Travelling to Japan

[Helios]

Due to current circumstances, I've had time to plan another trip for when things go back to normal and travel re-opens.
I just wanted this to be a thread about going to Japan. People who have gone, and places they recommend, or people who are interested in travelling, and might want some questions answered. Things to do, places to book a hotel, and so on.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tobacco-salt-museum
Here's an example of what the appeal of Japan was, to me at least. A multi-story museum about the history of tobacco and salt in Japan. It features a replica mayan temple area, a saint Kinga statue carved out of salt from Poland (also the salt museums mascot), and the history of the sale of tobacco in Japan.
This all for 100 yen, or 93 cents american.
I had a list of museums or other places I wanted to visit in Tokyo or Japan. I was able to bunch of visit of these on my first trip, and can answer questions about them.
https://goo.gl/maps/SD5zFRk5Qdmz4Ycf9
/trv/put together an autistic supermap of sights, restaurants, and shopping if you want a more comprehensive list.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid= ... 48374&z=12

[Helios]

I am going to reply to myself.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7mh42m
There's a certain technophile subculture, that will create a landmark or museum of something that they put a lot of cool new tech into. This video being a perfect example, they turned a ship they were proud of, into a museum you can go to in Yokohama. The fact it ran on Diesel instead of coal on the 1930s, water sealing doors, and non-electronic smoke detectors and CO2 extinguishers. They have love letters to works people made, and you can feel it when you're there. The craftsmen wanting to show you their dedication to the craft.

Also you can get a bottle of whiskey for under 6USD

[ThanatosRa]

Don't get the Rona.

[Helios]

Man, I'm not going back until shit goes back to normal.
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20 ... na/090000c

" The government is planning to lure back foreign visitors by covering half of their travel expenses.

The 1.35 trillion yen ($12.5 billion) program could start in July if novel coronavirus infections subside soon, Hiroshi Tabata, chief of the agency, told a press conference. "
Might be the cheapest time ever to visit, when they do re-open

[cacogen]

if alcohol is that cheap there how are they not all alcoholics as well as hikis

[Helios]

if alcohol is that cheap there how are they not all alcoholics as well as hikis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomikai
They have to drink with their bosses, and show up to work on time the following day.

[Helios]

Japan looks to be starting to re-open tourism, so I took another look at flight prices.

They are damn cheap.
776$ CAD is 572.25 USD

And there's pretty inexpensive Airbnb places, if you look through the monthly rates section. That accomodation for 4 is about 600 USD, or 150$ a month per person. That''d be slumming it a bit, but there's some pretty inexpensive places

[teepeepee]

Japan looks to be starting to re-open tourism, so I took another look at flight prices.
They are damn cheap.
776$ CAD is 572.25 USD
And there's pretty inexpensive Airbnb places, if you look through the monthly rates section. That accomodation for 4 is about 600 USD, or 150$ a month per person. That''d be slumming it a bit, but there's some pretty inexpensive places

does that include key money and the gaijin tax?

[Helios]

Japan looks to be starting to re-open tourism, so I took another look at flight prices.
They are damn cheap.
776$ CAD is 572.25 USD
And there's pretty inexpensive Airbnb places, if you look through the monthly rates section. That accomodation for 4 is about 600 USD, or 150$ a month per person. That''d be slumming it a bit, but there's some pretty inexpensive places

does that include key money and the gaijin tax?

Yes

[Nabski]

Our islands catch phrase is Helios in animal crossing.

Enjoy your trip you weeb.

[Helios]

Our islands catch phrase is Helios in animal crossing.

Enjoy your trip you weeb.

I am actually curious how much it would cost for other people to fly over.
How much would it cost to fly from your local city to Tokyo, From Oct 1-31st?

[bobbahbrown]

yhz to hnd and back for me is in the area of $225 cad

[Helios]

yhz to hnd and back for me is in the area of $225 cad

That sounds unreasonably low.
Are you working in the airline industry and getting a discount?

[Nabski]

Our islands catch phrase is Helios in animal crossing.

Enjoy your trip you weeb.

I am actually curious how much it would cost for other people to fly over.
How much would it cost to fly from your local city to Tokyo, From Oct 1-31st?

715 if I was willing to take a 19 hour connecting flight on Air Canada. 1058 otherwise.

I've had a VERY bad time with Air Canada one time while trying to go to Greece with my family. I spent 20 out of 28 hours in the airport and never managed to leave my state. After the full day delay they wanted to route me through boston, to France, then Germany, then Greece where I would then have 6 hours to get from the airport to the cruise ship.

I've done 2 weeks in Korea twice and had a great time. The level of different culture and ease of public transport made it a great adventure.

[bobbahbrown]

yhz to hnd and back for me is in the area of $225 cad

That sounds unreasonably low.
Are you working in the airline industry and getting a discount?

yes

also not a typo yhz not yyz, it'd be yhz to yyz, yyz to hnd and same way back

[Helios]

Does anyone have any experience with learning conversational japanese?
If I was expecting to be there in October, I would believe that learning some conversational japanese, like how to order from restaurants or, ask for directions to the hospital may be useful

[Jack7D1]

Watch anime

[Cobby]

you have to be careful with anime because if you use the equivalent to "yeah waddup yo" to someone you should be using "yes, can I help you?" with people might find that rude.

In regards to a conversational resource, genki is an alright one. Definitely would recomment anki as a flashcard resource. Since you might be time-bound you should probably supplement some of the genki book with youtube videos that go over topics you believe are more relevant.

I have not tried duo-lingo or other programs like that but the important part is to keep up with it in a way that's fun for you.

Also you might want to look into the foreigner pass for the subway if you haven't already.

[bobbahbrown]

adding onto what cobby said if you want to travel around a bit get a japan rail pass, they only allow foreigners to get it and iirc its a very very good price for rail travel compared to what Japanese citizens pay IF you are planning on traveling around (staying in one city will likely not justify the cost)

you can see a map of some of the routes that the JR pass covers on that page, along with a lot of other info

[Qbmax32]

ive always wanted to spend the night in a capsule hotel, seems like it could be a cool experience

[Jzoid]

Japan looks to be starting to re-open tourism, so I took another look at flight prices.

They are damn cheap.
776$ CAD is 572.25 USD

And there's pretty inexpensive Airbnb places, if you look through the monthly rates section. That accomodation for 4 is about 600 USD, or 150$ a month per person. That''d be slumming it a bit, but there's some pretty inexpensive places

i've been wanting to go japan for a while too

tickets that cheap, i may actually do it
but the fact that you also live in toronto makes me uncomfortable

[Helios]

There's a news crew at major airports, and they're just there to interview foreigners, as to why they are in Japan
https://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/youhananishi ... 02271.html
>A man who loves Japanese swords more than a Japanese does!
>A japanese sword specialist with blue eyes
If you come to them with good enough story, they will be able to get you into places.
This is one of the more advanced techniques in Japan, as you can get your 15 minutes of fame immediately upon entering the country.

Check it out, it's a fun site.

[Helios]

http://www.booking.com/Share-g4Ry4P
This hotel seemed to be surprisingly cheap.

More and more I see that people make no money in Japan, but have a very low cost of living.

With tax, you can get a bottle of Strawberry coke for 50 cents American at a discount grocery store.

[Sheodir]

Lived there for six months. My biggest piece of advice is to avoid the tourist traps, and if you can get someone that speaks the language to a half decent amount attach yourselves to them. Akihabara, for example, is a huge tourist trap. It's weebcentral and known for being friendly to foreigners with plenty of English speakers, but they'll overcharge you up the ass for everything from food to music. On topic of the whole "interviewing foreigners" stuff, and I say this as someone who loved the experience, those aren't really funny engagements with foreigners, it's making fun of them.

Japanese racism is something you'll experience if you aren't Japanese yourself and it's a bit weird. It's very condescending. "Oh, he can use chopsticks!" "Oh, he speaks the language!" (constant fucking surprise for me) "He's so tall!" and these will happen often, and they'll talk down to you all the time. It didn't bother me that much, but it can feel a little bit weird to be led by the hand in absolutely everything. I'd also recommend doing the main Tokyo spots in like a week then doing a lot of the small rural routes - Tono, Iiyama, in fact all of Nagano is pretty great and well priced and there are good rural touring companies in the Tokyo region, and seem to be the kind of thing you'll enjoy. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck and it's an experience - the only issue is that a lot don't offer interpreters, so again, finding someone who can speak the language is key. (This is a bit too rushed given your timescale, but the spoken Japanese language is piss easy to learn. Very repetitive phrasing and consistent structure. The writing, however, will take most of your life to master the high school level stuff.)

You're looking for hotel options in Yokohama and I don't recommend that unless your budget is already plentiful - the prices seem great but they're actually a fair bit jacked up compared to what you can get at Chuo Ward or other places in Greater Tokyo, and transit between them is fast and easy. Stuff like kitchens in hotels is pretty needless in my opinion (food in Japan can be notably cheap) and jacks up the price considerably.

I'm focusing on hotels because I really, strongly urge you not to do shared housing, because a lot of my friends did the same mistake. You're usually looking at shared housing with *other foreigners*, and the number one mistake people do when going to Japan for tourism is assembling into these small blobs of foreigners that wander a bit aimlessly from tourist trap to tourist trap and don't get to engage much with the culture. If you can't find a friend or someone who knows the language to carry you around, there are professional interpreters for hire in most airports, but I recommend looking up someone online (a local) and checking their prices, usually divided by 8 hours - the cheapest I personally found though was around 120 CAD a day converted, so that might be a bit pricy for you. Then again, a friend of mine said he had good success not knowing the language with nothing but a dictionary and common phrases, so who knows.

Apologies for the disjointed rant.

[oranges]

go to nz instead