You travel alone? Like by yourself? How do you communicate then? You can speak Japanese?
You travel alone? Like by yourself?
Yes I travelled alone. However, i stayed in a hostel in Kyoto so i made friends so like few of the days i travelled around kyoto with them. Also, I had like tons of acquinatances coincidentally traveling japan (my whole instagram feed was spammed with people posting japan photos) it was so weird cause literally everyone was in japan just different cities different timings even my prime minister was in japan LOL. so the fun part was impromptu meet up with whoever was in which city at which date. however, i was truly solo traveling around tokyo alone. nobody was in tokyo when i was in tokyo *sobs* that said, traveling alone is pretty fun, the only problem (ignoring safety issues lol) Â is itâs kind of hard to get a good photo of yourself since itâs inconvenient to get a stranger to take photos of you until you get the perfect one lollololol.Â
How do you communicate then? You can speak Japanese?
HAHAHA. iâm SUPPOSED to be able to speak basic japanese but i canât speak japanese for nuts. that said, i did learn japanese in school but itâs terribly elementary. I CAN sort of understand simple japanese because i watch tons of animes and read mangas with the raws available.Â
hereâs how to get by japan without proper japanese:
know the basic phrases like âhow much is thisâ, âdo you have (inserts item name)?â, âwhere is this place?â, âwhich is the most popular?â (i like to ask whatâs most popular cause sometimes i canât make up my mind when i see a huge array of food)Â
memorise japanese direction terms like left, right, straight, turn left, turn right
memorise âhow long does it take to get to (Place A) from  (Place B)  by (Mode of transport)?â
know how to say âdoes this train go to (place)?â
taking the train:Â GOOGLE MAP IS YOUR BESTFRIEND TRUST ME. you wonât get lost with google map. and this is coming from someone who always gets lost. also, I can understand some of the japanese train announcements so iâll be able to know which station is next which side of the door will open, but donât worry, they do have announcements in english too. You know how every train in every country will have a mini map of the stations the particular train you boarded is traveling to? yeah in the Newer trains, that mini map has Kanji, Hiragana and English/Romaji. However, the older trains or trains that travel to the suburb areas of Tokyo do not have the station names in english, everything is in Kanji *this is when my lousy japanese comes in handy and i look out for the announcements in japanese and keep my faith in google map lol*.Â
p.s. i canât really remember if Kyoto and Osaka trains provide english announcements. I doubt so. but the Romaji on those maps will get you by.Â
Also, people in Japan are extremely friendly and really go the extra mile to help you out if youâre lost. i think this is because 1) they canât really communicate with you in english so 2) they kinda just realise itâs more efficient to bring you to the place LOL. that said, itâs very nice of them to walk you to the place. those that i asked for directions, most of them walked me to the place, thatâs how helpful they were. However, at touristy spots the staff donât speak english well so it can be frustrating but youâll get by somehowâŚ.Â