Recommendations for Japan Travel • Hacker News Board

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#101

Post by wyclif » Sun, Dec 04, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

Razengan wrote: post #36

rjh29 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is this a reference to American obesity or something else..?

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.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#102

Post by the_af » Sun, Dec 04, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

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…

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.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#103

Post by pyb » Sun, Dec 04, 2022, 1:55 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #87

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…

The countryside around Reading is incredible. Did you explore it ? In contrast with the city itself, which is pretty generic.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#104

Post by jeromegv » Sun, Dec 04, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

teerak wrote: post #92

> 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…

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.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#105

Post by wyclif » Sun, Dec 04, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #93

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 speci…

There's also "Amerikamura" (America Town) in Osaka: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerikamura

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#106

Post by wyclif » Sun, Dec 04, 2022, 2:03 PM UTC

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.

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.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#107

Post by wyclif » Sun, Dec 04, 2022, 2:07 PM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #26

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.

The same situation for people visiting the US and they only ever go to some major US city like New York City or Los Angeles. Visit some place that's more than 100 miles from the ocean and isn't an urban downtown center.

All the Filipinos I meet here say if they could go to the US, the first place they would go is Las Vegas. I tell them, "that's the last place you should go in the US, it's just a tourist trap" but it took me a while to figure out that culturally, they want the tourist trap experience and would prefer Vegas, LA, or NYC to someplace like Bozeman MT, Estes Park CO, Beaufort SC, or .

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#108

Post by wyclif » Sun, Dec 04, 2022, 2:09 PM UTC

barry-cotter wrote: post #78

amrocha wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. Most US cities outside the coasts are awful places to visit. What's someone gonna do in Phoenix or Denver?

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...

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.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#109

Post by wyclif » Sun, Dec 04, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #16

hinoki wrote: post #3

> 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.

Basically, they use the entire dynamic range. 3 stars for "as expected" is eminently sensible, but the west and especially the US suffers so much from review inflation that you could really remove 2 if not 3 stars of a 5-star scale: either a reddit/hn-style up/down, or possibly have a middle-ground "at expectations".

Yeah, a lot of review inflation in the US. I see loads of 4-star reviews on Goodreads as well as the restaurant review apps. I wish people would use the entire range as it makes the review more valuable.

Re: Recommendations for Japan Travel

#110

Post by throwawaaarrgh » Sun, Dec 04, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

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.