and OPs about
| the beaten path being very narrow: Do come to Fuji, even off-
| season there's a lot more around here to see and experience
| than that hike itself and locals are still very much in want of
| business.
| valenterry wrote:
| > Do come to Fuji, even off-season there's a lot more around
| here to see and experience than that hike itself and locals
| are still very much in want of business.
|
| Please do tell!
| soneca wrote:
| 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.
| pyb wrote:
| This is kind of true of Venice as well !
| omnibrain wrote:
| > 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.
| eCa wrote:
| 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.
| the_af wrote:
| Cinque Terre is gorgeous though. Out of this world. Unlike
| Venice, which truly is a cliche theme park to me...
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| 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.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| > 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.
| paulette449 wrote:
| 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.
| latchkey wrote:
| I spent 4 years living in Vietnam, so I just had to look up
| Raindrop. Stainless steel tables and Hoi An lights. Definitely,
| legit vn. ;-)
| patio11 wrote:
| 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.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| > 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.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| ^this
|
| 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.
| hinoki wrote:
| > Note that Japanese reviewers are substantially pickier than you
| are
|
| No kidding, I see lots of reviews like: food is tasty, service
| was friendly, price reasonable. 3 stars.
| masklinn wrote:
| 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".
| fomine3 wrote:
| 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.
| wyclif wrote:
| 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.
| OJFord wrote:
| 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.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| 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
| OJFord wrote:
| If someone tells me how to give feedback on them (the
| nature of it), they're getting the worst possible.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| em500 wrote:
| Anecdotally it seems that American reviewers tend to give
| mostly either 1 or 5 stars.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| I recently started tracking the books I read on GoodReads and
| their rating system struck me as the most American one yet:
|
| 5 stars: "it was amazing"
|
| 4 stars: "really liked it"
|
| 3 stars: "liked it"
|
| 2 stars: "it was OK"
|
| 1 star: "did not like it"
|
| I wonder how many people, without any other context, would
| interpret "I'd rate this book 2 out of 5 stars" as "yeah, it
| was OK".
| tsimionescu wrote:
| 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".
| Ekaros wrote:
| When I think about it. I would expect the food I buy to be 1.
| tasty, 2. reasonably priced, and 3. service should not be rude.
|
| Now up these in anyway and star rating should go to 4 or 5.
| Ruarl wrote:
| 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"
| petronio wrote:
| 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.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| 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?
| workingdog wrote:
| 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.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| 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)
| swah wrote:
| 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?
| TheFattestNinja wrote:
| In my xp not for Tokyo. Best you can get is charming alleys
| but still busy. Kyoto bit better but still a hard sell on
| that front
| rippercushions wrote:
| Kyoto is not a small city: it has over 1 million people and
| is part of the Keihanshin sprawl of greater Osaka. Go there
| for the culture, not the city.
| bluepizza wrote:
| 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.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| My recent experience doesn't count - frontiers shut down 2
| days after I arrived, and therefore I lived a very unique
| Kyoto without tourists.
| higeorge13 wrote:
| Must have been great right?
| rjh29 wrote:
| 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.
| numair wrote:
| samhuk wrote:
| 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.
| rippercushions wrote:
| 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.
| samhuk wrote:
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=L.B.H.
| numair wrote:
| _Exactly_ , my friend. If someone has lived here for "all of
| their adult life" or whatever and doesn't yet know that
| Japanese society has always been painfully passive aggressive
| (with a few, um, aggressive-aggressive periods in between), I
| mean ... I don't know what to say.
|
| There's the LBH phenomenon you mention, and then there's
| "country club syndrome" for the rich folk -- who look at
| Japan as one giant country club in which they and their rich
| foreign friends exist as the only characters, surrounded by
| "REALLY great service!" It's also important to note that
| "loser" in Japanese society isn't always what you'd expect,
| but that's a _long_ conversation.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Don't feed the trolls
| Trasmatta wrote:
| 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?
| numair wrote:
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Don't feed the trolls
| jdkoeck wrote:
| Wouldn't you know, if you pick just the right places to visit
| in Japan, you might just solve sexism there! Please.
| rjh29 wrote:
| What do you think that _Japanese_ people are doing when they
| 're travelling around with their Quan Guo Lu Xing Zhi Yuan ?
| Are they not allowed to enjoy their vacation because the
| country has problems?
| numair wrote:
| _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.
| bluepizza wrote:
| France and the UK attract much more foreign tourists than
| Japan.
|
| You seem to have lost perspective. Take it easy. It's not
| that important.
| rippercushions wrote:
| 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.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Don't feed the trolls
| presentation wrote:
| Those are some weird restaurant/cafe recommendations for
| prospective travelers lol
| [deleted]
| rdtwo wrote:
| Anyone know any good guides for traveling with kids? I'd like to
| take a 1st grader to Japan and I'd like to know where to go
| gcheong wrote:
| "I like winter sports"
|
| Try the Gala resort. Train from Tokyo right to it. Onsen on-site
| for after a full day of skiing is a plus:
| https://gala.co.jp/winter/
|
| Would also recommend jigokudani for onsen and monkeys. There is a
| good ryokan nearby: http://www.jigokudanionsen.com/guide/
| bsaul wrote:
| 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
| higeorge13 wrote:
| 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.
| pyb wrote:
| "Very few people take me up on this part of the recommendation:
| get out of the cities if you are here for more than a week in
| your life."
|
| Same situation for visitors to the UK. I've given up trying to
| tell tourists to get out of London, they never listen.
| simondotau wrote:
| My new rule of thumb for travel is that if I've heard of the
| city, it probably sucks.
| hk__2 wrote:
| How does it work in Italy?
| the_af wrote:
| 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.
| mlindner wrote:
| 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.
| Trasmatta wrote:
| If you're only going to one US city though, it might as well
| be NYC.
| oska wrote:
| 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).
| Trasmatta wrote:
| NYC is an amazing place. What about it makes you want to
| never visit?
| oska wrote:
| 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.
| amrocha wrote:
| Hard disagree. Most US cities outside the coasts are awful
| places to visit. What's someone gonna do in Phoenix or
| Denver?
| mantas wrote:
| Experience what the US actually is?
|
| Traveling should be about experience the local reality, not
| cherry picking.
| amrocha wrote:
| 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.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g33388-Activities-
| De...
| amrocha wrote:
| 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.
| wyclif wrote:
| 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.
| amrocha wrote:
| 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.
| pyb wrote:
| We're not talking about cities here.
| amrocha wrote:
| Most people aren't traveling for nature
| wyclif wrote:
| 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>.
| [deleted]
| CPLX wrote:
| 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.
| pyb wrote:
| The countryside around Reading is incredible. Did you explore
| it ? In contrast with the city itself, which is pretty
| generic.
| wyclif wrote:
| 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.
| ianpenney wrote:
| Brighton is SO COOL. No sarcasm. Really loved it.
| kissiel wrote:
| 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.
| zztop44 wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| ehnto wrote:
| 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.
| rizzaxc wrote:
| you'll find that almost every major corner of the internet is
| obsessed with Japan
| OJFord wrote:
| 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.
| wingely wrote:
| Nerds love Japan
| Klonoar wrote:
| I've actually had a running joke with a friend over this, the
| tech industry has a fetish for the place that they don't like
| to acknowledge.
| joenot443 wrote:
| 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.
| publicola1990 wrote:
| 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.
| khuey wrote:
| Does it matter? The distinctiveness is what attracts
| people, not the age.
| workingdog wrote:
| 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.
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| >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.
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Shinto
|
| *That is, to the extent that it didn't already exist
| before. High childhood mortality prevented the concept
| childhood innocence as it exists and is manifested today
| (such as coddling).
| distantaidenn wrote:
| 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.
|
| As others in this thread have mentioned, this hotelier group is
| abhorrent. They are led by an anti-Semitic, anti-Korean, anti-
| Chinese history revisionist. The hotel leaves its disgusting
| diatribe in their company issued magazines conveniently laid out
| in every room within their hotels. This is just the tip of the
| iceberg:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APA_Group_(Japan)#Controversy.
| Here's another link:
| https://www.ft.com/content/d35ec458-df07-11e6-86ac-f253db779....
|
| Given Patrick is a long-term resident of Japan, it's shocking to
| me that he isn't aware of this, or he simply doesn't care.
|
| For anyone reading this, please do not support that company. It
| may seem a small thing, but this ruined the entire tone of the
| post for me.
| justusw wrote:
| 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.
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| 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.
| sammy2255 wrote:
| So the only reason against them is because of their ideologies?
| If the hotels are nice, and cheap, I couldnt care less what
| their ideologies are.
| distantaidenn wrote:
| 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.
| kanbara wrote:
| 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
| ronyfadel wrote:
| 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.
| MarkSweep wrote:
| A couple of observations from my recent trip:
|
| * 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.
| tafda wrote:
| 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:
|
| https://www.global-yamato.com/en/hands-free-travel/scene02.h...
| muststopmyths wrote:
| 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.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| 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".
|
| https://passionpassport.com/nakasendo-trail/
| zdw wrote:
| Anyone have recommendations for a good place to visit that would
| show traditional Japanese woodworking (cabinetry, etc.)
| techniques?
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| 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.
| kristopolous wrote:
| 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 reshito, elevator is erebeta, 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
| the_af wrote:
| 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.
| kalleboo wrote:
| > _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)
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