Akihabara is the world capital of weeabooism, so you might like that. I bet it has a lot of Pokémon stuff there. The Abroad in Japan YouTube channel is also annoyingly focused on tourism; he blatantly gets paid to shill places but that would be great news for you. My least favourite videos are when he goes to some fancy restaurant to tell us how nice it is, but if you want fancy food, you will almost certainly find some decent recommendations there.

shooting former politicians is becoming popular

Kyoto is beautiful and I would recommend spending more time there if you can, it's much more Japanese than Tokyo and you'll understand what I mean.

>But honestly I’ve no idea apart from that what some less touristy places there are.

You don't speak Japanese so this is a bit daft. I enjoyed the Tsukuba Expo Center and the nearby park which is outside of Tokyo and barely anyone seems to know about. It's easy to get around on Japan's public transport network which is fast, efficient and cheap but you have to be mindful that you can't just go to a museum and expect to be able to read anything or get much help from the staff despite their best wishes.

McDonalds is worth a trip. The food looks like it does on the signs and you just need to say the right number followed by "settu mear" for the staff to understand.

Do not understimate the language barrier. Particularly outside of major tourist cities like Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka virtually no one speaks English. Strangers are often happy to help, if you have pen and paper more people read and write English than speak it. Last time I was there translation apps weren't a thing, so no idea how well they work in practice.

If you get the chance, Nikko is worth a visit. Not far from Tokyo and just filled to the brim with quite intact history.

I have heard that the key to being understood by Japanese people is to limit yourself to words rather than sentences. If they show you to your hotel room and you say, "Excuse me, I was wondering if you could help me. Do you know if this hotel has a gym?", then they're not going to understand you. But if you look around and then just say, "Gym?", allegedly they will all understand you perfectly. Quite what you do with your directions in Japanese, I don't know.

>>3693
>Abroad in Japan YouTube channel

Thanks for this, I was expecting some kind of mega-weeb, but he seems pretty, well, normal. Got a few cool looking places on a list now. One thing I've noticed is there seems to be no end in niche museums/theme park type places.

>>3695
>Kyoto is beautiful
It certainly looks it from google. Like the exact type of place you think of when you hear 'Japan'.

>You don't speak Japanese so this is a bit daft.
Yeah, maybe, but how hard can it be, really? In the worst case I can look like a muppet and get google translate to speak for me, but you are probably right in thinking I should stay on the beaten path.

>If you get the chance, Nikko is worth a visit
Looks great, cheers. It's got a funny little museum with replica heritage sites (https://www.tobuws.co.jp/en/).


>>3697
Honestly it is so far in advance I might just try and learn a few phrases / conversational pieces. It would be rude not to.

>>3696

While I'd love to visit Japan, that's the main thing that always stopped me. My ex always said she'd like to visit more of the quiet rural towns away from anything "touristy", but she was the kind of person who's too shy to tell the waiter if she gets given the wrong order in a restaurant, so I've no idea how she imagined she'd cope being somewhere even basic interaction is a challenge.

That said I don't see why people are snobbish about doing "touristy" things when you are a tourist. Why do you have to see the "authentic" side of a country? And often there's nothing at all "authentic" about the shit people do instead, just for a more upmarket tourist. If you were visiting England you wouldn't spend the week in a grimy bedsit in Bradford eating Iceland frozen pizzas and watching ITV dramas. That's what "authentic" would be. I'm fairly sure you'd have more fun going to London and having your photo taken next to the soldiers with funny hats and riding the double decker bus and looking at Buckingham Palace.

I lost track of what I was going to say anyway. If I went to Japan it wouwould be explicitly to see all the mad shit they play up for tourists, and eat lots of ramen. No need to be a pretentious twat about it. Travel is really a very vapid pursuit, no matter how much people like to dress it up.

>>3699
It isn't a binary choice, you can do the touristy stuff and the more off-track stuff, it's just most tourists don't need to be pointed in the direction of big ben, whereas the brecon beacons might fly under Mr Yamadas radar, but be a no less (and quite likely much more) enjoyable experience. Not to mention the unpleasantness of overpriced and oversubscribed tourist traps, or the fact that tourism in some cases is massively unpopular to locals (venice, dubrovnik, and so on).


>Why do you have to see the "authentic" side of a country?
I can't explain a sense of intrigue to someone, some people find the idea of seeing different cultures or places interesting.

>No need to be a pretentious twat about it. Travel is really a very vapid pursuit, no matter how much people like to dress it up.
I'd say the real pretentiousness is this weird inverse-snobbery that people always try and pull when someone sticks their neck out and says they don't fancy getting rinsed all holiday and want to have meaningful experiences.

>>3699

>That said I don't see why people are snobbish about doing "touristy" things when you are a tourist.

I'm not snobby about it, but I just think a lot of travel experiences are bad because people tend to choose from a short and arbitrary list of overcrowded destinations that are famous for being famous.

Venice is absolutely miserable in the summer because everywhere is rammed with obnoxious cruise ship passengers, the locals are miserable and everything is overpriced. In the winter, it's an absolute delight. The Louvre has miles of absolutely stunning galleries that are mostly empty, but a lot of people will queue for half an hour just to take a picture of a small and unimpressive portrait. The highest-rated restaurant on Tripadvisor is often just the beneficiary of social media hype and you can get better food and service from somewhere lower down the list.

There are challenges to travelling slightly off the beaten track, but they've become a lot less challenging due to technology. You can use Google Translate to take a photo of a street sign or a menu in Japanese and get a vaguely useful translation. If you get lost, you can look up a map on your phone rather than trying to ask for directions in pantomime.

I'd just encourage people to be a bit more thoughtful about what they're hoping to get out of a holiday. We naturally have an impulse to follow the crowd, we want to tick off a list of places we're "supposed" to go, but that doesn't always make for a good experience.

Personally, the memorable highlights of my holiday are always the small things - pissing myself laughing at the crap local telly, trying to figure out what the weird jars are in the supermarket, conversations in broken English with random nutters. I can get those things for less stress and less money by visiting random towns I've never heard of rather than "destinations". Conversely, a lot of people go on city breaks because they think they're supposed to, when really they'd prefer a package holiday.

>>3701

Yeah, there are a lot of places that are overcrowded and it would be common sense to avoid, but people nevertheless swarm them. But what I'm referring to is more of a general cultural elitism from people who prefer gap yah wanker backpacking holidays or whatever over sitting on the beach drinking Stella, and think they're superior for it. If what you want out of your holiday is better weather to watch the footy in, you're getting just what you wanted out of it.

I suppose a lot of it is tied into the social media, show off type of mindset a lot of people seem to have nowadays. It's as though they're not really going on holiday to enjoy themselves, they're going on holiday to one-up their mates and have the best stories to tell at dinner parties and squash practice (or whatever it is those sorts of people do).

>>3702
I also hate twats, and yet I probably am one. My favourite part of a foreign holiday is shopping in the foreign supermarket. Tourist things feel like a theme park, like they aren't actually real, but buying Italian Doritos from an Italian supermarket really gives you that feeling that you're somewhere truly foreign and different. There's probably a sweet spot where you have a memorable experience but it doesn't feel fake and constructed, but I don't think I've ever hit that sweet spot myself. Everywhere has landmarks, but only foreign places have palm trees growing at the side of the road.

>>3702
>people who prefer gap yah wanker backpacking holidays or whatever over sitting on the beach drinking Stella, and think they’re superior for it

Your points would be better made at those people then and not random people looking to make the most of their time abroad.

You fucking peasant.

>>3704

If you felt attacked, maybe you should think about why, ladm7.

I wasn't aiming at any of you lot, just rambling at nobody in particular.