The crabs were the best!

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Funny because I'm actually going to Tokyo myself next week!

Nobody here mentioned Kyushu, my home away from home.
Check it out, if you can! Fukuoka is a nice city to go hang out, and Nagasaki is close by too. Nagasaki (for unfortunate reasons, of course) is the more touristy of the two, but it's got a nice art museum, Casutera (a yummy Portugese treat) and other things. There's also a crazy Dutch-themed theme park nearby. Only in Japan, right?

Just, if you're in the area, bypass Saga prefecture! That's where I lived, and there's nothing there.

Fukuoka is a fun city. I liked the neighborhood museum in Hakata. It was cool... sort of a "This is what life in Hakata was like during the Meiji to Showa periods" sort of thing. And they had phones you could pick up to hear real Hakata-ben...which is damn near unintelligible for me.

I only spent a day there, but it was a fun day.

Ok, silly question. How do you make the change from dollars to yen? Do you take a big ol' envelope-o'-cash with you on the plane and trade it in at a bank or something? I'm assuming they won't take my U.S. debit card at inaka sushiya

snispilbor Wrote:Ok, silly question. How do you make the change from dollars to yen? Do you take a big ol' envelope-o'-cash with you on the plane and trade it in at a bank or something? I'm assuming they won't take my U.S. debit card at inaka sushiya

Travellers checks. That's what I did.

You can access visa/mastercard debit cards at Post Office or 7/11 ATM's.

So I would travel with a bit of cash, and you can change it at the airport. And when you get a chance, make a withdrawal at the ATM.

rich_f Wrote:-If you go to Kyoto, go to the tourist center on the 9th floor of the train station. It totally rocks.

I've been in Japan a couple months but just got around to Kyoto this weekend. Definitely glad to have seen this. The tourist center owned. Got maps and a fan that kept me alive throughout the day. One of the ladies offered me some help with planning out some fast bus routes for different locations. Saved me a lot of time and confusion. I was glad that when I answered her in Japanese she switched to Japanese mode. Took time with me and only used english when necessary ("nightingale" for instance). Really great place.

Kyoto in general was really cool and as I said above, people actually spoke to me in Japanese there if I used Japanese. In Tokyo <i>no one</i> would use Japanese. I would walk into shops and get "welcome to our store". "それはいくらですか？?..."Sree Hundahd Yen".

Good place to go are Kinkakuji, Nijojo and Kiyomizu.

Protip: Kiyomizu is great, but go before 5pm or the sun will blind you and ruin all your photos. Also, eat mochi while you walk up the road to kiyomizu. At least 5 people will give you free mochi, and it's the best.

In Tokyo my favorite place to go was Yoyogi park on Sunday. Try to do this if you can. There is so much going on in this place. Get off the Yamanote in Harajuku and walk around there for awhile to check out the cosplayers, then cross the track and you'll see the rockabilly guys (these guys are awesome). Next keep walking down the sidewalk, get some yakisoba and listen to the something like 50 bands playing at once. They are lined up right next to each other all the way down. Cross the road and there are more little booths and things. Really awesome place (Sunday only though, I think).

stuff to do...

There are tons of museums in Tokyo that are cool. You can get some nice cognitive dissonance going on by spending time looking at traditional Japanese art in Ueno then hopping over to akihabara to visit a maid cafe.

If you like sports, I went to a baseball game in Tokyo the other day and that was fun. It definately had a different feel than going to a game in the states.

I personally try to avoid "temple overload"...There are of course some that have unique features (especially in Kyoto)...and temples are beautiful...but many of them leave me with the impression of "if you've seen one, you've seen them all".

You can visit the imperial palaces, but you have to reserve a spot:
http://www.kunaicho.go.jp/e17/ed17-03.html I went to the one in Tokyo and it was cool.

Food...I definately recomment お好み焼き it is my favorite of the "cook it yourself" foods in Japan...though I guess in some areas the staff cooks it for you. and definitely try some natto http://www.thesneeze.com/mt-archives/000169.php

and like people said...the rail pass is the way to go.

alyks Wrote:

snispilbor Wrote:Ok, silly question. How do you make the change from dollars to yen? Do you take a big ol' envelope-o'-cash with you on the plane and trade it in at a bank or something? I'm assuming they won't take my U.S. debit card at inaka sushiya

Travellers checks. That's what I did.

Travelers checks may be okay in the city, but be careful once you get out into the inaka as there may not be any place to exchange them. I know the bank in my city only does it on certain days.


But I'll second everyone here... maybe take a couple hundred in cash with you that you can exchange at the airport and then you can just draw the rest out of your American bank account from an ATM. The post office will take foreign cards, you just have to watch their hours... they can be pretty retirement home like once you get outside of the city. The postal ATM closest to my place is only open until 5:30 on weekdays, 12:30 pm on Saturdays, and isn't open at all on Sundays. The ones at larger post offices are open until 7:30. 7-11 is also a good bet, as they're everywhere and I've never had a problem using my US card there... also they're open 24-7, so you're good to go that way.

Get used to having lots of cash on you... everyone does it, and while it feels strange walking around with like $400 or $500 in your pocket, it's way better than getting stuck somewhere without cash. And you don't need to worry about pickpocketing or anything.

Yeah, I did all of my ATM withdrawals at post offices. Not hard to find in Japan at all, and as long as the sun is up, they should (for the most part) be open. You'll get lousy rates at the airport, so don't exchange too much there. There should be a post office in terminal 2 at Narita, actually, so use that ATM. The post office ATMs will give you a pretty good exchange rate, and won't gouge you on fees.

*CALL YOUR BANK BEFORE YOU GO.* Especially your credit card providers. You don't want to wind up with a broken ATM/CC while you're in Japan, and "fraud protection" will sometimes bite you in the butt, even when you call them ahead. (Happened to me 3 times. Bank of America sucks. But I had a Citibank card as a backup, and it saved me.)

I had heard at Yamasa that some of the Japanese bank ATMs will say they take VISA or MC, but they will only take Japanese ones, or only some foreign ones. It's kind of a crap shoot.

walexander5 Wrote:

rich_f Wrote:-If you go to Kyoto, go to the tourist center on the 9th floor of the train station. It totally rocks.

I've been in Japan a couple months but just got around to Kyoto this weekend. Definitely glad to have seen this. The tourist center owned. Got maps and a fan that kept me alive throughout the day. One of the ladies offered me some help with planning out some fast bus routes for different locations. Saved me a lot of time and confusion.

Ahhh, I see you're in Okazaki! I miss that place. I take it you're at Yamasa?

Yeah, the information on how to get to places like Kiyomizu and Kinkakuji/Ryoanji alone is worth the trip there. They have sheets that tell you which buses to take and where to get off of them to get where you want to go.

walexander5 Wrote:Kyoto in general was really cool and as I said above, people actually spoke to me in Japanese there if I used Japanese. In Tokyo <i>no one</i> would use Japanese. I would walk into shops and get "welcome to our store". "それはいくらですか？?..."Sree Hundahd Yen".

Yeah, I had fun talking to my cab driver in Japanese. He thought it was cool that I was trying. And yeah, you won't have many people walking up to you and asking, "Are you an English Teacher?" -_-

walexander5 Wrote:Protip: Kiyomizu is great, but go before 5pm or the sun will blind you and ruin all your photos. Also, eat mochi while you walk up the road to kiyomizu. At least 5 people will give you free mochi, and it's the best.

I've never seen anyone giving or selling mochi in the many times I've been in that area. You're probably thinking of yatsuhashi. Also, they aren't so much giving it away for free as letting people eat samples so they will buy some. Eating a bunch then leaving without so much as looking at the products is probably pretty rude.

I'm back! The whole trip was awesome, one adventure after another! Rather than tell every person I talk to about the whole trip, I'll just post it into my blog. I already put up a post about seeing a Geisha, that was a couple days ago but now that I have my laptop I added pics. I'll be putting up more posts in the days to come, including lots of sweet pictures. Meanwhile I'm dead tired and need to sleep. Here's the Geisha post: http://www.glowingfaceman.com/2008/08/me...eisha.html
And the main blog itself is http://www.glowingfaceman.com.

From the dreaded neglected Mnemosyne:

Scheduled: 4302 Not memorized: 278 All: 8924

Nevertheless, my language skill (both written and spoken) has of course shot through the roof!

Thanks everyone who helped me plan for this trip!!!! You guys all rock!!!