Japan travel
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
Japan travel · Page 17
Sendai Guide: Date Masamune, Beef Tongue and Japanese to Use
Sendai, the largest city in Tōhoku, is a green, relaxed city built by the one-eyed warlord Date Masamune. It is ninety minutes from Tokyo by Shinkansen and rarely crowded with tourists, and its famous grilled beef tongue gives you the perfect excuse to practise ordering in Japanese.
12 min readTomioka Silk Mill Guide: Meiji Brick Heritage and Japanese to Use
Tomioka Silk Mill is the brick factory where modern Japan learned to make silk by machine, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2014. It is an easy day trip from Tokyo by Shinkansen and a small local railway, and its guided tours in Japanese are a real test, and a real reward, for a learner.
11 min readObuse Guide: Hokusai, Chestnut Sweets and Japanese to Use
Obuse is a small town of old storehouses, chestnut orchards and lanes paved with chestnut wood, half an hour from Nagano. The great ukiyo-e artist Hokusai painted here in his eighties, and the town's chestnut confectioners make it one of the most delicious places in Japan to practise ordering food.
11 min readNagara River Cormorant Fishing Guide: Ukai in Gifu and Japanese to Use
On summer nights on the Nagara River in Gifu, fishing masters in straw skirts guide flocks of cormorants by the light of blazing fire baskets, a tradition more than 1,300 years old. You watch from a wooden viewing boat drifting alongside, with a picnic and a boatman to talk to, which makes it a memorable evening and a good one for your Japanese.
12 min readShōdoshima Guide: Olive Island, Angel Road and Japanese to Use
Shōdoshima is a mountainous island in the Seto Inland Sea, known for olive groves, soy sauce breweries, hand-stretched noodles and a sandbar that appears only at low tide. It is an hour by ferry from Takamatsu and still feels like rural Japan, which makes every bus ride and shop counter a chance to speak Japanese.
11 min readHagi Guide: Samurai Streets, Hagi-yaki Pottery and Japanese to Use
Hagi is a quiet castle town on the Sea of Japan where earthen walls, samurai gates and orange trees still line the streets, and where a handful of young men in the 1850s laid the groundwork for modern Japan. It is far from the Shinkansen and rarely crowded, and its pottery workshops are a lovely place to use your Japanese.
11 min readNagoya Ōsu Guide: Kannon Temple, Covered Arcades and Japanese to Use
Ōsu is Nagoya's liveliest old neighbourhood: a vermilion Kannon temple at one end and a grid of covered shopping arcades packed with secondhand clothes, electronics, street food and old-fashioned shops. It is where Nagoya people go to browse and eat, and every stall is a chance to order in Japanese.
11 min readKiso-Fukushima Guide: Nakasendō Checkpoint, Soba and Japanese to Use
Kiso-Fukushima is a mountain town on the old Nakasendō highway, once home to one of the four great checkpoints of Edo-period Japan. It is a direct limited express ride from Nagoya, quieter than the famous post towns further south, and its soba shops are a friendly place to try your Japanese.
11 min readJapanese IC Card Phrases: Suica, PASMO, Top-Ups and Ticket Gates
To use a Japanese IC transit card you need a handful of words: chāji to top up, zandaka or zangaku for the balance, zandaka fusoku when it runs short, and norikoshi seisanki, the fare adjustment machine inside the gates where you fix a shortfall.
12 min readJapanese Platform Signs and Car Numbers: Reading a Train Platform
A Japanese train platform shows where everything will stop before the train arrives: the bansen number names the track, floor marks show each car's doors by gōsha number, and signs flag women-only cars, reserved cars and the stations on either side.
12 min readJapanese Station Exits and Compass Directions: Kita, Minami, Higashi, Nishi
Japanese station exits are mostly named after the compass: kitaguchi, minamiguchi, higashiguchi and nishiguchi open onto the north, south, east and west sides of town, chūō-guchi is the central exit, and subway exits carry numbers such as A2.
13 min readJapanese Train Types: Local, Rapid, Express and Limited Express
Japanese train types, from kakueki teisha (local) through kaisoku (rapid), junkyū (semi-express) and kyūkō (express) to tokkyū (limited express), usually share the same tracks; what differs is which stations they skip, and the ranking changes from one railway company to the next.
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