Japan, Part II

[bloodandsmoke]

This is the second part of my... many part Japanese saga.

Comments

[virtualdragon]

While I'm curious as to what Andrew's point on this was, I'd say that it's fully possible to go there with no understanding of Japanese assuming you sign yourself up with a tour group beforehand or are very good at making friends with people quickly. Personally I found it a bit frightening the one day I was actually on my own to walk around the streets of Kyoto. Mostly because (at least where I was) all the road signs are in some combination of Kanji and Hirigana. So actual navigation is left up to finding something large and unique to orient yourself around with, because if you don't know the characters, it's not like you can even guess at remembering what street you're on or came from, or want to go to. And a lot of the streets look fairly similar (probably 1 or 2 vending machines per block and a convenience store on every other block).

On the other hand if you had a really good GPS to navigate for you or just a very detailed map of where you are that actually includes every minor road (harder to find than you'd think), getting food and buying things is pretty easy. People, especially store owners, are generally friendly and usually understanding if you look confused and just point at what you want.

[oneforellis]

Of the three cities we visited I found Kyoto to be best for lost foreigners. Twice we had people walk up to us and ask if we needed help. We didn't need the help but it was so strange and thoughtful for them to come to us.

[virtualdragon]

Yeah, it is a tourist city, filled with both foreign and Japanese tourists. I don't think anyone every asked me if I needed help, but mostly I was with Mio, so I think they assumed I was already being helped. But when we did get lost we could pretty much just ask the first person we saw for help and they'd be happy to tell Mio (in Japanese) what to do.