Date: Wed, 2 Dec 98 00:16:41 +0000
From: 
Hi,
I am taking the next two months to gear up for my
trip to Japan. As I don't speak or read Japanese
at all, I am a bit wary of the 4-day trip; it's tough
enough on my own in Taiwan even though I do speak
Mandarin!
I've spent more than a month in Japan in the last 18 months, in two
trips. I don't speak Japanese, though I pick up languages quickly and
acquired quite a bit of Kanji while I was there by reading signs.
If you're in the Tokyo area (or the Kansai area as well), you'll
probably find enough English-language signs and speakers that you'll
do fine.
If you can -possibly- send more than 4 days, do. You'll have just
gotten over the jetlag by the time it's time to go home. Japan is
relatively cheap to eat in and stay in, especially these days with the
beating the yen has been taking relative to the dollar, and especially
if you don't spend all your time in Tokyo.
You may also be able to find great rates from ANA (All Nippon
Airlines). On my last trip, they had a special Boston/Kyoto rate that
wound up costing me US$650, -round-trip-. And it's a wonderful airline.
I am looking for an accurate street-level map of
Tokyo, especially the Akihabara area. Hopefully
this combined with my GPS will keep me from getting
lost (although this may be overkill) (:
It's unlikely you'll find such a map, and also unlikely that your GPS
will keep a lock in such a dense urban environment. I had a Garmin
GPS 45 that did not (8-channel sequential). I now have a Garmin 12XL
(12-channel parallel) that should do better, but I haven't been back
to Tokyo; my latest trip was entirely in the Kansai district (Osaka,
Kyoto, etc). Even there, it can be problematic---there's just nothing
any GPS can do if its view of the sky is restricted to a tiny little
30-degree slice pointed straight up. Stand around in a dense downtown
(is there one near you?) sometime and evaluate how much sky you can
see while standing on the sidewalk. (You don't spend much time in the
middle of a major intersection, for example.)
The Akihabara itself is basically one long drag. It's hard to get
particularly lost, and there's a subway stop in the middle of it.
I'm going to perform an experiment on how effectively,
and in what ways, a wearable (equipped properly)
can make one's life easier in a foreign country.
Let us know what you find out.
Also, any pointers to URLs or info about Walking
Tours for Electronic Enthusiasts (read: geeks)
would be great.
My recommendation is to get out of Tokyo entirely and go to the Denden
in Osaka. It's the same idea as the Akihabara, but more fun. And
Osaka is a much more entertaining city than Tokyo, which I found to be,
basically, Manhattan with Kanji. (If you have the time to play
non-tech tourist, walk around Kyoto. It's beautiful.)
You might also want to check into getting a JR rail pass. They come
in 1, 4, and 7 day (and longer) intervals, and can only be purchased
-outside- Japan. They give you a relatively cheap flat rate for the
major train lines, e.g., go anywhere for free, once you've got the
pass, as long as it's while the pass it valid. This means you can
take the shinkansen (bullet train) and hop from Tokyo to Osaka "for
free", for example. (My 12XL clocked the train at 270+ kph, btw!)
They aren't any help for the subway lines inside cities, but those are
cheap; you can get between most points in Osaka for under Y300, which
means under two bucks US.
--
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