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Waltzing Along posted:Go to Minoo falls. It's not a tourist spot and is pretty cool. This looks like a lovely place, thanks for recommending it! I did a bit of a search but didn't find the answer so hopefully someone here might be able to help. While I was booking some accommodation, I read a hotel review where the author was having a big whinge about being "body shamed" and "discrimination" because they weren't allowed to use the hotel spa due to having tattoos. It wasn't clear to me from the review whether they were talking about the hotel's indoor pool, or the beauty spa/massage services. While I don't have any tattoos on my face, neck, or my hands, I've got them all over my arms, legs and back. I wasn't planning to visit any onsen or hot springs but the review did make me curious - am I going to be violating some Japanese social norm if I try to use an indoor hotel pool? Should I try to avoid rolling up my sleeves in sacred places like temples? If I need to be mindful of my tattoos showing that's fine, I'm not bothered by that as it'll be winter so I'll be wearing long clothes anyway. But having a heads up on whether or not I'm going to potentially be in situations where tatts out is going to piss people off would be useful. bee fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 06:58
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Check with the hotel to be sure, some places with baths will ban people with body tattoos from using them because it's associated with the Yakuza. Temples and stuff should be fine. Also most Japanese people have seen foreigners with tattoos before, it's definitely not rude or anything, the bathhouse rules are just needlessly strict. Charles 2 of Spain fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Apr 1, 2023 |
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Apr 1, 2023 07:09
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Ya don't want those tattoos to leak out into the pristine shared baths.
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Apr 1, 2023 07:13
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Pollyanna posted:dad called onomichi a run down piece of poo poo  OH NO!
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Apr 1, 2023 08:14
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bee posted:This looks like a lovely place, thanks for recommending it! Some hotels have a public bath, you can't use these with tattoos. Me and my partner are fairly heavily tattooed and apart from inability to use some public baths have never experienced any discrimination because of our tattoos on any of our several visits (this discrimination is based around organised crime so as a female foreigner you will be fine).
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Apr 1, 2023 10:08
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Yeah the bathhouse thing is just a weird inflexible relic. Literally no one thinks tatooed whitey is in the yakuza but the rules are the rules so you can't come in. Outside of that no one really cares.
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Apr 1, 2023 12:05
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Informal hotels like Dormy or Super Hotel have no-tattoo rules but they can generally be ignored/avoided (gaijin smashed) especially if you go in non-peak times. Tattoo-friendly onsen can also be googled. My area in Shikoku has at least 3 with a don't ask don't tell policy.
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Apr 1, 2023 13:26
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Hey thanks everyone for the input on the 8-10 person traveling circus. All points are well-taken. Based on past experience with some of the same people, especially my brother lol, it would be better to lodge together, but it may not be possible. One good thing is that while we're all not starting off from SFO we'll be on the same SFO-Haneda flight and have hotels in close proximity booked for the first 3 nights in Tokyo. We're also in agreement on an itinerary, which is Tokyo-Osaka-Hiroshima-Tokyo with various side trips along the way. My wife and I have been there a couple times before so we're flexible on what the others want to see and do rather than micromanaging, and we'll all be doing our own thing from time to time so hopefully everyone will have a great time. Looking forward to sweating in July!
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Apr 1, 2023 20:49
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Thanks everyone for the tattoo advice. Sounds like it's something that will be a non issue, particularly since we'll be travelling in winter and I'm a cold frog who will be super covered up anyway!
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Apr 1, 2023 22:33
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Den-den Town > Akihabara, hands down. Way more rental box shops, thus way more variety of amazing stuff. It's also less jam packed, way more laid back, and has really cool quirky bars and more street eating options. A hole-in-the-wall takoyaki joint called Goonies does a honey ume takoyaki that is not to be missed. I wish I was still in my mad weeb goods acquisition phase to fully appreciate it, but it's not to be missed. Also, if your passport has your middle name on it, be advised: you may need to disambiguate your booking with someone who has the same first name as your middle name. Ask me how I know this 
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Apr 2, 2023 00:50
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MJP posted:Den-den Town > Akihabara, hands down. I used to think this until I found all the other stuff in Akihabara. As far as rental boxes, Aki has far more. You just don't know where they are. IIRC, there is a floor in one of the buildings that has as much as all of Den Den combined.
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Apr 2, 2023 00:58
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Props if you can do that, after about two hours I'm completely numbed out to brightly colored plastic and anime boobgirl dolls.
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Apr 2, 2023 01:40
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I just never gave a poo poo in the first place. Takamatsu for the next few days! Plans are visiting the islands, the gardens, and walking sone of the henro. Otherwise fairly free.
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Apr 2, 2023 03:26
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Thinking ahead to potentially visiting Japan (Tokyo) this or next year from China. If I've only got a few days and want to enjoy some primo eats or places to drink, where should I go? Also I'm a huge sucker for One Piece paraphernalia and retro games. Apparently Akihabara is like the Mecca of electronics and gaming poo poo, confirm or deny? Also is the Ghibli museum still open?
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Apr 2, 2023 04:17
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Ghibli tickets are a pain but it’s not too bad. Yeah fly to Tokyo eat a bunch of food. Akiba is not bad but it’s like Mecca, not that you can’t access this stuff through internet shopping but nice to pay tribute
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Apr 2, 2023 04:46
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Hey, Japan thread! I'm headed over there in a couple months (May 26-June 10). I have most of my schedule settled, but there's several days near the start of the trip that are unaccounted for. I had hoped to take a trip out to Ogasawara but I'm a day or two short for that and the ferry schedule doesn't really line up anyway. Any suggestions for a good 2-3 day side trip out from Tokyo? Visiting Japan isn't necessarily a once-in-a-lifetime thing for me, so I'm not thinking something like Kyoto or Osaka that's worth seeing but is too big to really experience in a couple days. I'll come back and do them properly some time. I'm looking for more like a small city with one or two notable things or some nice hiking areas or something like that. I was considering Nikko as it seems easy to reach and has a few things to do, but I'm interested in goon thoughts! (The already-handled itinerary includes Hakone, Enoshima, Kamakura, Yokohama, time in Tokyo itself, and Hokkaido.) Unrelated, can you get into the Ghibli museum store without paying for a museum ticket? I had a friend ask me to pick her up something from there.
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Apr 2, 2023 07:12
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Kanazawa.
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Apr 2, 2023 07:55
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It's very easy to kill 2-3 days in that area. Utsunomiya if you like gyoza and/or cocktails, Kinugawa and further into the mountains for onsen ryokan, plenty else along the Romance Kaido... then of course Nikko itself.
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Apr 2, 2023 07:56
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Teriyaki Koinku posted:Thinking ahead to potentially visiting Japan (Tokyo) this or next year from China. If I've only got a few days and want to enjoy some primo eats or places to drink, where should I go? Akihabara is awash in One Piece stuff. I am not a scholar of the stuff but I'm 99% certain you're gonna explode from overdose of One Piece joy. There's a lot of electronic component vendors in some of the underpasses and side alleys, enough to get your cyberpunk fix, but unless you want specific Japan-only laptops, there wasn't much that couldn't be found online anywhere. Big DIY PC scene but Akiba looked more like 80% otaku culture, 20% consumer electronics/computers IMHO.
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Apr 2, 2023 13:07
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Akratic Method posted:(The already-handled itinerary includes Hakone, Enoshima, Kamakura, Yokohama, time in Tokyo itself, and Hokkaido.) Nikko would be next on the list considering what else you already have on the itinerary. It’s a decent idea. Depending on what your friend is looking for, the item may be available at a store nowhere near the museum - there are Ghibli shops/sections in a lot of malls/toy and character good shops.
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Apr 2, 2023 13:09
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What are your go to last night in town hotels. I’m thinking of giving my kids a last nice walk maybe Ginza. Sure I could stay near the airport but my next leg is 11 am so not worried about it as I was when I solo traveler and left at midnight.
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Apr 2, 2023 16:46
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Shammypants posted:What are your go to last night in town hotels. I’m thinking of giving my kids a last nice walk maybe Ginza. Sure I could stay near the airport but my next leg is 11 am so not worried about it as I was when I solo traveler and left at midnight. We're going to be at the Hotel Mystays Premier in Hamamatsucho for one night before heading back. Many goon recs praised that area. I'll let you know how it is in a few days.
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Apr 3, 2023 01:46
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MJP posted:We're going to be at the Hotel Mystays Premier in Hamamatsucho for one night before heading back. Many goon recs praised that area. I'll let you know how it is in a few days. Ah, I should have mentioned I am leaving from Haneda! My bad.
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Apr 3, 2023 03:11
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Shammypants posted:Ah, I should have mentioned I am leaving from Haneda! My bad. Should still be pretty easy to get the monorail from Hamamatsucho, I was just there and I’m like 98% sure you can get it at Hamamatsucho Station.
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Apr 3, 2023 03:23
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MJP posted:Akihabara is awash in One Piece stuff. I am not a scholar of the stuff but I'm 99% certain you're gonna explode from overdose of One Piece joy. Digging through the boxes in these stalls was one of my favorite things I did in Tokyo but I think you gotta have some nostalgia for rare-in-the-US stuff for that to track.
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Apr 3, 2023 04:16
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MJP posted:We're going to be at the Hotel Mystays Premier in Hamamatsucho for one night before heading back. Many goon recs praised that area. I'll let you know how it is in a few days. Hamamatsucho is aight, good access to Yamanote and Haneda and Zojoji temple is dreamy.
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Apr 3, 2023 04:38
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It’s ongoing, but here’s a quick sneak-peek review of our Shikoku Road Trip: Exactly what I thought would happen happened.  We front loaded the hell out of the itinerary, jamming all of Matsuyama, Kurashiki, Onomichi, Kotohira, Shimanami Kaido plus islands, and Uchiko into about 2~3 days while setting aside 3 days for the Iya Valley and 6 days for Takamatsu. 2 days into Takamatsu and apparently we’re at a loss for what else to do, having checked out a couple of (honestly not that amazing) local islands and not much else. Now the idea of checking out early and going somewhere else has been floated, e.g. to Hiroshima. Problem is that we’ve already gotten a hotel here, plus this is where we return the car and where we fly out  Dad initially dismissed and ignored my suggestions to check out Shimanami and spend some time on the islands, and by the time we got through them and checked into Imabari he was swearing up and down that he absolutely HAD to return with a tour guide to do the bike ride across the islands because he liked them so much. Conversely he was visibly frustrated and annoyed with his last-minute addition, Iya Valley - which turned out to be far more isolated, far less interesting, and a much harder and longer drive than assumed. I think I won this round, but he doesn’t wanna admit it. (As for Shodoshima, it was kind of a bust and we finished it within like 4-5 hours. We also paid like $85 for the car ferry but we really didn’t need the car at all.) I still have a couple things on the Takamatsu itinerary, i.e. Naoshima and a henro walk, so we’re not done yet. So far, rocky trip but pockets of genuine good!
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Apr 3, 2023 07:15
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I love it and I love your dad.
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Apr 3, 2023 07:23
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I have a lot to talk about when this is over.
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Apr 3, 2023 07:26
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Do you still have time in the Iya Valley to hunt down and harass Alex Kerr?
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Apr 3, 2023 07:54
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Is there something I should know about him…?
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Apr 3, 2023 07:56
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Oh gosh the Iya drive is quite scary and while I enjoyed the area since it was very middle of nowhere, the ryokans near Iya aren't very good. But yeah, 6 days in Takamatsu wow - i'd have moved at least 2 of those days easily to Shimanami Kaido.
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Apr 3, 2023 09:37
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Proposed that, got shot down.
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Apr 3, 2023 09:40
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For Iya Valley, have you checked out Nagoro Doll Village? There's also some cool vine bridges in Kazurabashi. https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e7825.html
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Apr 3, 2023 09:50
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Pollyanna posted:It’s ongoing, but here’s a quick sneak-peek review of our Shikoku Road Trip: I guess you've just gotta laugh about it at this point, though it's gotta be frustrating that the things you were worried about and tried to bring up with him are happening lol. I'd suck it up and check out early, go somewhere else and wring whatever joy you can out of what remains of the trip. I'm not super familiar with the area but maybe check out Okayama? Doesn't seem too far but it's one of those 'in between' destinations I haven't gotten round to yet. I'm confused about Shimanami, did you drive it? Why does your father feel he'd need a tour guide to cycle it lol?
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Apr 3, 2023 09:59
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Question Mark Mound posted:Nagoro Doll Village hell no
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Apr 3, 2023 14:35
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that doll village was creepy as gently caress and the drive to the kazurabashi legit may have been the scariest driving ive ever done
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Apr 3, 2023 23:49
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But they are smiling.
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Apr 4, 2023 00:40
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Looks like any college rock album cover
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Apr 4, 2023 01:19
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Are Sanrio and Ghibli theme parks rear end or good? Worth the trip? Can't trust what I am finding online
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Apr 4, 2023 02:14
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