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StabMasterArson posted:Will be staying in Tokyo for 10 days next month, our apartment is in Ikebukuro. Can anyone recommend some places to check out or avoid around there? Is it worth getting a 7-day train pass? We'd like to check out Akihibara and Harajuku etc but not sure if the passes cover that. Am I going to straight up die from the heat? If you're staying in an AirBnB you should make sure it's ok. Laws are changing in mid-June and lots of places are gonna have trouble staying open for service.
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May 29, 2018 02:22
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Why would anyone not wear shorts and a t shirt in July?
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May 29, 2018 03:58
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Yawgmoft posted:Why would anyone not wear shorts and a t shirt in July? Cuz then people will know you're a filthy traveler and a not a hip resident who wears a three piece suit even in the Tokyo summer.
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May 29, 2018 04:37
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five piece suit
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May 29, 2018 04:43
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Yawgmoft posted:Why would anyone not wear shorts and a t shirt in July? I still see young dudes in jeans and boots in like August, Japan is crazy sometimes.
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May 29, 2018 04:46
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Traditional summer vacation beanie and down vest
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May 29, 2018 04:50
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You joke but I'm still seeing people in coats here in the subtropics.
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May 29, 2018 04:51
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75% of Japanese people don't have sweat glands.
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May 29, 2018 04:53
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I may be a fat goon but I have some muscular af legs, maybe I can intimidate the locals on the train with my blond leg hair 
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May 29, 2018 05:06
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StabMasterArson posted:Will be staying in Tokyo for 10 days next month, our apartment is in Ikebukuro. Can anyone recommend some places to check out or avoid around there? Is it worth getting a 7-day train pass? We'd like to check out Akihibara and Harajuku etc but not sure if the passes cover that. Am I going to straight up die from the heat? You should go eat ramen here: https://www.yelp.com/biz/%E3%82%AB%...3%B6%E5%8C%BA-2
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May 29, 2018 05:07
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It's good to have a pair of pants when you go traveling. You get more respect in religious places and nicer restaurants at night.
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May 29, 2018 05:30
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Phone posted:putting 10k on an ic card and using it for all train fares and conbini trips removes almost all of any possible friction points of visiting japan
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May 29, 2018 06:08
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Aredna posted:If you're staying in an AirBnB you should make sure it's ok. Laws are changing in mid-June and lots of places are gonna have trouble staying open for service. Is it this? https://resources.realestate.co.jp/news/japanese-govt-releases-details-law-airbnb-style-rentals/ As far as I understand from that article, what the hosts are doing is already illegal, and the new laws actually just provides a method for the business to become legal. But I suppose that will involve taxation and some management fees?
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May 29, 2018 09:08
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nielsm posted:Is it this? https://resources.realestate.co.jp/news/japanese-govt-releases-details-law-airbnb-style-rentals/ It's good for property owners but basically forces out subletters. Also yeah it'll make it harder to avoid tax.
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May 29, 2018 11:53
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If they want to raise revenue they should really start charging more for health and child care. I don't pay nearly as much for either as I could.
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May 29, 2018 12:06
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I recommend enforcing traffic laws and writing tickets. ¥¥¥¥
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May 29, 2018 12:59
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That would require cops working which just straight up isn't gonna happen.
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May 29, 2018 13:03
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That and it pretty well targets the people writing the laws.
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May 29, 2018 13:06
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I’m planning on going back to Japan next year so the Airbnb stuff was really worrying me. Won’t be booking our accommodations until October this year though, so I figure that any places that are likely to be closed by the new law should be delisted by then?
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May 29, 2018 14:13
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Many localities are adding their own requirements on top of the new national law that are basically designed to shut down airbnbs. Like only allowing rentals on weekends or during school holidays.
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May 29, 2018 14:21
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I miss Japan. Had a 18 hour layover on the way back from Bangkok and checked out the Gundam by Odaiba (finally), the Virtual Circuit, spent too much money at Yodabashi (as is tradition) and shoved my face full of tonkatsu. Good food, good people, transit, everything. Only sad thing is this SF themed bar near Kanda Station opened at 2100 instead of 1700, and I could not try it out. Next time!
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May 29, 2018 14:42
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The places I booked look to be actual guesthouses/hostels that just also take people through AirBnB, but the one in Tokyo I'm not sure about. Looks like a commercial building on street view though, not an apartment.
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May 29, 2018 14:46
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Thanks for metro advice, we’ll get the chargeable cards. Yeah its an AirBnB, hopefully nothing will go wrong with that. That ramen place looks great too, looking forward to trying it
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May 29, 2018 15:17
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My goon friend picked an Airbnb last time and it’s fine. He did it twice
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May 29, 2018 15:44
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caberham posted:My goon friend picked an Airbnb last time and it’s fine. He did it twice There are new regulations coming into effect in June. Learn 2 read buddy. But yes AirBNB is easy and convenient in Japan. Let’s hope it stays that way, the drat mainlanders are driving up hotel prices way too quickly.
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May 29, 2018 15:50
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Is there an appreciable difference between PASMO and Suica?
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May 29, 2018 15:57
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For the ic card, Not really for all intent purposes Mainlanders driving up hotel prices? They can be cheap as heck and live in weird rear end places and bus themselves in. More like the internet and Social media is the culprit for increased tourism. And there’s always the APA which you will find far fewer mainlanders
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May 29, 2018 16:33
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caberham posted:For the ic card, Not really for all intent purposes Mainlanders may not be going to the same places as everyone else, but Japan saw it's tourists jump from ~5mil/year in 2012 to what will probably be 30+mil this year, and hotels aren't able to keep up all the time with demand, especially during busy seasons.
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May 29, 2018 16:39
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the olympics are going to be a mess lol
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May 29, 2018 16:45
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ya lol
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May 29, 2018 21:52
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Phone posted:the olympics in August are going to be a mess lol Thought I should add emphasis here. Though in all actuality the Rugby World Cup is more likely to have issues, as the Japan RFU is really not to be trusted.
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May 29, 2018 22:59
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harperdc posted:Thought I should add emphasis here. Japan RFU is run by dumb old men who have no idea how to run their organization or make meaningful changes to make the sport more appealing to Japanese or more international. Eddie Jones once came by and did a talk at my firm and just dumped all over the JRFU leadership and it was glorious.
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May 30, 2018 02:09
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LimburgLimbo posted:Mainlanders may not be going to the same places as everyone else, but Japan saw it's tourists jump from ~5mil/year in 2012 to what will probably be 30+mil this year, and hotels aren't able to keep up all the time with demand, especially during busy seasons. China got really mad at Korea over THAAD a couple years ago, said they'd boycott going there, and then followed through. Korea went from the #1 destination for mainlanders going abroad to like #15 in a matter of months. I read some articles about how places like Jeju are pretty bittersweet, as some residents are more than happy to be rid of the mainland swarm but businesses are now closing left and right due to the huge drop in tourism. The Olympics were the same way. Korea had planned for hundreds of thousands of Chinese tourists and something like 10k came, even after they panicked pretty much waived the need for a visa for Chinese people to come. You can find interesting pictures of nearly abandoned shopping areas they built around the Olympic venues during the Olympics. However, Chinese tourists kept going overseas more and more, and they all went to Japan and Thailand instead. I saw a graph recently and it's 1:1 with Chinese tourists going to Korea less and Japan more. It's extra funny cuz it was only like 5 years ago everyone in China got real mad at Japan over islands and the anti-Japanese sentiment got so bad they closed all the 7-11's here for a couple days out of fear of safety for the workers there. Given that is now all but forgotten I would guess they'll end the weird ban on group tours and return to Korea soon enough and Japan will get less of an influx. caberham posted:My goon friend picked an Airbnb last time and it’s fine. He did it twice I think I'm this goon friend and yeah, it was 1-2 years ago, but both times I got multiple messages from the host being like "PLEASE SMILE TO THE NEIGHBORS AND SAY HI PLEASE DON'T ACT WEIRD AND SCARE THEM" so I guess the fear of getting legal action after getting narc'd on by neighbors was real then too.
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May 30, 2018 03:02
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LimburgLimbo posted:Japan RFU is run by dumb old men who have no idea how to run their organization or make meaningful changes to make the sport more appealing to Japanese or more international. My favorite JRFU story was them inaugurating the Sunwolves and selling out of their replica jersey order for the season in the first day  it is a literal old boys club and I think they’ve brought in outside help (Dentsu?) to run the RWC right.
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May 30, 2018 03:17
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Magna Kaser posted:China got really mad at Korea over THAAD a couple years ago, said they'd boycott going there, and then followed through. Korea went from the #1 destination for mainlanders going abroad to like #15 in a matter of months. I read some articles about how places like Jeju are pretty bittersweet, as some residents are more than happy to be rid of the mainland swarm but businesses are now closing left and right due to the huge drop in tourism. It could happen, but even then the number of tourists to Japan has increased greatly, and I'd bet they were a much larger percentage of the tourists to Korea. In Japan they're something like 1/4th of tourists, which is obviously big, but not world ending, and fortunately a lot of that tourism is really banal poo poo like going around on busses and eating at Chinese restaurants and shopping, which won't threaten to drive all the decent tourist stuff out of business. gently caress 'em, I hope they stop coming, would probably be an improvement. By the way all the data for visitors to Japan are here in excel format, if someone wants to look at the details of how many tourists are Chinese: https://www.jnto.go.jp/jpn/statistics/visitor_trends/ I'd do it myself but I don't have Excel on my laptop now and gently caress dealing with Apple Numbers. harperdc posted:My favorite JRFU story was them inaugurating the Sunwolves and selling out of their replica jersey order for the season in the first day Another great story was when, if I recall correctly, there were a bunch of people that had season passes (or were part of some supporters club or whatever that gave them tickets for the whole year) for Top League, then when Japan won against South Africa there was of course a bunch of renewed interest in rugby and ticket sales went up. What does the JRFU do? They stopped people from using their season passes for games, for no reason but because they presumably thought that they could get more money from ticket sales maybe? Anyway a bunch of people couldn't go, said gently caress it I'm not going to buy separate tickets, and guess what, the games weren't sold out anyway. Just mindbogglingly stupid to alienate your most devoted customers. Lol at Dentsu being able to do better though. They'll help with marketing and some various aspects I'm sure, but the sheer stupidity of the leadership can't be overcome that easily.
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May 30, 2018 03:33
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Those stats are interesting. The biggest jump is actually the year before the whole THAAD thing where Chinese tourists jumped from 2.5m to 5m year over year, but since then they increase more and more. It says its already over 2.5m this year. They are #1 or 2 country every year, though, neck in neck with Korea.
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May 30, 2018 03:49
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The good thing with mainlanders is even though there are tons of them, they all go to the same very narrow set of places so you can generally avoid them. If you go to actual interesting places you run into solo travelers now and then but those are usually fine, it's mostly the tour groups that are The Worst People. The "thank god, don't come back" internet posts from Koreans after the THAAD travel ban thing were great.
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May 30, 2018 03:56
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Magna Kaser posted:However, Chinese tourists kept going overseas more and more, and they all went to Japan and Thailand instead. I saw a graph recently and it's 1:1 with Chinese tourists going to Korea less and Japan more. Can confirm Thailand, there was a lot, it was not fun.
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May 30, 2018 06:38
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gently caress, I feel fat enough without buying clothes from uniqlo and seeing their bs sizing... I'm going to blend right in! I'm going with another couple and they are really into the idea of wearing yukata and walking around Tokyo. Am I correctly assuming that it's the equivalent of that picture of the white guy on the train wearing the rice farmer hat?
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May 30, 2018 15:12
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Meh, people will probably just wonder where in town there's a festival happening, as yukata is pretty standard summer festival attire. Or the drunk boat! Certainly more common than the rice farmer hat. Don't spend too much time fretting over blending in with the locals though. That simply won't ever happen unless you already look like a Japanese person.
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May 30, 2018 15:23
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