Eathen’s Weblog

Ok. So you have a ticket. Check, maybe you have friends in Japan, or someone who you know has somebody there. Nop? Well if you are not a millionere check hostels http://www.jyh.or.jp/english/index.html If you can sleep everywhere, you don’t have anything against cockroaches and you want to see Kyoto book Uno House http://unohouse.fte.jp/ I can guarantee you will not forget it… Never.

Let’s see, you have a ticket, you have booked some hostel, aaa now better check your airport and transportation – you’ll be less stressed when you’ll see this 出口 or that　トイレ. Check where is train / bus station – sometimes it’s not obvious, check it especially when you want to save money for something else. Usually it works out better to take the bus. You can buy also 1-8 days rail pass which is great but you can buy it only once during your stay and only if your’re staying in Japan only for 15 (!!!) days. So think it through three times and decide when to use it…  Check e.g. Kansai Pass http://www.westjr.co.jp/english/travel/jrp/index.html If you already decided how will you get out of the airport think again and print the map of the airport. Unless you speak and read japanese. I wouldn’t count on Japanese ability to speak foreign languages that can be… fun. Japanese tend to run away… or they show crossed arms sayin’ “no, no english”. Sometimes they speak japanese but that is rare, especially when they hear you speaking japanese. So under any circumstances don’t say a word in japanese! Either you’ll get response in broken english (japanized english) – Japanese don’t believe that anybody could possibly somehow be able to learn it or you’ll get answer in japanese nobody would understand – in some dialect. Ok ok in Tokyo one can be lucky and get a decent conversation but I believe only there.

Lesson 3 soon to come…

Meantime relax like my Misio…