Get a Suica or Pasmo card - then it’s just tap on, tap off, make sure you top it up from time to time. Just book Shinkansen and Limited Express tickets at the station on the day.
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can get a sucia/pasmo card online? itd be for july
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If you’ve got an iPhone, you can add a Suica to your digital wallet. Otherwise just buy it from a ticket machine at the first station you find yourself in. You probably could buy one online, buy why deal with the hassle?
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i dont have an iphone but my mother does… and im sure ticets machines has a eng version, do you think id ever have to speak with the ticket people or no?
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Yeah, they have an English version. Here’s an example of a ticket machine at a JR station with “English” button circled. Other companies will likely have different models of machine, but there’ll be an English button somewhere all the same.
But listen, don’t be afraid to speak with people once in a while.
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no yeah, im just afarid they willl ask me a question i dont know LOL
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With the recent price hikes, the all-Japan rail pass isn’t worth it unless you really plan out your travel. The regional passes can be worth it, if you need to make just one return Shinkansen trip.
Also I had a lot of trouble with Suica on iOS. Something to do with the currency of the underlying account or my bank card, but I could never get it to charge.
Ticket machines universally have English options. You can normally get help in English at larger railway stations, even the smaller ones. Don’t be afraid to use Google Translate. It works really well and nobody thinks it’s unusual.
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Hey, this is the same exact path I’m walking! Plan to visit Japan is scheduled for a few months from now, and back in August I decided to properly learn Japanese.
Very glad I landed here, and also made great use of Tsurukame.
To answer some general points from your post as someone who just hit the 500 Kanji mark:
-Flick input is amazing. It only took about a week to feel natural with it, but be warned your brain may start to “cheat” by seeing what autocomplete says as you type. Autocomplete may also lie to you by completing to a more frequent, but different vocab word.
-Grammar is crazy important and honestly way harder than vocab. Vocab feels like a steady, never-ending uphill hike while grammar feels like climbing a vertical mountain face. I’ve appreciated Bunpro and Cure Dolly as resources for grammar.
-You can find katakana practice resource decks on Anki, I also struggle with them. They’re just not used much in the contexts we give them (Wanikani, Bunpro, etc.), but are very common elsewhere.
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In my experience most restaurants will either have a Japanese menu and expect you to figure it out, or they’ll ask if you want an English one. Local non-chain restaurants often focus on a single dish so the menus don’t have many options. What you might find is that the English menu has the most common choices, and there’ll be a blackboard with some specials. Alternatively you look out the front window and examine the little food models and you can point to the one you want.
That’s not to say there aren’t restaurants with a million things on the menu, or tourist traps. But it’s not like China (or even central Europe) where there’s a risk of being given the Western/foreigner menu.
You can also google for places that have tablet/phone ordering. Those can be less intimidating, because English is usually available, and you can browse the menu without any pressure. I really liked Torikizoku, which is a skewer-focused izakaya. I had very low expectations going in, but the food was great.
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ah, do you have any recommendations of resturants? I don’t really enjoy seafood (sadly) except salmon but I’m willing to try some new fishes… 
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I’m going to avoid giving recommendations because Japan is a big place and it’s rarely worth going out of the way to try a specific restaurant. Be careful about suggestions online, because often they’re just catering to the Instagram crowd.
My advice would be to visit food courts in malls or under big train stations and wander around. Google for your preferred dish nearby (e.g. gyoza) and pick something with 4+ stars. It’s really quite difficult to get bad food in Japan if you follow those guidelines.
That said, definitely check out all the fried chicken options from the konbinis. Famichiki is certainly not to be missed. You also can’t go wrong by wandering round 7-11 and picking things with fun labels, even if you have no idea what they are.
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will do!
I just need to learn more types of food cause I’ll I know in Japanese is udon, ramen, sushi, onigiri, water, coffee, curry, tariyaki, soba, juice, tempura lol
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Altered in the sense that it is in English instead of Japanese but not altered in the sense of the menu items/content being any different. Availability of English menus will depend on where you are. In major areas popular with tourists, yes, pretty much most places. Not so much in most of the rest of the places (major chain restaurants excepted). Most of the places I frequent do not even have menus at the table (and if they do it is generally a photocopy of something handwritten), just on the walls. Sometimes chalk board/whiteboard but mostly wooden slats. Some do not even have a menu, they tell you what they have available today.
Also, for the most part spicy is not a big thing in Japanese food in general and many Japanese do not like/cannot handle spicy. For the most part any place that offers spicy options, their highest level is “yeah, I detect a hint of spicy” for me. There are some exceptions to this however, as there are some places that specialize in being “that crazy spicy food place”. Many years ago there was a late night spicy ramen shop near where I was living. On my first visit I ordered the highest spice level (7). They asked me a couple of times if I was sure and warned me that is was SPICY. I was expecting it to be the typical “sure, your super spicy is just low level compared to what I am used to”. I was wrong. Nearly blew my head off. I toned it down to level 3, sometimes 4 if I was feeling the need to kick it up, from then on. I know an awesome tebasaki place that also does spicy right. They have 10 levels, and they are proper knock your socks off at the higher end.
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Honestly there are so many well-known Japanese foods that you can easily pick one a day and not run out before you leave. That’s more or less how we decided, because otherwise you can quickly get paralysed with the number of options.
Here’s some ideas to research:
- Karaage
- Ramen
- Okonomiyaki
- Katusdon (and other things from the donburi family)
- French patisserie (weird pick, but there are a ton of great bakeries)
- Gyoza
- Izakaya (in general)
- Yakitori
- Tempura / kushikatsu
- Onigiri (konbinis are cheap and good)
- Tonkotsu
- Sushi of course, but I would suggest finding a conveyor/tablet ordering place
- Takoyaki
- Soba/yakisoba
- Udon
- Beef curry
- Toast and coffee from a random kissaten
- Omurice
- Karē pan (good grief it’s amazing)
- Nabemono/shabu shabu/hot pot
- Eki bento, if you’re taking a long train
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What… no yakiniku? 
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I will take notes, for sure!
do you remember the restaurant?
It has been about 12 years since I lived there. I just took a look on Google Maps and not sure if the same shop is still there or not, does not look like it. Would need to visit to see. That area is a fair hike out from central Tokyo, small station and not a lot going on. Not the sort of place I ever saw anyone touristing for the couple of years I lived there. But now I am sort of missing it, I think I will need to go spend a Friday night hanging out there again, see if any of the places I used to hang out are still around.
If you are a ramen fan and spicy fan, there are couple of threads on Reddit discussing the “best” spicy ramen joints in Tokyo. I have friend that is a spicy ramen fan, I can ask him for his recommendations on what is current.
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I cannot go on reddit on my school laptop. 
I wish to say how much I appreciate your post. It’s so interesting to read all of the details that you added.
You hiked the Kumano Kodo? Wow, so did I, last Spring 2024! I was 67 at the time and it was very difficult for me. I carried my backpack the whole way too which in retrospect wasn’t a good idea. That added a lot to the difficulty for sure. But regardless, the ryokan that I stayed in, the food, drink, and all that were so fabulous. Such terrific memories.
My WK status is now 4 but I’ve been as high as 13 before I pooped out. I also have the lifetime membership which is a bargain for such a wonderful program and group of people.
I started WK about three years ago. I assumed that, like when I was a child, reading would be my best path to learning the language. But I forgot that as a child I already knew English so reading, although challenging in its way, wasn’t how I learned the language. For us foreigners we have to learn the language and the reading at the same time, more than doubling the challenge for sure.
I used to travel to Japan (and many other places around the world) on business and so have been there over twenty times, mostly to the Tokyo and Osaka areas. Since retirement I’ve been there four times and will go again in two weeks. Now, I specifically avoid the touristy areas and head for the hinterlands. For example, I visited the Takefu Knife Village last Fall, and learned all about making Japanese knives. I even took a day class and made my own. Very cool.
I stopped my WK work over a year ago to focus on studying/learning conversational Japanese. You see, I get much of my jollies from serendipitous experiences with the locals. They are so appreciative of my being able to communicate even the tiniest amount in Japanese. And totally forgiving of my making mistakes. That’s where we learn, of course.
I started by having weekly lessons with a teacher on iTalki. After going through a couple of very child-like books of vocabulary we went on to Minna no Nihongo books which I love much much more than Genki. But as we progressed I realized that, sure, we were stepping through but there was so little actual practice that I wasn’t left with much in my head. So, I detoured into Pimsleur, which at $20/month is affordable.
I can’t speak highly enough of Pimsleur. Very very professionally produced and each lesson builds on the last in an SRS kind of way. They say that students can do one lesson/day which is so appealing. They have 150 lessons so I thought hey, I’ll be done with it in six months. Wow! Not so fast.
I now have a routine where I study each lesson for three days:
Day 1: It’s like my intro to the lesson. Reinforce learning from the previous, and encounter the new words and phrases. I write out (in hiragana) those words and sentences in a journal, which helps me nail the syllables/pronunciation, and also provides a visual reference in my mind for later recall.
Day 2: Before the lesson I look over my journal and notes, and then see how much I remember as I go through the lesson again. I take note of the ones I missed. Through the rest of the day I mentally rehearse those things that tripped me up.
Day 3: Once again, and it’s fun to see my progress. Sometimes I’ve remembered everything, sometimes not. But it’s okay because I’ll have them repeated in future lessons to help cement them in my brain.
But I returned to WK about a month ago, reset myself to Level 1, and am doing it in parallel with Pimsleur (where I’m now about 50 lessons in). It’s very enjoyable to have that dual reinforcement and aha moments when WK and Pims overlaps. The onyomi and kunyomi, for example. Each one helps the other.
Onward!
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