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Since the repost isn't in yet-- Prep is basically just passport, comfortable shoes and pants (don't sleep on this part, if you wear new jeans on day one you will regret it for weeks) for walking, and sort out how you want phone coverage--maybe your US plan has international roaming, maybe you can get an unlock and rent a SIM, maybe you do a phone or hotspot rental, and depending on the exact option and provider some like advance notice. Language is not a huge deal in touristy or big-city areas. Especially for things like mass transit or chain restaurants, English is not necessarily spoken well but definitely supported in menus/kiosks/maps/etc. At this point, your strategy should be less about learning the language and more a little bit of pronunciation practice (honestly very easy, if you have Spanish) combined with a phrasebook. Stretch goal would be memorizing the katakana script, which is essentially Japanese italics in that it's the standard proper way to present loanwords and thus you might be able to sound out a rough meaning, or picking a few important written words and remembering that 手洗 is (sometimes) the "logo" for toilet, 会計 for cashier, 入 for entrance, 出 for exit, etc. Not worrying about using them properly in a sentence or anything, just "if I have to pee, I look for a sign with this on it". About the only exception is small restaurants and bars in poorer areas, in my experience; if the owner-chef-waitress doesn't speak English she may not want to deal near closing with a party that can't speak Japanese. But on the other hand there are just as many that love the idea of having some cultural exchange while they work. You will stick out. You will stick out like a sore thumb. You would stick out like a sore thumb if you were size 0 and 5'3", and probably still if you were an American-born ethnic Japanese that was size 0 and 5'3"; there's a bunch of indescribable stuff about carriage and posture and fashion sense and when eye contact is/isn't appropriate that... Takes a long time to wear off (and even then, you're still filed in the "immigrant" bucket rather than the "tourist" bucket, which should probably be food for thought back home.) But, assuming you don't encounter a weirdo whose fetish you are, it's more a curious-friendly-"oh cool time to see if I still have my HS English" thing, they take being brushed off for an answer, and the weirdos are in the wrong even by local cultural standards. (The general impression I've gotten from women friends is that the weirdo rate is at least two orders of magnitude higher if you're a blonde; be warned or reassured as appropriate.) E: One other thing--money. Japan is less cash-based than it was in the past, but is still primarily cash-based; you'll want to have (and are safe having) fifty or a hundred bucks-equivalent in your wallet at all times, more if you plan on spending. Most ATMs do not work with American cards, but 7-Eleven's do at a fair rate, though keep in mind that many US banks limit ATM transactions to $400 a day. Additionally, the Japan-side airport exchange bureaus are actually not scams, so if you want to change cash for cash feel secure in doing it as soon as you get there. Many places that take credit also take the local mass transit card, so feel free to get one of those and keep it loaded/clear it out with convenience store breakfasts the last couple days. And consider a change purse, because the change denominations go up to what's still $3.50 or so. Mandoric fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Apr 8, 2024 |
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Apr 8, 2024 03:12
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 16:25 |
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I will say, the Japanese answer to "is the ship still Theseus's?" has been a resounding yes from long before even recorded history. The chief shrines get rebuilt within a human or working lifetime, to original design with original methods, under some combination of it being repurification or just dealing with humid-climate decay while someone who watched the last iteration go up as a boy could still "nope" anything that was off, if not be a master for it when he was an apprentice the first time around. But yeah, there is a big wartime gap of old-but-not-ancient sites.
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Apr 14, 2024 04:24
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Earwicker posted:is this hyberbole or are you talking about rural areas or something? i havent been to Japan but i was under the impression that it had several large cities where enough non-Japanese people live and work that the sight of a foreigner was not particularly notable More the degree of it mattering? You could be the hundredth, if not later, "tourist or immigrant" a Tokyoite has seen that day; they probably don't cast any automatic aspersion there since they've probably seen a hundred that day; just that doesn't mean that that isn't your category in their assessment.
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Apr 30, 2024 03:22
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