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Japan Travel |OT| One does simply not visit just once

J

JulianImp

Member
@everyone: Thank for the replies! I guess I'll start looking into the whole pocket wi-fi thing.

I'm currently looking at staying near Uguisudani station, since that location's the closest to any Yamanote line trains (3 minutes apart, according to the site), and it also looks like there're some museums and other interesting stuff nearby. What does JapanGAF think?
 
D

distantmantra

Member
Before moving on to AirBNB apartments this last trip, we really liked staying in Yanaka in the past. Really close to Nippori station on the Yamanote line and also a stop for the Keisei Skyliner. Cool old style neighborhood.
 
T

ThreePiMatt

Member
Walked down the wrong road in Shinjuku today.. Guy stopped me and asked if I wanted "sekusu Japanese lady." Then made a gesture with his hand.
 
T

ThreePiMatt

Member
Desmond said:
Was gonna go use AirBnB but I didbt fancy paying 700 euro in advance lol.

By yourself? Where?
Click to expand...

http://maidreamin.com/en

There was a guy next to me, couldn't be more creepy. Super into the songs and dancing, kept flipping through this photo album the whole time.

But yeah, whole experience was super awkward, but I still wanted to see it for myself.

One bummer is I didn't get to play the Haruhi pachinko machine. Went into to parlors that had it, but all the machines were in use. And the heat and soreness from being on my feet so much over the past few days have taken its toll. Summer Sonic and Fuji are going to wreck me.
 
T

ThreePiMatt

Member
Ayumi said:
Was this guy around 40-50? He's there all the time (when I was there too), and sometimes has a friend the same age. They both look creepy as hell.
Click to expand...

They have a bunch of locations. I was at the Akihabara Third Store. But no, the guy was probably in his 20s. Real skeevy look about him.
 
P

ponpo

( ≖‿≖)
Did you get suckered into going to maidreamin or was it your choice? Pretty sure its the worst of all maid cafes.

Which says a lot since every maid cafe is shit. Shiiiiiit!
 
M

MikeHattsu

Member
ThreePiMatt said:
http://maidreamin.com/en

There was a guy next to me, couldn't be more creepy. Super into the songs and dancing, kept flipping through this photo album the whole time.

But yeah, whole experience was super awkward, but I still wanted to see it for myself.
Click to expand...

It's certainly an experience.

When I went the elevator suddenly stopped at the floor during the song and dance and it was this older non-Asian couple looking shocked. I think they went to the wrong floor or maybe they were just looking for an eating place because they sure got back into the elevator again real quick.
 
H

hwalker84

Member
ThreePiMatt said:
http://maidreamin.com/en

There was a guy next to me, couldn't be more creepy. Super into the songs and dancing, kept flipping through this photo album the whole time.

But yeah, whole experience was super awkward, but I still wanted to see it for myself.

One bummer is I didn't get to play the Haruhi pachinko machine. Went into to parlors that had it, but all the machines were in use. And the heat and soreness from being on my feet so much over the past few days have taken its toll. Summer Sonic and Fuji are going to wreck me.
Click to expand...

Which Maid Dreamin? I'd have to look up the one I went too but yes. Extremely creepy Japanese men.
 
T

ThreePiMatt

Member
hwalker84 said:
Which Maid Dreamin? I'd have to look up the one I went too but yes. Extremely creepy Japanese men.
Click to expand...

Akihabara Third Store.

third03-lightbox-450x298.jpg
 
T

ThreePiMatt

Member
Bought my round trip tick to Fuji for tomorrow and right now I get a glorious hour long air conditioned train ride to Summer Sonic.

MikeHattsu said:
That's the same one I went to as well.
Click to expand...

When you were there, when one girl was on stage singing and dancing then another would come over with two glow sticks and whip her arms around manically like she was raving? I liked that part.
 
T

ThreePiMatt

Member
Ugh, Summer Sonic website said to take the train to Makuhari station, a 40 minute walk to the event. Turns out there was a station that's only a 10 minute walk.

Also, now that I'm here, God bless those that can drink beer in this heat and humidity. I'll stick to my massive bottle of water.
 
M

MikeHattsu

Member
ThreePiMatt said:
When you were there, when one girl was on stage singing and dancing then another would come over with two glow sticks and whip her arms around manically like she was raving? I liked that part.
Click to expand...

When I was there it was only 3 other people there so I had to participate by shaking a maraca. :p

Oh, and one of the kitchen staff joined in on the dancing in front of the stage!

If you want the full-on crazy maid cafe experience then MaiDreamin is a good place to go at least.
 
T

ThreePiMatt

Member
MikeHattsu said:
When I was there it was only 3 other people there so I had to participate by shaking a maraca. :p

Oh, and one of the kitchen staff joined in on the dancing in front of the stage!

If you want the full-on crazy maid cafe experience then MaiDreamin is a good place to go at least.
Click to expand...

Like this?

tumblr_mt5gajTi691s437lzo1_400.gif
 
T

ThreePiMatt

Member
Turns out Summer Sonic might not be so bad. A lot of the stages are indoors and somewhat air conditioned if youre not near the stage deep in the shit. And outdoors is nicely overcast so its a lot cooler than the forecast.

Edit - Just got out of the Baby Metal set and its actually super nice outside. Relatively cool (compared to the 95F forecast) and not at all humid. I pray this keeps up for Robert Plant and Arctic Monkeys since they're outdoors.
 
T

Torraz

Member
Going on another trip to Japan. I possibly made a mistake with regard to a Hotel reservation, and am wondering if this needs to be fixed, and if so, what the best way would be.

Situation: The e-mailaddress I entered contained a spelling mistake. That is why I did not receive a confirmation. Now, on the website I see a button where you are supposed to enter your booking code to confirm your reservation (which I now cannot do).

However, from other hotels I know that when you enter this screen, I have never seen the option to actually confirm the reservation, but only to cancel.

That's why my question is, if this confirmation system is not actually redundant, and I can actually show up on the first day of my stay without any problems, or whether I would need to contact the hotel. I've sent a short English e-mail using the comment form, but as expected have received no response. I'm not really looking forward to google translate + grammar book shenanigans.

Thanks!
 
A

Ayumi

Member
Torraz said:
Going on another trip to Japan. I possibly made a mistake with regard to a Hotel reservation, and am wondering if this needs to be fixed, and if so, what the best way would be.

Situation: The e-mailaddress I entered contained a spelling mistake. That is why I did not receive a confirmation. Now, on the website I see a button where you are supposed to enter your booking code to confirm your reservation (which I now cannot do).

However, from other hotels I know that when you enter this screen, I have never seen the option to actually confirm the reservation, but only to cancel.

That's why my question is, if this confirmation system is not actually redundant, and I can actually show up on the first day of my stay without any problems, or whether I would need to contact the hotel. I've sent a short English e-mail using the comment form, but as expected have received no response. I'm not really looking forward to google translate + grammar book shenanigans.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
You should definitely call them! It would be too risky to just show up - every hotel has different systems. And you never know if they have tried to contact you through that e-mail (maybe they were full, booked wrong, or something else). If you can't call them due to lack of Japanese, I'll do it for you. But this would require you to give me your personal information, which I understand if you don't feel comfortable with.
 
T

Torraz

Member
Ayumi said:
You should definitely call them! It would be too risky to just show up - every hotel has different systems. And you never know if they have tried to contact you through that e-mail (maybe they were full, booked wrong, or something else). If you can't call them due to lack of Japanese, I'll do it for you. But this would require you to give me your personal information, which I understand if you don't feel comfortable with.
Click to expand...

I definitely lack in the Japanese language skills department, especially with regard to speaking, so I would be very grateful if you could call them, especially as I have seen that prices have already risen.

I've just sent you a PM with all the data I input. I'm not sure if it is possible, but if they could either send a new confirmation to the fixed e-mail, or fix the e-mail in their system, and resend the confirmation, that would be the best solution I think.

Thank you very much!
 
A

Ayumi

Member
Since you got the help you needed, I will delete your PMs containing the personal information (just to be on the safe side - we never know). :3
 
T

Torraz

Member
Ayumi said:
Since you got the help you needed, I will delete your PMs containing the personal information (just to be on the safe side - we never know). :3
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for the peace of mind!

If you incurred any costs, I'd gladly reimburse them. Otherwise, if you're in the area, I can also pay with beer ;).
 
T

ThreePiMatt

Member
Holy shit. Made this 9:30 Fujisan Express train literally seconds before the door closed. Next one wouldn't have been for two hours. Props to lady at JR East info table who spoke pretty good English and was able to give me directions.
 
R

Resilient

Member
Guys, for those who live in Japan or have been before over NYE - where is the best place to celebrate? I'll be there with a few friends, just trying to decide between Tokyo or Osaka ... any help would be appreciated!!!
 
A

Ayumi

Member
Resilient said:
Guys, for those who live in Japan or have been before over NYE - where is the best place to celebrate? I'll be there with a few friends, just trying to decide between Tokyo or Osaka ... any help would be appreciated!!!
Click to expand...

There are more things to choose from in Tokyo. I guess you should just look here, a great list over the attractions you can attend at NYE.

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2276.html

There are also some great details on this website:

http://japan-magazine.jnto.go.jp/en/1112_newyear.html
 
J

JulianImp

Member
I'll be booking my flight on Tuesday, probably through Lufthansa since scales in the US would require an American visa, which is a bit of a pain to get. Once that's out of the way, I'll make a my Sakura House reservation and pay for my Japanese SIM card, as well as for Pocket Wi-Fi.

Now, I'm looking at the prospect of buying a Mac Mini during my trip so I can finally begin releasing iOS games through Unity, but I'm kind of wary about the OS being in Japanese with no way to change the language settings; that would make navigating the OS considerably harder, since it's not like I know how MacOS works like I do with Windows operative systems. Does anyone happen to know how that'd work?
 
Gromph

Gromph

This tag is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance...
Staff Member
JulianImp said:
I'll be booking my flight on Tuesday, probably through Lufthansa since scales in the US would require an American visa, which is a bit of a pain to get. Once that's out of the way, I'll make a my Sakura House reservation and pay for my Japanese SIM card, as well as for Pocket Wi-Fi.

Now, I'm looking at the prospect of buying a Mac Mini during my trip so I can finally begin releasing iOS games through Unity, but I'm kind of wary about the OS being in Japanese with no way to change the language settings; that would make navigating the OS considerably harder, since it's not like I know how MacOS works like I do with Windows operative systems. Does anyone happen to know how that'd work?
Click to expand...

When you start a new mac, it will prompt for the basic setup including the language, so don't worry about that.
 
S

supergiz

Member
Go to roppongi hills left of the spider statue is an outlook of Tokyo tower that is incredibly beautiful. This is something most people don't know about. Go there at night it's amazing
 
A

Ayumi

Member
JulianImp said:
Now, I'm looking at the prospect of buying a Mac Mini during my trip so I can finally begin releasing iOS games through Unity, but I'm kind of wary about the OS being in Japanese with no way to change the language settings; that would make navigating the OS considerably harder, since it's not like I know how MacOS works like I do with Windows operative systems. Does anyone happen to know how that'd work?
Click to expand...
What Gromph said - and you can most likely choose keyboard as well (with and without Hiragana).
 
M

MikeHattsu

Member
JulianImp said:
I'll be booking my flight on Tuesday, probably through Lufthansa since scales in the US would require an American visa, which is a bit of a pain to get. Once that's out of the way, I'll make a my Sakura House reservation and pay for my Japanese SIM card, as well as for Pocket Wi-Fi.

Now, I'm looking at the prospect of buying a Mac Mini during my trip so I can finally begin releasing iOS games through Unity, but I'm kind of wary about the OS being in Japanese with no way to change the language settings; that would make navigating the OS considerably harder, since it's not like I know how MacOS works like I do with Windows operative systems. Does anyone happen to know how that'd work?
Click to expand...

Make sure you get the tax back/do tax free shopping if you buy it at a shop that offers that to tourists.
 
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