After my Japan trip

Hello I used this forum to prepare for my trip to Japan, for the last two weeks of 2013. Using the search function and browsing the forum pretty much answered a lot of questions but have a few now that I'm back.

I stayed in Osaka for a week(two trips to Kyoto) and Tokyo for a week. I loved Osaka and Kyoto, I made some great friends in Osaka and loved the sites in Kyoto.

Tokyo not so much, I had a couple of museums I wanted to go to and everything in the last week was closed. I stayed in Shinjuku(Toyoko Inn) which was great for the station but there's not much to do while your there, high end shopping is not my thing, and the African touts are beyond annoying(and I'm saying this as someone who travels to the Caribbean and Central America and is use to being harassed by the locals), at first I acted like I didn't know English and spoke Spanish to them, when that didn't work I found when you see them coming beat them to the punch, jump up in their face and start yelling - what's up man!!! With arms flailing around, they do not know how to react to this and sink back never to bother you again, later I found if you go around the Golden Gai you can avoid them completely.
I went to Yokohama and liked it there more, since a lot of my plans fell through I was trying to get down to Kamakura but never made it, now I find out maybe that's where I should of went. I live at the beach in US and think that's more my kind of place, I hear there are surf bands and beach, I found Enoshima and Zushi beach, what do people think of these places to stay?

I want to say I loved Japan and so glad I finally got to travel there, I went in the winter time and will go back in the Spring or Summer next time. The Japanese are the most honest people I've ever met, there was a couple times I gave to much money and the'll give it right back without a thought! Tipped the waiter for putting up with my terrible Japanese and he ran down the road after me to give it back!

My advise to people traveling to Japan for the first time - learn more Japanese!

Sorry to hear some of your plans fell through. But if you'd checked the sites, you should have seen that a lot of Japan is closed the last and first week of the year because of the New Year's holidays.


If you like beaches, you should visit Okinawa and all of its smaller islands. There's great beaches and scuba diving there.

Thank you for the reply, I did check the site but couldn't find any definite dates and thought maybe I could get Edo Museum and the woodblock museum in when I first got there.

I did get to Tsukiji fish market and have the best sushi of my life(it was really hard to go back here to the US for sushi :)), and Akihabara was a lot of fun trying to find a Kaiju shop off the beaten path.

I want to go to Okinawa in the future but will have to go back to Tokyo to see the places I couldn't the first time, but this time maybe stay in Kamakura or Enoshima, does anyone have more information on these places? Enoshima is very busy in the summertime? Any budget friendly hotels? How far is Kamakura to the beaches?

I could only come to Japan last two weeks of the year because of my business, I froze and had a nasty cold while I was there so I want to come back in Spring or Summer. I live in tropical place in US and not use to cold weather. My Japanese friend tells me I have to come back in warmer weather as Japan is a different place :)

sounds like you didn't wear appropriate clothing. It wasn't that cold over that period..... certainly none of that snow that came later on in winter!

Okok, weather where I live is 80f-27c degrees in the winter time, so 40f-5c degrees is very cold for me, believe me I buy very warm cloths for this trip but when your not use to the cold weather your going to freeze, night time was worse. I didn't let that or my cold stop me from enjoying Japan :)

I just didn't like Shinjuku, I thought there was other things to do there, and I got dragged to Roppongi aggh just not my scene, nor was Shibuya's high end shopping, my impression of Tokyo is it's a great place if you want to go drinking with a 1,000 meathead Americans and Europeans trying to hit on every girl that moves, no wonder Westerners have such a bad reputation. I know Tokyo is a big city, I think I was in the wrong areas.

Sorry to tell you but if you go to Tokyo, that`s generally what you get. Every time I go to Tokyo, I see what you described, however by having my Japanese friends guide me, they take me to the places that they recommend. If you go to Shibuya, Shinjuku, Roppongi though, you should expect to encounter foreigners and everything that entails.

As I live 2 hours West of Osaka, most of my tourist excursions are to more rural areas where the people are surprised to see foreigners. Do some more research before your trip next time and get out of Tokyo.

Dude, I remember going to Japan Dec 2012 to Jan 2013 for a month. I came here for help but that did not work out so well, so I freestyle travel. The only place I wanted to visit was Nagasaki and Hiroshima that was it. I did not know what else to see, luckily I rented a sim card and I already download some Japan travel apps before going to Japan so I just went off from what I wanted to see from the apps. Turn out I did not see everything on the travel apps. While traveling in Japan there are so much to see that not on the maps or apps maps they have for visiting. Like in Nagasaki they are so many other things you will run into that not in the map if you walked all over.

I walked everywhere in Japan, I visited a lot of cities/town and I mean almost everywhere and because of that I was about to run into a lot of interesting things and see stuff most people would not see. I visited about 15 cities/town. Believe it or not, I walk from Sensoji (Asakusa Kannon Temple) to Shibuya well close enough; I was only 15 or 20min car ride. I remember because I paid 1.20 or 80yen to take the subway the rest of the way because I wanted to make it to Akihabara. Shoot, I had a small apartment I rent for 2 weeks and half I woke up at 4am to get on the train to go to Hiroshima and stay there and catch the last train back at night. I can go on and share a lot of stories.

My last week in Japan in Tokyo was not great, I lost my phone while traveling to Mt Fuji and all my information was lost so I couldnft really travel without my GPS but I did a few basic trips lucky my phone was turn in, unlike American or other countries they would have kept it for them self.

But people who live or travel in Japan are very nice, I am looking forward to traveling to Japan again next year 2015 this time its going to be to relax and have fun and meet people.

Funny thing is, when I was in Nagasaki, I meet a teacher there and I told her my last stop was Tokyo and she told me, there not a lot to see in Tokyo and she was right. But at the same time there is a lot to see in Tokyo, if youfre into the city lifestyle with all the big cities to visit.

When it comes to African in Japan, I did a lot of research and none of them are good. because Ifm black I did some research before traveling out there to see if they would be racist to me or not talk to me cause Ifm black but turn out Japanese people are not racist but they donft like rude foreigners. I was still worried but I talk to someone who assured me and said gwhen your out there just make sure you establish/let them know you are American.h To my surprise they were right when it came to big and mid side cities, I spoke English first than spoke my broken Japanese. But the African do make it hard for good black American travelers who are in Japan traveling to enjoy the culture.

By the way I live in the North East of American, okok is right you were not dress well enough, Ifm guessing you did wear layers light under and thick top to remove. I hate the summer, I get very hot and sweaty easily so traveling to Japan in the summer is out of the question if I did it would be for business to go in and out.

Just a few thoughts - Roppongi is not Tokyo. That's the equivalent of saying you don't like New York because Chinatown is too dirty.

Anyway, if you didn't like Shinjuku, it's possible Tokyo's just not your thing. No need to go there at all, especially if you don't like big cities.

Just a few thoughts - Roppongi is not Tokyo. That's the equivalent of saying you don't like New York because Chinatown is too dirty.

I love NY Chinatown, but I hate NY. I knew I wouldn't like Roppongi, I'm not a clubber anyway more a divebar kind of person, Golden Gai had it's charm for a time or two.


Anyway, if you didn't like Shinjuku, it's possible Tokyo's just not your thing. No need to go there at all, especially if you don't like big cities

I like big cities, but have to admit Tokyo wasn't what I thought, I guess I thought I had to go to Tokyo, but talking to some of my Japanese friends even they tell me they have no reason to go to downtown Tokyo, next time I will go to the beach and countryside and see the real Japan.

SKO, I know the African guys are just trying to scratch a living, I stopped to talk to a couple of them asking where they are from and a couple of them seemed pretty cool, however there is a point where you start feeling harassed, like saying no thank you in 4 different languages lol