I've been in Japan for a week now, and I'm getting used to how things work again. I hadn't spent any appreciable amount of time on my own here for... a decade, I guess? When I was visiting with my sister, I spent a lot of time focusing on what to do with her next. Anyhow, here's what's new since previously.

• New on the list of "do not bring": meat ( Read more... )

I'm writing this with the assumption that y'all've already (or will soon) read one of the standard travel guides; my listing of stuff here is mostly to highlight niche interests or things that might otherwise be overlooked by more mainstream guides. It's almost entirely about Tokyo because, well, that's what I'm familiar with ( Read more... )

edit: more info on the drugs.
Slightly reformatted and expanded for 2015! Huzzah! "Stuff to do" will be in its own forthcoming post.

Getting there

• Japan is extremely wiggy about drugs.
  • Super-duper wiggy. I saw pot there maybe once or twice in two and a half years. Don't try to bring or smuggle anything in, srsly. However…
  • (edited) Do not bring in any ( Read more... )

So you want to go to Japan. Cool! Here's some stuff to be aware of.

Language

• Japanese vowels are very similar to Italian. They're produced way back in the throat, and they don't change based on position in the word or surrounding consonants. tonkotsu and tonkatsu refer to very different things; resist the tendency to slur vowels into a schwa. And ( Read more... )