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I am a new user of TextFugu and a new person to the Japanese language! I travelled to Japan for a backpacking trip in April and thoroughly enjoyed myself. The one thing I really wish I could have done differently is to know some more of the language, especially being able to read it, so I could read signs, discover things, be more aware of my surroundings and what sorts of things I was seeing. So I’ve decided to start learning Japanese!
I look forward to my next trip, and to how the experience changes by knowing more of the language!
Welcome! Where’d you visit in Japan? =)
I started in Tokyo where I visited Shinjuku, Akihabara, and very briefly, Shibuya (my cell phone ran out of battery and I didn’t want to get lost). I then went to Kawaguchiko and hiked for 9 days, walking the Tokai Nature Trail, taking the bypass course through to Kurata outside of Fujieda, before heading back to Tokyo. I really want to walk the full length of the trail which goes from outside of Tokyo to outside of Osaka, and maybe the full length of Japan eventually (though that trip might be a bicycle tour instead)
I saw and experienced a lot along the way, but I definitely felt like I was missing a lot, and my anxiety around not being able to speak the language held me back a lot, or at least gave me unnecessary stress. So here I am learning the language so I can more effectively communicate and be aware of my surroundings for the next trip!
Yeah, my first (and so far only) trip to Japan was seven years ago, before I started learning Japanese. For the most part I managed with just a phrasebook, some half-remembered phrases from anime, and charades, but my lack of Japanese knowledge directly lead to us spending ten thousand yen on a taxi on the first night because we thought we’d missed the last train and I was too embarrassed to try asking a station attendant about it.
Come to think of it, today is exactly seven years since that day. =)
I kinda want to try walking the old Tokaido sometime – one of the original highways that used to link Tokyo and Kyoto. Also the Shikoku 88 Temples Pilgrimage.
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