Japan Travel Report
It's time for a productive post. Yes, I said productive, not any nonsense or useless post. Well, lately my posts aren't productive or very useful at all, but I just became addicted to blogging, so if there is nothing to blog, my posts end up in something random and actually very unnecessary.
Whatever.
Today is the 29th of November 2010 already and this means, exactly 4 months and 3 days passed since my arrival at Kansai International Airport in Osaka, in Japan.
Time passes definitely too fast.
And because of this I decided to create a travel review/suggestion/report post for other people, who are interested in coming to Japan one day, like my sister, some friends of mine and my cousin.
Most people would recommend Tokyo for foreigners coming to Japan, but I didn't stay in Tokyo long enough to talk about it.
My main-stay-at least that's what I'm calling it- was in Kansai area. (Nara, Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, Himeji, etc.) So I can tell you a lot about this area, which places you should visit and some general facts, etc.
General facts:
Kansai area consists of: Hyogo prefecture (Kobe, Himeji), Osaka prefecture (Osaka), Kyoto prefecture (Kyoto), Shiga prefecture (Otsu, Lake Biwa), Wakayama prefecture (Wakayama), Nara (Nara) prefecture and Awaji Island.
(Wikipedia)
In my opinion to visit Kansai area is more productive for a short-term visit of Japan, because of its variety. There are a lot of temples and shrines, especially in Kyoto and Nara, also a few castles, like Kyoto castle, Osaka castle or Himeji castle.
(taken at a temple in Kyoto 2009)
(Kyoto's golden pavilion-taken 2009)
(Himeji castle-taken 2009)
(Osaka castle-wikipedia)
(taken 2010 in Nara by my boyfriend's friend)
So, that was a very small overview about the cultural and traditional part of sightseeing in Kansai area, but there is a lot more than just these few things to see.
But Kansai doesn't consist only of temples, shrines and castles as some of you maybe already know. Most foreigners [caution! stereotype thoughts] think that Tokyo is a mix of cultural things to visit and a taste of big city nightlife, pop culture, technology and shopping. Somehow it's true, but it's not said that you can't enjoy nightlife, shopping or modernity in Kansai area, too. Because you can.
Nightlife & Shopping
There are a lot of bars, clubs, pubs in Kansai area. I don't want to publish a whole travel guide with restaurant information, bars you shouldn't go to and prices of dishes.
Because I stayed at my boyfriends place for about 2~3 months, who's living in Kobe I went to a lot of different restaurants in Kobe. Well, most of you should know about the Kobe beef and that it's quite expensive for normal-money-earning people. so if you don't have that much money with you, you should look if it's a Kobe beef-only restaurant before you enter, because there are a lot of them in Kobe, especially at Kobe's Harborland/Mosaic.
I really enjoyed the atmosphere in the evening at this place in Kobe, because it was very romantic and lovely to watch the sea, the Kobe port-tower and the big wheel at night.
(Kobe Port-Tower at night-taken 2010)
(Kobe Mosaic and big wheel at night - Google)
When I was researching about cheap accommodations in Kobe area, I discovered a Kansai area website for foreigners offering information about guest houses, Gaijin houses, language teachers, bars, restaurants, etc.
May you take a look at it. (English and Japanese are available)
So actually, it's not difficult at all to find bars, restaurants, karaoke, etc for coming into touch with Japanese nightlife in Kansai area, because there are a lot of offered things.
For the girls/women and everybody else, who's passion is it to go shopping I recommend Sannomiya in Kobe, Namba or Nipponbashi in Osaka, but to find places for spending money you actually don't have to search for, because Shopping malls are always connected with JR (Japanese Railway) stations in bigger cities. And there are quite a lot of stores in the station buildings in Kyoto, Kobe, Osaka, Nara - actually everywhere.
So don't worry about this. You will have enough possibilities for spending you money on.
For the foreign Anime/Manga obsessed people visiting Kansai area, I recommend Osaka Nipponbashi. there are a huge numbers of bookstores, manga/anime/game-stores, cosplay stores, game-centers (purikura, ufo-cather, etc.) In Nipponbashi you also can find a lot of maid-cafes, but I don't think there are a lot of English speaking maid cafes. But dunno. A maid cafe is a small and expensive coffee shop
at which a lot of Japanese maid-dressed girls are working offering strange card games, expensive drinks, cakes, etc.
Japanese language vs English language
For people, who don't speak Japanese, but want to go to Japan : it's not true that you can travel trough Japan by using English. It's always said that everyone speaks at least basic English, but I didn't experienced things like this during my Japan trips. I often saw despaired foreigners trying to ask for something at a station, at a shop, at a restaurant or trying to ask for the right way in English.
Elder people don't speak English very often - well there are a few exceptions - but there are more younger people speaking at least basic English because of high school or university. In big cities the chance of being helped by asking someone in English is more realistic than asking something in English in small cities, but in my opinion you should be able to speak basic Japanese. Useful sentences like asking for the toilet, the train track, how to order in a restaurant, etc.
I never had problems in communication or asking for something here in Japan, but that's because of my Japanese language skills. I never used English only once at Kobe's city hall because of my alien registration card. But even at Kobe's city hall I was told that there's no one available, who's able to speak English. And I mean, Kobe isn't a small town on the countryside without any foreigners. So I was kind of shocked, but didn't had any further problems in explaining my request to them in Japanese.
Just a tip of mine.
Kansai-ben-the Japanese dialect of Kansai area
Kansai dialect is spoken in whole Kansai, but very strongly and very often in big cities like Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka.
Personally, I don't have any problems with this dialect, because I was used to stay in Kansai for a while. But the things I heard about it by non-Kansai Japanese people weren't very nicely. It seems that people living outside of Kansai area aren't pleased with this dialect and may I say, there are a lot of people saying Kansai people aren't Japanese people and this is kind of shocking. Well, my boyfriend grew up in Kumamoto, Kyushu and so he was used to this dialect, but because of his work he moved to Kobe about 2 years ago and already starts using Kansai dialect when taking even if he hates it. Well this is what I experienced. But if you're just going on holiday there, this won't be any problem for you as you either don't speak Japanese or most Japanese think you don't speak it since you don't look Japanese. [caution! stereotype thoughts]
I mean, people looked at me, starred at me, pointed at me and sometimes in the evening tried to asked me for going out in a broken English and if I was gentle enough at this time to tell them that I don't like to or just lied at the them by "I don't speak Japanese" in Japanese language they just started starring more at me than before. I know a lot of non-Japanese people speaking Japanese, so for me it's something usual, but somehow the people I met were always very surprised when I talked Japanese. Dunno why.
Other places
I haven't just been to Tokyo and Kansai area during my stays in Japan this year and last year during my summer holidays. I also went to Kyushu 2 times (Fukuoka, Saga, Kumamoto) and to Nagoya.
For people, who enjoy the nature I recommend Kyushu. There are a few green parts in Tokyo, some more green parts in Kansai area, but the nature in Kyushu is very impressive.
Last year during my summer vacation my boyfriend and me went to Fukuoka by Shinkansen, met up with a friend, went to his university in Saga for meeting up with another friend of him and his German teacher followed by being picked up by his father and driving to Kumamoto.
On the way to Kumamoto I didn't noticed a lot of the nature, because I was too tired and slept almost the whole drive.
But we went to mount Aso, which isn't just a mountain - it's a volcano. I haven't been to a volcano before so it was my first time and it was really amazing. I really liked it.
(Wikipedia)
(crater-Wikipedia)
Since my home stay is in Owariasahi, which is about 40 minutes away from Nagoya main station, I've been there a few times for riding the bus, riding the train, just looking around, visiting "Nagoya's Anpanman children museum", etc.
The children of my host family totally love Anpanman, therefore we went to this museum, which wasn't that much fun as I can't stand Anpanman. haha.
Well, the children loved it and there are a lot of things for the children to do, but quite expensive, too. If you're traveling to Japan with children in the age <6 I recommend to visit this museum and it's park offering a lot of toys, shops, shows, games, etc for children and their parents. But only if your Japanese skills are on easy conversational level.
So far enough about my small report post.
I soon will add a Japan travel and Japanese language page to my blog with reviews of travel guides, language textbooks, etc, if I have enough time.
Gruß aus Osaka! ^^
this is very instructive since I'm planning a trip to my ultimate travel destination, Japan. Keep up the good work:)
http://burbailey.blogspot.com/
Oh wie interessant, ich war da auch überall! :3 Leider konnte ich in kobe nachts keine schönen fotos schiessen weil meine kamera behindert ist! -.-"...
Jaa wie recht du hast, japaner und englisch xD... haha! aber junge japaner können es zum teil noch gut für japanische verhältnisse xD...aber gibt ausnahmen..z.b. mein freund *loool*...ach nein wie fies ich bin xD
Prilično lijep post. Upravo sam posrnuo na svoj blog i htio reći da sam stvarno uživao pregledavanja Vašeg bloga. U svakom slučaju ja ću biti pretplate na vaše hrane i nadam se da ćete napisati opet uskoro!
私はいくつかの素晴らしい知恵を持っている。