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i'm looking to go there for about 2 weeks. any suggestions, tips, gripes? info prz.

Dont do anything with the women. My uncle went there 30 years ago and never came back. Granted, he is now married to someone who is closer in age to my cousin, whose 25, than him (50). If you head to fukuoka, he runs a tourist brochure company, fukuoka now.

He's also the only person in all of my direct family that likes root beer.

I am THE man.
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee15 ... 171424.jpg

Which part are you going to?

Though if you want to know about culture things you should know about I can tell you that as well

facebumnuts - much face much bum much nuts

Go.

mind the tentacles.

it's a toss up between osaka and tokyo. although someone said osaka is not very tourist friendly. im leaning more towards tokyo. although travel is fairly quick around the main islands, is it not? anything helpful or some pointers in the right direction would halp

Osaka is known as the town of Comedy.

Everyone from Osaka is supposedly really friendly because of that but it's not as 'centraled' as Tokyo if you can't speak Japanese Tokyo would be a better bet. Though even in Tokyo you would still have some difficulties as a lot of Japanese people are afraid/shy to speak English.

If you go to the tourist spots like Akihabara(Electric Town District) they will have some multilingual people in stores called Akky. It's also a good tourist spot as it's also known as Otaku Central.

Travel is not "fairly quick" around the island

A bus trip from Tokyo to Kyoto would take about 8hours(Cheap!). Though you can take the bullet train and get there in 3 hours (Cost More) roughly $150USD per person, 1 way. Tokyo has some things to see but if you are after sightseeing I would highly recommend Kyoto.

If you are after shopping for things like clothes etc I would recommend Tokyo's Harajuku and Shibuya. They are about 20mins on train from Tokyo(Central).

If there's something else you want to know more specifically, ask me

facebumnuts - much face much bum much nuts

ill be spending 6 months learning japanese so i think ill be able to communicate fairly effectively. im more interested in food and the interesting view of japanese culture, so i think i'll start with tokyo and try the other places if i end up wanting to go back. does this sound like a good idea? i'll probably devote one day to traveling to kyoto and spend some time there as well.

6 months is barely enough time to communicate effectively unless you're doing an extremely intensive/immersive program - the language is extremely difficult and complex.

I'd personally recommend Tokyo out of the two, there is just an unbelievable amount of stuff to do, and the transit system is awesome and cheap.

The Shinkansen is also a must if you're going to travel, but it is quite expensive (almost 200 dollars to get to Yamaguchi from Tokyo, ntm 15+ dollar foodstuffs).

What she really means is 6 months is plenty of time if all you need to do is communicate on a basic level. I don't think anyone can become a literary mastermind in 6 months, but a language that you can't get a decent handle on after that much time is really really stupidly designed and should be phased out anyway.

I hate languages that don't have alphabets. Welcome to 6000 years ago.

If destruction exists, we must destroy everything.
Shuruppak Yuratuhl
Slaad Shrpk Breizh

go to kyoto.

Overnight bus to Kyoto was pretty uncomfortable. Man up and get the bullet train imo.

Bro did you man up and pay the extra 1,500Yen for the amazing comfy seats? lol

But yep, 6months won't be enough to communicate effectively. You might think oh I'll just get the basics down, you won't.

There is conversational information you need to learn as well which isn't covered in books concerning purchasing. Though I won't be harsh, if you devote yourself to learning it it is learn-able. Unlike cantonese which supposedly has 7-9 tones in the language.

Stick with Tokyo first,

if you want to see the 'weirdness' culture which you can see from Akiba. If you want to see the fashion districts it'll be Harajuku/Shibuya.
If you want to see temples/shrines it'll be Kamakura.

If you have some intentions of going to Kyoto I would say go, you won't regret it. There's a lot to see there.

facebumnuts - much face much bum much nuts

thanks for the vote of confidence tuhl. yeah languages are a hobby of mine. i know several and i don't find it difficult to grasp asian conversational basics. this thread needs to stop asploding with OMG YOU WONT KNOW THE LANGUAGE. i know the universal language...

the cack.

There's supposedly a huge cosplay gathering in the park in Shinjuku every Saturday. I was told this after I got back home of course. And while in Shinjuku, you can go to momo paradise and get some killer shabu shabu.

Train/subway around Tokyo is also romanized enough that you can easily get around without one bit of kanji knowledge. At least in-city, I never went on the JR line outside the city.

A lot of people in Tokyo understand English and can speak it to some degree. There are many who do understand it won't speak it for whatever reason. I was told it was they know they have a horrible accent, and don't want to sound silly. Communication wasn't really an issue for me with all of a dozen Japanese words. There's always the tried-and-true point to the beer tap you want and hold up one finger method. Works every time.

I was also told that the morning fish market down in the harbor was very commercialized now. The real fish market happens somewhere else, and not to bother with the one everyone says used to be really fun to go to.

Be prepared to spend a decent amount in hotel/lodging if you want western sized accommodations. My hotel for 10 days was over $2500 (USD) at the ANA hotel in Roppongi. You can do cheaper, but when the company is picking up the tab, there's no point, eh?

Hit the currency exchange on your way out of the country. There really is a vending machine on every corner, and you can't be sure they'll take plastic. A soda from said machine was like 120 yen, which was about 1 USD at the time...3-ish years ago. I think I exchanged 40 dollars and didn't come home with much left over.