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Martytoof posted:Ugh, didn't realize one of my AirBnB's has a 50% refund, I thought I only booked rooms with lax refund policies. AirBnB is asking them to cancel outright at 100% but it's going to suck to eat $500 if they don't play along, as they don't have to. On March 14 AirBnB changed its cancellation policy to allow refunds 100% for ALL bookings (if cancelled at least 48 hours in advance or something) regardless of geographic location, so long as you booked it before like March 14 and check-in date before April 14th. This is now automatic when you "cancel reservation", you don't have to ask your host to cancel nor do you have to do anything special through AirBnB -- it's immediate on the spot and shows you the full refund amount. I already did it myself for a booking in Washington DC that was for early April that was also a "no refund" type booking. If your check-in date is after April 14, just wait and don't cancel yet for 50%, it's basically guaranteed AirBnB will keep moving that date up, and in the unlikely event they don't, it's not like you lost anything by waiting, so long as you remember to check and don't miss some other deadline later on closer to the check-in date. https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2701/extenuating-circumstances-policy-and-the-coronavirus-covid19 Saladman fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Mar 17, 2020 |
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Mar 17, 2020 22:53
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AHH F/UGH posted:Now YOU are the one who is unironically trolling. Kua Aina is good as gently caress and way fresher and better than loving In and Out (which is overrated overhyped tourist trash anyways). Five Guys is hot garbage too. I don't really get in general why people are psyched about their brands of fast food burgers. They're all precooked patties that are warmed up before serving and thus fundamentally dry. If all you want is meat taste + calories you might as well just go for Krystal/White Castle/FEBO (Dutch equivalent), or just some sort of calorie paste like Soylent. I had my first ever Five Guys recently. It was like "what if we served McDonalds burger and patty, but gave way more options for toppings besides pickles, and we charged a little over twice as much? Also the fries are the same but you can get terrible spicy ones that are not as good as Backyard Burger's." I don't mean to be down on fast food, I eat it sometimes, but they're all terrible compared to a real freshly made burger. Saladman fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Dec 17, 2020 |
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Dec 17, 2020 00:53
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LimburgLimbo posted:As I recall it was theorized that it's basically a way to stop imitators or people trying to take their name You mean thesse two fine locations that I've been judging my In N Out experience on were imitators??  [Ethiopia]  [Cyprus] Maybe the Five Guys patties are not precooked, I couldn't find it out in a quick Google. They're always well-done (like any other fast food burger), so it will turn out pretty dry no matter what. I have only been once, in Europe, so maybe it also depends on time of day on whether it's freshly cooked or whether it's a precooked patty that they've been leaving on the warmer. It was delivered in no more than 3 or 4 minutes, so it definitely didn't go on the grill after I ordered, but it was at 6pm so they might have been cooking them on spec. They're definitely edible, but it's like debating which brand of frozen pizza is the best... which I'm sure is something people also argue about. For the other topic, what does your wife want? I know there is absolutely zero chance my wife would deliver in a hospital where I could not be there unless there was not a single hospital or clinic in the entire country that would do it.
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Dec 18, 2020 15:36
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captkirk posted:Five Guys cooks their burgers when you order them. They're done in sorta smashed burger style (meaning the paties are pressed thin on the griddle) which is part of why your burger cooked so quick. Its also probably part of the reason why they cook their burgers to well done. There just isn't a lot of middle to leave pink (plus its easy to fire the 10 burgers that were just ordered when they all need to come out well done). Yes, its possible to have a dry burger that is cooked well done but its not guaranteed and now you're moving goal posts from "all their burgers are precooked and frozen like McDonald's" to boring meat temp snobbery. It's not "moving goalposts". The base problem is the burger patties are dry; I have no idea what caused that, precooking was just a hypothesis since nearly all fast food burgers are precooked. Maybe Five Guys doesn't precook them, but instead cooks them longer than McD or whoever, resulting in more or less the same end compared to "premium" McD's burgers like the "Angus" patties. They do have a lot more topping options so I can get why people like it, I just personally don't find extra toppings worth the burger costing twice the price of McD's if I'm hungry and it's noon and I'm on the road and I want calorie intake + meat taste, which is a thing I do occasionally want. I don't think it's "meat snobbery"; does anyone actually prefer well-done burger patties? I get there are safety reasons for it, and it's weird that people complain that Five Guys only does "well done" because I've never asked for a medium-rare Burger King patty either. I had no idea that people complained about that until I googled it earlier today. I don't have a problem with Five Guys, their burgers are marginally better than McDs / BK because they offer more options. Personally when I'm back in the states and have the option I either get Krystal/White Castle because they are garbage and I just need something to eat, or I get Backyard Burger because their fries are actually good. Everyone has their own tradeoffs, for some people I'm sure that leads them to get Five Guys because they like mushrooms a lot. LyonsLions posted:Seems pretty unfair to make her choose between that and an epidural, though. Yeah but that seems like something that Japan has to pick due to its intense allergy to painkillers, and not something that the poster or his wife can pick. "Do you want your husband with you or an epidural" seems to be the only relevant question here. COVID seems to an irrelevant backdrop in this context. Saladman fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Dec 18, 2020 |
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Dec 18, 2020 23:17
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eszett engma posted:Hello thread, I have a present for you. The guy is a huge goon and scumbag but his text is also way more interesting to read than the typical anodyne modern travel blog. Definitely didn't expect him to be ripping off a blind guy. I bet he rationalizes it as "being paid for his time helping the guy" or some bullshit.
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Aug 25, 2021 17:43
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Waltzing Along posted:October is early, true. But it would be nice if Japan would give some sort of timetable for opening up. They will be ahead of the US in people vaccinated tomorrow. Sure, but the USA is also closed to tourism to most of the nationalities who regularly visit (all of Western Europe + a few other countries like India and Brazil). It's some real Biden+Trump working together nonsense too, since like Serbians and Croatians can visit, but not Slovenes or Hungarians. It's 100% nonsense at this point too.
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Sep 10, 2021 19:31
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DiscoJ posted:The UK had a known reason for it. Try searching for ' bin ' on this page. Yeah, but the last case was apparently 1996, the Irish don't bomb stuff anymore, and I don't think any other terrorist group ever made that their MO. Or maybe they do have trash cans in the UK now? I haven't been in about 6 years but I remember being pissed off the last time I was in London that I was completely unable to find anywhere to throw trash. At some point it becomes kind of ridiculous though, like if horses were still illegal in Russia because Mongol terrorists used horses to murder millions of people in the 1300s.
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Sep 16, 2021 18:33
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Shibawanko posted:my wife thought we could save money and get better quality sashimi by buying raw fish from the local market and cut it ourselves with a knife and cutting board from daiso, she thought if it was advertised as "meant for sashimi" it would be a matter of making a few cuts and serving it up I don't envy the cleaner who takes care of your room tomorrow. I at least hope you have an apartment hotel? Good christ. Try not to send yourself to the emergency room while shanking an abalone (if it's as hard as oysters anyway). I think you meant "shucking" too, but I like the mental image of someone shanking a shellfish.
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Dec 13, 2021 19:27
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Weatherman posted:what Some guy came in shortly before COVID and posted literally that, basically that he was a 32 year old virgin who is obsessed with anime and Japan and he asks people to call him "[his name] chan", plus iirc additional embarrassing details. He just posted asking to be banned from SA since you can't delete accounts, but it looks like he was banned and then reregistered? since he doesn't have a "BANNED" note next to his avatar. He made a lot of oddly childish but not particularly bad posts, but just the type of stuff you'd expect a shy, nerdy 14 year old to post. Also on the topic of countries that charge you for visa waivers, in addition to the USA, Europe (from 2023), and Australia, Turkey also does that. And many other countries do it in hidden ways, like charging it in the airport ticket, like Panama.
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Jun 5, 2022 07:53
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Stringent posted:don't quote me on this, but i think that might have been a joke? I doubt it. He wayyy too consistently posted the kind of stuff that someone who was seriously like that would post. Maybe it’s a decade-long bit that he was doing, but I doubt it.
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Jun 5, 2022 09:54
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I'm going to Japan with some childhood friends of mine for a couple weeks at the end of July/beginning of August, and one of our top "to do" things is to climb Fuji, probably via the Subashiri trail. We're going to give ourselves 5 days in Tokyo, which we'll keep flexible so that we can take whichever day has favorable weather to climb Fuji. We'd do the hike in one day, and are not at all interested in hiking in the dark for a sunrise. We'd probably spend the night before in Gotemba, and I see for last year that there are buses from Gotemba Station to Subashiri 5th station at 7:35 and 8:35 am ( https://www.japan-guide.com/bus/fuji_season.html ). What I'm not quite sure about is about last-minute booking for the bus. Do they tend to run as many buses as needed and/or pack them like sardines, or do we need to book more than 1-2 days in advance? We would also try to go on a weekday. I see the last bus down from Subashiri 5th Station is at 17:45 on weekdays, which seems both quite early given sunset is at 18:45 and also super tight for a 1700m ascent/descent, given that the first bus up there arrives at around 8:30am and it'd be a ~8 hour hike without any breaks. Possibly I am not reading this right, as in the pre-COVID era people mention buses as late at 19:45, but in case I am, we'd probably want to either head towards Fuji Subaru for the 18:40 bus OR try to call a taxi and go up to Subashiri 5th station earlier than 7:35am so that we can enjoy our day while still making the 17:45 bus. Also for the bus route, how does reserving a ticket back work, since presumably we'd prefer to (a) book that day-of and (b) aren't even 100% sure in advance whether we'd head back via Fuji Subaru or Subashiri 5th Station. I've read a bunch of blogs and stuff about it, but in case anyone has any other super special suggestions that are Fuji-experience-specific that'd be cool too -- I don't really need any general hiking tips. My only strong feelings about Fuji from reading blogs and watching videos are that (a) Yoshida trail looks like the type of hiking that awaits me in my personal version of hell, (b) no interest in a nighttime hike, and even if I did, doing a hike for sunrise on the summit requires way more advanced planning and requires locking-in the hike date way in advance, regardless of weather. Saladman fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Jan 10, 2023 |
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Jan 10, 2023 22:37
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Charles 2 of Spain posted:That link says you can't reserve seats. My guess is that you can show up at the station and just get packed on. I saw that but I wasn’t sure if it just means you can’t reserve a *specific* seat? The Japan-Buses site sells tickets in advance; https://highway-buses.jp/course/attention-fuji-5th.php but on closer reading I guess that means to reserve only the Shinjuku-Fuji area ticket and the bus from the Fuji area to whichever starting station is not, except for the direct bus from Shinjuku to Yoshida 5th station. Anyway for Subashiri we would always need to switch. I guess that means bus capacity is never a problem; in Switzerland you also never need to reserve a mountain bus or train in advance in Switzerland, unless you’re a large group of people.
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Jan 10, 2023 23:45
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His travel is already booked.
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Jan 12, 2023 12:41
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Tokyo question: is there any easy way to book multi-bedroom apartments for 6 people? Or is group travel just like, not a thing in Japan? There are basically no listings on AirBnB in Tokyo, but oddly not actually zero so I guess it's restricted but not outright banned? I don't really care about AirBnB, but we'd prefer somewhere we can hang out all together and chill on our phones or whatever in the morning and evening, so that everyone doesn't have to retreat back to a hotel room and hide, and that's more private than trying to use some hotel common area. We could rent three studio aparthotels in the same building if they have decent-sized living rooms, but even for that I see only a handful of aparthotels in the entire city and that's still kind of non-ideal since it requires sending "u up?" to a group chat every morning and figuring out where to meet up, vs. just being able to walk into the living room when you wake up. For instance, "Hundred Stay Tokyo Shinjuku" hosts 6 people in one apartment, but there's one bedroom with 6 beds in it. The main issue for sharing everyone to one room is the huge differences in people's preferred sleep/wake times, and one guy snores like hell. For budget up to like 100k-120k yen/night for the group would be fine, I just see barely any choice at any price point.
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Jan 16, 2023 17:16
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Busy Bee posted:I see a decent amount of Airbnb options in Tokyo - which time frame are you looking at and for how long? Late July, 4 or 5 nights. I see like 6 places total in Shinjuku when I search for 5 adults for 5 nights 22-27 +/- 1 day. I guess we could also get a 2 br and then a couple of us get a nearby hotel. Lots more options for 2 br, but still less than I’d expect for a huge city. Nice has 369 places for 6 adults available for those dates. For a similar sized swath around Shinjuku I see 7. If I drop to 2br that adds another 11 places. The snoring guy is also super unfit so he might die on the Fuji hike I posted about a couple pages ago, so the “three beds in one room sucks" issue might resolve itself shortly into the trip.
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Jan 16, 2023 19:47
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Thanks, Oakwood looks exactly like what I was looking for. I guess we'll have to figure out what part of the city to stay in, but nice to know that even in the center there is something in the style and budget, especially if we get two and shove one person on each couch. Why were you grumpy without a driver's license? Everyone I've ever seen recommends not driving around Japan, except Hokkaido. I already got the Japan-specific IDL just in case (I was anyway getting a different IDL and figured it was worth €15 to have the option) but so far none of our tentative plans make it very useful. I'm not worried about actually driving, but it just seems not very helpful except for potentially saving money (since we're 6). I like driving though and can read kana and once knew a lot of kanji (then forgot them all) but would learn and recognize certain important ones quickly, so I'm not really worried about signage or the practicalities of driving. I doubt we would be out of the apartment/hotel area before like 10am so I don't think we'd have to deal so much with rush hour crushes but yeah I'd rather spend more money and not have to take a commuter line 30 minutes into [wherever] every day. Good to know about vacation-stay.jp, thanks! Will have to check that further too.
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Jan 17, 2023 12:33
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Wonton posted:It used to be 5 parts but now Covid makes it 3 Ah the old "it takes 91+ minutes to catch Covid so 90 minutes is safe, 150 minutes is dangerous" school of thinking. Mexico and Germany have a lot of similar logic still too. Thanks for the driving suggestions. Probably I’ll have more questions once we see who out of the 6 of us actually buys tickets for the dates we blocked off and who has something come up (or "come up"). I’ve had pretty moderate luck traveling with friends, although so far they have always happened (minus one COVID-cancelled trip) they tend to have a significant dropout rate, including two people on two separate occasions who bailed the day before.
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Jan 18, 2023 10:01
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each part is really short, less than half an hour and super accessible.
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Nanigans posted:Yeah, last time I went in October, I was really surprised at how few daylight hours there were. Guides never mentioned that. Even in June, it’s pretty thin on daylight hours. The Japanese really take Land of the Rising Sun seriously, apparently, with sunrise at like 4:30am but sunset at 7pm even in late June. Shift your time zone, jeez. Fukuoka must have been in charge of setting clocks in Japan.
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Jan 26, 2023 09:06
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Assuming he is like 85% joking and 15% serious, your dad seems cool and fun to travel with. "Here is a potentially fun Japanese concept that I didn't know about, see anything you find interesting?" Like I'd never heard of kaiseki before a friend of mine I'm traveling with mentioned it as a possibility. It looks like a grueling extended cut version of a multi-course French style menu, but probably interesting to do once, like going to the first 5 minutes of a kabuki show before walking out in bewilderment
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Feb 3, 2023 12:13
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So general Japan question: I’m spending two weeks with friends in July in Japan, four of the five of us have been to Japan to do the highlight Top 10s before (Tokyo Nara Kyoto Osaka etc). We’re going to go to Tokyo for five days to unjetlag, then take one day for the Fuji hike (whichever of day 3-4-5 has better weather). Now none of us have really strong convictions on what else is a Must Do, everyone is easygoing and is just happy to hang out and eat Japanese food. We want to go climbing or bouldering for a day or two, but don’t care where and it looks like there are plenty of options. We’re wondering if any of the outdoors parks are particularly worth it in July, or if it’s mostly forest and rolling hills that are largely indistinguishable from going to Vermont or Jura? We all like the outdoors (well, 4 of us do) but if it’s hot and humid as hell and we’re wandering in a forest trail following a steam - that’s nice but not really worth flying halfway across the world for, like Yoshio Kumano NP. I also google street viewed around a lot and most of the countryside villages look like lovely 1970s construction. Is there some equivalent area to say, Alpine Italy, where you can drive around and pick any village at random and it is amazing and traditional and someone pours you house wine until you collapse on the table? I’ve looked at AllTrails and the DK guidebook, but the DK guidebook is very centered on cities, and AllTrails has an overwhelming number of itineraries and anything under 1500m will probably be miserably hot in late July. Basically I’m wondering: natural beauty or small-ish towns, central-ish Honshu, traditional architecture, car or train access, quintessentially Japanese, like a small town version of Nara? Most stuff I find online is very focused on the "first 2-3 week trip to Japan: what to do" and then it’s harder to find what the amazing stuff is further down the list. Otherwise we just end up like Pollyanna and her dad and wing it and spend all our time going from cat island to rabbit island to snake island and etc. On the other hand since no one really cares where we go, nearly any choice will be fine, except hiking in a nondescript forest in 32 degree 70% humidity weather.
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Feb 7, 2023 18:02
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totalnewbie posted:You guys gonna be there last weekend of July? Come with me to Fuji Rock Funny, literally none of us had looked into special events going on, except that we want to not be within 200 km of Obon when it is happening. That does look cool and it's in the region Grand Fromage was just recommending too. I've got it on our radar now, will see what we coalesce around. Wonton posted:If you guys are used to Europe or Vermont weather, Tokyo during July is going to be super miserable and humid because of weak AC. Thanks. Hokkaido was on our radar as a possibility but none of the rest. I was lol'ing when I read about 82°F (28°C) being a comfortable temperature on the last page. I have a hard time sleeping when it's above 25°C (77°F). Daytime temperature I don't really care, I've lived in Cairo and Tunis in summer, but with A/C. We're childhood friends who grew up in the south of the US so we're familiar with miserable weather, but less familiar with miserable weather + lack of good A/C. My parents kept our house at 80°F in summer when I was growing up and even as a kid it was borderline sleeping-possible, with a fan. AHH F/UGH posted:Hey Pollyanna just FYI you have to drive on the other side of the road in Japan and it's loving stressful as poo poo if it's your first time, are you sure you're ready to constantly feel like you're going to crash and make a zillion driving mistakes? She's been to Tokyo before. I'll also disagree about switching sides of the road being stressful, after the first like two hours. It's even easier if there is traffic, since you can just follow what everyone else is doing. Picking up a car and immediately going to desolate country roads is where it gets dangerous since you might forget that right is wrong. IME. It looks like Japan doesn't have any significant number of roundabouts (or left-on-red). Is there anything particularly unusual, or is it just mirror image driving?
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Feb 8, 2023 11:44
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Hi Japan thread! A friend of mine was recently accused of molesting a bunch of children with lots of video evidence, so we decided to go to Japan to get his mind off the trial. I need information RIGHT NOW because we are just landing at the airport to do a two week hike around the mountains of central Hokkaido. What are the best places???? Do we need cold weather gear or are sneakers and a light rain jacket OK, because that's all we brought??
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Mar 13, 2023 09:08
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GUYS I NEED ANSWERS RIGHT NOW, STOP TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING BESIDES ME.
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Mar 13, 2023 09:08
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mongolia posted:A car opens up many new places to explore and makes exploration much easier. How does parking work in general in small-town Japan? Like can I just generally assume that anywhere that has a publicly-listed EV charger is probably also in a public parking lot? Is there any clear indication like coloration or a common sign for whether parking is paid or not? Do people in Japan use the little parking disks like in Europe, or are the two modes of parking either (a) unlimited free or (b) paid? Kind of interesting how different parking is there, now that I'm looking into it. On-street parking is like... super rare, even in the middle of nowhere. We're still thinking of renting a car for 3 or 4 days (group of 4 or 5 friends) to go around the hilly countryside somewhere - I forget the names, but people gave a couple good recommendations before when I asked. I never even thought to investigate parking before, as I've never been anywhere where countryside or small town parking is not brain-dead easy. Or is it brain-dead easy? I am looking at some little villages like this one: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.0832583,138.1059964,1217m/data=!3m1!1e3 and I don't see anywhere that looks like I could leave a car for 8 hours. If I'm driving on a tiny mountain road like this one: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.0638714,138.1335616,3a,75y,83.27h,95.7t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s7-sQNg_uLgBjpfTr_EUg_w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 Is it generally OK to just park the car anywhere you can safely pull off the road that isn't blocking access to anything, like next to that overgrown pile of wood, or would that cause anarchy and rioting?
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Mar 23, 2023 19:11
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Kaddish posted:Going to Japan in October. Only place in Asia we've been is Hong Kong. Really looking forward to it. That doesn't sound packed. I also like to take my time and I'm doing a similar trip with friends this summer, with ~5 days in Tokyo and ~4 days in Kyoto planned, with TBD for our last 6 days. Switching between Kyoto and Osaka seems a little funny too. I did a similar trip about 10 years ago and we did daytrips from Kobe to Osaka just fine, and that's only a little further to Osaka from Kyoto. We did change hotels between Kobe and Kyoto though, and Osaka to Kyoto seems like the upper limit of reasonable travel time, but if you're spending < 2 full days in Osaka I wouldn't bother changing hotels for it. I did not think Osaka was especially interesting, but loved Kyoto and Nara. I spent 10 days in Tokyo with my family about 20 years ago (holy poo poo, 20 loving years) and that seemed like a pretty exhaustive amount of time to spend in Tokyo, and we were ready to leave. I don't think I'd ever spend more than 7 days in a city again if I was there purely as a tourist so YMMV. My wife and I spent 12 days in Mexico City for earlier this year which was like 6 days too long for us. I don't remember the last time I went somewhere and thought "I wish I had more time here" and besides Mexico City I haven't spent more than 5 tourist days in a single city in the last 6 years so there's definitely some personality stuff to consider. E: Also all of us in my friend group agreed that ryokans sound cool for one day, and one day only. I don't understand the connection between her wanting to stay in a ryokan with her wanting to stay in Osaka and not visit it as a daytrip. Staying in Osaka also makes sense to me, Kyoto and Nara are super easily visitable as daytrips from Osaka, and it's not like ryokans exist exclusively in Kyoto. Saladman fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Apr 4, 2023 |
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Apr 4, 2023 22:39
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Waltzing Along posted:Yeah, getting treated really well and being served incredible food is boring. I like good food and local cuisine when travelling but I don’t really want to have to deal with a pre-arranged dining time every day of a vacation, and I also don’t really eat breakfast normally. Too much service can actually be inconvenient; ask any European who has ever been to a restaurant in North America.
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Apr 4, 2023 23:10
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Pollyanna posted:I might start spending only 3-4 nights max in any city I go to on vacation, personally. I honestly don’t find moving hotels to be difficult and having the option to cut down on travel time via trains or car by changing your base is actually very, very nice. IMO, a 3-night stay is enough for any city not named Tokyo - there’s just too much to go see! Yeah 3-4 full days / 4-5 nights is the sweet spot for me too. Even in Paris or Rome or Tokyo or whatever, yes I could spend more than 3-4 full days there but also I’m traveling far and would like to see more in the general area. Maybe add a day or two if I am jet lagged to start. If I love the city then I will be back some day, but so far I’ve never been disappointed with having only 4 full days in a single place, ajusted for jet lag and traveling with small children. I might also have a severe case of wanderlust so not trying to judge anyone who can spend 15 days in Tokyo and love every minute, but that is definitely not me.
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Apr 4, 2023 23:32
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field balm posted:Maybe I'm wierd but I could spend a month in Tokyo no problems I think. Everyone has their own travel preferences, and that’s totally fine. I would definitely get island fever and want to bail after max 10 days no matter the size of the city. The issue is thinking there’s some single right way to travel. Rick Steve’s travel guides still make me nauseous when I read them but they’re probably right for someone. (His guides are like, 2 days in Paris -> 2 days in Rome -> 1 day in Naples -> 2 days in Madrid, etc). My preferred travel schedule is also probably hell incarnate to someone. The most bizarre thing about travel forums to me is really people thinking that there is some actual specific answer to the questions of how long someone should spend in a place and in what quality lodging one should spend the night, even supposing in both questions that vacation time and budget are irrelevant questions.
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Apr 4, 2023 23:48
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Hey Japan thread, so we have our itinerary of 5 guys in our 30s all roughly worked out, something like: • 4-6 nights in Tokyo (6 nights for first arrival, 4 for last arrival) • 4 nights in Matsumoto (3 nights in a normal hotel, 1 night in a ryokan) • 5-6 nights in Kyoto (4 nights for people leaving earliest, 5 for people leaving 1 day later) • Everyone flies out of Tokyo but all at late hours (earliest 3pm, latest 8pm) Does that look fairly reasonable? Especially for the Matsumoto part. We want a mixture of countryside and big city, want to do mostly mainstream Japanese cultural stuff (food, historical sites) but also would like to enjoy the outdoors even if the Japanese Alps are the same as mountains anywhere else. Matsumoto looks like it's super well connected by public transport including into the mountains like Kamikochi, Kiso, Kashiwabara Trail, so it doesn't look like a car would be particularly useful (?) but I didn't check if the public transport times run at extensive hours, or if the last bus down from Kashiwabara Trail is like, 4pm. Matsumoto also looks like there's enough cultural stuff to do there in case we get a day or two of just pouring rain in the mountains (?). I see that it rains a ton in July in the mountains of Honshu, but I couldn't figure out if this was usually just a huge thunderstorm at sunset as you often get in the summer in the Italian Alps where the rain is irrelevant, or if it's more like summer in the Swiss Alps where you get days of just gray drizzle and hiking often unenjoyable for extended stretches. It also sounds like we kind of have to pre-commit to specific days though for ryokans and decent lodging, and if we want to be last minute and adaptable to the weather conditions, we'll stay in lovely, expensive, inconvenient hotels? I think we're pretty set for Tokyo and Kyoto for those amounts of time ±1/day but the outdoors stuff we're less sure about. Alternately, Hakone looks cool but based on how easy it is to access I imagine it's packed in summer (?), and any hikes would start basically at sea level and thus be miserable in July. The Nikko area also looks neat but a little more "second tier" as compared to the Matsumoto area and public transport less extensive. If we spend 4 days in Matsumoto and it just rains the whole time, are we going to want to go all hara kiri on ourselves, or is there enough good food and cultural stuff there that is neat even with lovely weather? A lot of the towns nearby like Tsumago and Narai also look neat, but I'm not sure if you could spend more than like an hour in places like that. They're awesome to pass through by car or when doing a hike, but by public transport sometimes I get island fever in those places. It looks like public transport through Kiso Valley is good until around 6:30pm. After 6:30 it just falls off a cliff and dies -- no trains between 6:45pm and 9:45pm (at least in April, maybe it's better in July?). It looks like there are pretty decent trails through the Kiso Valley that follow along the towns, that we could do if the weather was drizzling and meh for real hiking, but decent enough to walk through a forest?
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Apr 11, 2023 14:36
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harperdc posted:Monsoon rear end-sweat rain. Second rainiest month of the year for that city, and average humidity of 70% in July. It might be a little cooler and better than in Tokyo, but it’s not comparable to the Swiss Alps at all. So... it looks like on any given day we have about a 50% chance of it actually being suitable for hiking in July? Weather.com seems to suggest that Kiso gets 24 rainy days a month in July with an average of 260mm, which doesn't seem ultra promising as that's roughly 4x the average July precipitation in the Swiss Alps. It looks like the mountains in Honshu go from snow covered, to super rainy, with intermittent "actually pleasant to hike" windows? I'm not as worried about the heat -- we'd take a bus or drive up to Kamikochi (1400m elevation at the parking lot) or to the Kiso or the Takase Valleys (1000m elevation at the parking lot for Takase / ±1000m for the cute towns in Kiso), so an early start and going up to 2000m+ would be pleasant even if it's 30° in the valley floor, but pouring rain is a mixture of completely un-fun and potentially dangerous. Wonton posted:Does it have to be Matsumoto? Kanazawa is nice and Toyama next to it have really nice valleys. Getting a car means you can drive to other areas in case of poo poo rain, or to nicer hiking trails. I looked at it but Kanazawa is sea level though so it'd be further to start any hike that is July suitable (I think? didn't look carefully) if we do get a good weather window. I also thought about Takayama but that looks like we'd be more trapped there without a car and with lovely weather. Saladman fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Apr 11, 2023 |
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Apr 11, 2023 15:05
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AHH F/UGH posted:Why in god's name would anyone travel to Japan in the middle of summer lol smdh I don’t really mind heat when I’m on vacation, unless I’m trying to do outdoor sports. Spent enough time living and travelling around North Africa and the south of the US. It’s awful if you want to go to work and not be drenched in sweat during your five seconds outdoors before you get to an ice cold office, but as a tourist I just like.. sit in the shade and drink an ice coffee and enjoy evaporative cooling. I don’t plan my days any differently until it gets above about 41 C in a dry heat or 37 in a humid environment like Houston. I was in Osaka about 12 years ago in August during a heatwave and I think it was around 34 every day. There are soft serves and cold drink vending machines like every fifty meters though so I didn’t mind at all.
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Apr 11, 2023 21:25
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What's the best app for real-time translation of voice to and from Japanese? I studied 3 years of Japanese but it's uh, been a while. I can still read hiragana and katakana just fine and recognize kanji quickly enough for place names / signage or whatever.
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Apr 14, 2023 10:11
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Femtosecond posted:Heading over to Japan later in Spring. Have booked several days in Tokyo then planning on heading out further afield, out to Hakone for a day then Kyoto for 2-3 days and then... well i'm not so sure and I could use a few suggestions for 5-6 days. Funny, I have the same Japan travel experience as you and more or less similar interests (though replace "gardening" with "outdoors" and "video games" with "food") and have been similarly perplexed as to what to do, with a similar amount of time. Matsumoto was also the top "other destination in the area" on my list, although we're going in July and the absolute dumpster fire weather there in July is making me/us seriously reconsider. If we were going in a month I'd be all in on Matsumoto, not just for the city but also the neat valleys in the area, especially Kiso valley and Takayama and its surrounding area. Naoshima looked cool to me but also cool for like... a day and a half.
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Apr 18, 2023 10:25
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Blackchamber posted:However if it does do that perhaps that would make some of the locals happier if it stops overcrowding in those sidetrip areas? Is there any part of Japan where overcrowding from foreign tourists is an actual honest to god issue, besides Tsukiji market where they used to get in the way? I've been all over Tokyo and the Kyoto area, admittedly only over 2 trips totaling 3 weeks total, but in the hugely touristy spots like Kinkakuji, Japanese tourists were 90% of the people there. I just looked at my photos of Nara and Kyoto and visibilty-not-Japanese tourists are a small minority of people in frame.
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Apr 19, 2023 15:18
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Alright, looks like we have our Japan trip (5 childhood friends) broadly figured out, with the main question now about finding a nice ryokan somewhere convenient. 2-5 days in Tokyo (people arrive different days) 1 day on Fuji 1 day in a Ryokan somewhere 4 days in Kyoto 3-5 days in Tokyo (people leave different days) Kyoto we booked a really nice house for all of us. Tokyo appears to be pretty mediocre for group lodging and we arrive and leave on such different days that it's kind of a hassle to deal with in any case. For the "ryokan somewhere" we're having a little more trouble figuring out, if anyone has good suggestions? We'd look for somewhere between Gotemba and Kyoto, inclusive of either, fairly easily accessible by public transport, and for a ryokan that doesn't require getting a Japanese monk to write a calligraphic epic poem to reserve 3 rooms. Budget up to around $250-300pp/night (so ~$500-600/room) if it's worth it. Someone suggested some amazing ryokans near Matsumoto before, but now that's way out of our route. Matsumoto and that area looks cool but one of us has a hosed up knee and can't hike so we'd feel bad ditching him for multiple days of the trip as we already are for Fuji, and also the weather in late July in the Japanese Alps looks like an absolute dumpster fire of "really hot" "really humid" and "huge constant thunderstorms and lack of visibility". We all grew up in a similar dumpster-fire-bad summer climate so we don't greatly care about the first two but the last one is a dealbreaker. The Japanese Alps might be the most disappointed I have ever been by mountains. They look great in pictures and if you live nearby and have a super flexible schedule I'm sure it can be amazing in summer too, but their reliably-nice weather window for hiking looks to be about as short as the one for climbing Everest. Anyway, I guess I'll go back at some point in my life and do a roadtrip around the Japanese countryside in late spring or early fall.
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May 24, 2023 10:18
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peanut posted:South Gifu prefecture has a good balance of transport access and history/mountains. It looks like by train that about 5 hours of travel time (5 hours from Gotemba to there, 3 hours from there to Kyoto; vs. 3.5 hours from Gotemba to Kyoto). We thought about renting a van to go around, but in the end the trip is so big-city-focused it's not worth hassle to save a few ¥¥¥ by renting a car. Maibara is a normal stop directly on the main train line from Tokyo to Kyoto and is next to the lake and hills... and I also just noticed that booking.com specifically lets you select "Ryokan" which is pretty neat so I think I've just solved my issue. I had been looking at Japanese websites with Ryokan lists but the ones I found, at least in English, feel like they were designed in 1999 and I'm unsure if they've been updated in a decade, like this one: https://www.ryokan.or.jp/english Some of these places look incredible, like https://www.booking.com/hotel/jp/kyoto-garden-ryokan-yachiyo.en-gb.html
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May 24, 2023 16:34
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LyonsLions posted:Pokemon card sales have gotten a little weird lately. We had to bring IDs for our kids to buy them at the toy store at the mall. What on earth? Why? Is there like a printer ink crisis? Googling it makes it even more perplexing for me; https://gamerant.com/japan-store-id-buy-pokemon-cards-snow-hazard-and-clay-burst/ Also do kids in Japan even have IDs? I don't think I had an ID until I was like 13. I'm also impressed that Pokemon cards are still that popular 20 years after they came out.
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Jul 5, 2023 19:07
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Mister Chief posted:How do you plan on moving here? I am pretty sure 99% of people who talk online about wanting to "leave the US because of the political situation to move to another country" never actually do so, and half of those rare ones who do move have a breakdown in year one of moving because it turns out that other countries have problems too and that most people’s personal problems tend to follow them. Also it’s hard to meet good friends when you’re over like age 30, especially if you move somewhere that you don’t speak the local language. Like I basically can’t imagine what the problem with America is that moving to Japan would help with, that could not be far more easily solved by just moving cities or states within America. I mean to be sure the US has unique issues but e.g. if you can’t get healthcare in the US, then I doubt Japan will accept you as an immigrant. Some countries explicitly won’t accept you as an immigrant in such cases, like Australia.
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Jul 9, 2023 13:34
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Busy Bee posted:I can't think of one city in the states that has the combination of proper public safety, strong public infrastructure, no visible mental health / drug addiction / homeless problem, "strong" worker's rights (at least no at-will jurisdiction), respected police force that has accountability etc. Combined with Japan not having to deal with an abundance of military worship and a politically divided population, I can think of many reasons as to how moving to Japan would help with one's mental health and well being. Strong worker's rights? In Japan? For minimum wage workers in hard jobs, sure maybe. For the class/jobs of Americans who have the money and capacity to actually pick up sticks and move to Japan, absolutely not. Someone working at an Ikea checkout line in the USA isn't going to get a visa to go work in Japan. Military worship, politically divided population: sure on a societal basis, but if you live in San Francisco you're literally never going to see any political division between the population nor military worship. Basically, if you stop reading Twitter then those problems disappear and you don't even have to move across the Pacific Ocean. Japan also has some pretty bad military worship issues going on (Yasukuni), but yes you'd be able to ignore it just fine as a foreigner. You can also ignore it just fine in the USA, it's not North Korea where you hear the US military anthem played before every movie in the cinema or whatever. Homeless/alcohol/especially mental health issues: certainly more visible in the USA, but again these societal issues also don't really affect one personally. If you live in San Clemente, you also won't see any homeless people or any (visible) drug addicts either, and that barely requires moving counties from LA, let alone across the Pacific Ocean. All those other big cities you mention: there are also many smaller cities in the USA or nice suburbs/satellite cities of those specific ones where you won't personally encounter homelessness, violence, crime, etc. If it is not about "seeing" those issues, but the problem is that morally you're in a society that does nothing about them: then why is moving to Japan any better for one's conscience than moving to a city in the USA that doesn't have those issues? Now you're ignoring the problem even more than someone who moved out of Venice Beach and to San Clemente. What you've said are all real societal problems but they are not the types of things to personally affect the people who have the money, internationally-recognized-employment-skills, and wherewithal to move their life across the world, and issues like racism are going to be way worse in Japan than in the US. E: I mean I left the USA many years ago, not really for any of those reasons I just wanted to spend a year doing something else, so I get it to some extent, but except for worker's rights all of those other issues are abstract and 100% ignorable for anyone who is an IT professional with the capacity to move abroad. And worker's rights are absolutely not better in Japan for people in highly-specific/trained professions. By all means the OP may benefit from moving to Japan, but anyone whose reasons are "because society is icky in the USA and every other country in the entire world is better than Amerikkkka*" seems to be starting off really on the wrong track. *That was not the OP's phrasing, but I've seen other people phrase it literally like that. Saladman fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Jul 9, 2023 |
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Jul 9, 2023 16:47
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Does anyone have a favorite nice, modern atmosphere restaurant in Kyoto to recommend (6-15k/pp)? Big fan of outdoor / terrace / rooftop dining, but everything else I’ve found looks like it’s just a bar. Love fusion and creative modern food as a bonus. Cicon Rooftop looks perfect, with Mexican-Japanese fusion which seems like the best possible cuisine to me. I really remember and enjoy the atmosphere of restaurants more than the food… which seems to be the opposite of traditional Japanese fine dining. The really fancy like Michelin type traditional cuisine places in Japan also seem entirely to have pretty basic interior atmospheres that focus exclusively on the food, even in places like the new Bulgari hotel in Tokyo. Same question for Tokyo (esp Shibuya area) for outdoor / rooftop / terrace / good view dining, but there I haven’t looked as much so might be missing something obvious.
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Jul 10, 2023 23:07
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