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Recommendations for Japan Travel

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Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#81

Post by rizzaxc »

ehnto wrote: post #45

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 pe…

you'll find that almost every major corner of the internet is obsessed with Japan

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#82

Post by zztop44 »

kissiel wrote: post #35
pyb wrote: post #8

"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.

I'm 3 days away from my return flight after spending a month in Japan (I'm here for the first time). I regret leaving the cities. Now I'm back in Tokyo and I feel back at home. My trip was: Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima, Miyakojima, Tokyo. Miyakojima, except being tropical "paradise-like island" made me _finish_ two games on my phone.

Sounds like you went to five cities and Miyakojima. And yeah if you don’t like tropical islands (in winter) then it’s not surprising Miyakojima wasn’t your tea.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#83

Post by kalleboo »

bluepizza wrote: post #46
rjh29 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've stayed in a bunch of them across the country but maybe I haven't been to any particularly rough areas. They all have a practically identical layout (both building and rooms) as far as I can tell. Any examples?

I am not talking about layout. I am talking about unclean bathrooms and beds, mold, cigarrette smells in the corridors, people falling over in the corridors, weird noises at night, aircons that don't work. APA does not provide top notch maintenance for its hotels in Kiyosumi-Shirakawa, Nishi Kasai, Meidaimae, or any non important area. If you stay in the hotel close to the central station of a small town - that's tou…

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)

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#84

Post by jleyank »

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.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#85

Post by kalleboo »

kristopolous wrote: post #66

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…

> 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)

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#86

Post by joenot443 »

ehnto wrote: post #45

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 pe…

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.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#87

Post by CPLX »

pyb wrote: post #8

"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.

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.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#88

Post by pverghese »

jleyank wrote: post #84

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 los…

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.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#89

Post by hk__2 »

simondotau wrote: post #18
pyb wrote: post #8

"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.

My new rule of thumb for travel is that if I’ve heard of the city, it probably sucks.

How does it work in Italy?

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#90

Post by b4je7d7wb »

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.

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