Re: English speaking in Japan.
On my recent trip I flew into Osaka first, spending a few days there and found that English speaking, etc was a bit less than Tokyo. And Osaka is a very big city.
To explain further, anything important you interact with will have enough English to help you get around, there's signage, English language announcements in the Subway, the maps will have English on them, ATMs or ticket machines will have an ENG button to switch language modes. But I found that the service people behind the counter at various places had poor English skills. The few times I needed help at the hotel counter, Often the person I spoke to would need to defer me to someone else who was the designated English speaker. It wasn't a small out of the way Hotel, it was part of the APA chain and right in the downtown, walking distance from Osaka castle.
A lot of the museums and cultural places I went to had few or limited English descriptions on things, eg at the big multi story museum of History, English description panels were there, but were an after thought. A printed paper bit of text, sello-taped onto the panel that was made with the Japanese / Korean / Chinese text on it.
And in truth, I found all that, to be a really good thing about the trip. It felt good to be in a place that didn't need to be catering to us English speakers. To BE the fish out of water was refreshing. I had traveled through Europe some years ago and anyone you interacted with spoke English.
But also in Osaka, there weren't many Anglo-saxons there at all. Shit, the corridor in the hotel, all the doors were lower than my head height, I'm 6'3" so kinda tall, but I aint seen that before. It was like some scene from a Tim Burton film to walk down the corridor "Is this a prank or something, they send tall westerners to this floor and watch us on camera??"
Chysamere
for taking me there! That Kobe beef Nigiri or Sashimi we had was hellacious the whole dinner was incredible! I remember you had some and you don't eat raw stuff!!!! It was really sweet which was just amazing for a raw meat. Will be seeing you again later this year, will let you know when time gets closer kinfolk. KRA KRA!
