Going in less than a week to Japan and scared...

[TinyTear]

First long haul holiday in ages (probably 15 years (pre-kids) and I am scared
Been exhaustively planning since we booked it in April and probably researching way before if I am being honest.

Kids are 13 and 10 and also super excited.

It will be Japan, with 3 cities in the itinerary and I have a good list of stuff to do, but not too full and tiring that we will be rushing from place to place without appreciating things...

But what if? what if? what if?
what if things go wrong? what f we get covid on the flight (might take masks)? what if kid 1 gets sick as she tends to get car sick and sea sick and plane sick even short haul...

What if we can't find foods she will eat? what if we get bad stomachs? what if the heat is too much?

Please talk me down!

I have researched and researched , i will buy cooling wipes and UV umbrellas and Pocari Sweat and so on...

• please reassure me?

If you have been before - give me hints and tips - even if just for me to say "yes I know that, I read that, I am prepared!!"

Thanks!

Also @TinyTear if you are travelling by train consider using a luggage forwarding service. It is super simple and means you don't have to lug your luggage.
Someone upthread may have mentioned this. If not - and you have concerns - PM me.

Ooh I’m so jealous! Japan is a fantastic country, you’re going to have an amazing time. I’d love to go back with my kids when they’re about the same age as yours. Ghibli Museum was one of my highlights.

Empathy is everything. Why is it some folk have to sneer like this. I don’t understand why you have commented because that’s just spiteful.

Please ask the hotel staff to reserve restaurant for you in advance, they will happily oblige. Well known restaurants are booked in advance and you need to queue to get in.

Pack lightly and use laundry facility in the hotel, easy to move around in public transport. Take a foldable hold-all for any purchases you want to take back home.

My parents just piled us in the back of the car and took off. We ate whatever the local cuisine was, because that was a major part of experiencing the culture. If
we turned up our noses this was seen as ungracious and we went without.
We werent treated as made of china or as little gods who must have every desire catered too.
It was expected to get travellers tummy once at least, different bacteria and all that, good for the immune system .
Chamomile tea chicken soup and my mums Kaolin and Morphine😂

@ProfessorLayton1 That’s interesting. We never once booked a restaurant and didn’t have any problems eating out. We just turned up to wherever was nearby and looked good. A couple of times we had to use our “betsu betsu, daijoubu” phrase and they seated us in a 2 and a 3 rather than all together as a group of 5, but we didn’t mind that and were prepared for the fact that groups bigger than four are not always catered for in Japan.

I don’t think that we were in particularly popular or trendy places though.

I did however cave into the Instagram hype and queue for an absurdly long time to buy deep fried bread sandwiches from Age.3 in Ginza. They were amazing, but the queue was a bit nuts.

I completely get the getting nervous as a much-planned and anticipated trip gets closer. You’ve had some good advice and I haven’t got much to add, but just wanted to say I travelled there in Dec (so can’t advise on heat!) with my two teens, one with ASD who hates crowds but loves manga/anime and was a bit stressed about how he’d cope. He LOVED it - it’s now his favourite place on earth.

I asked him how he coped with the crowds (esp in stations and on trains) and he said he never felt overwhelmed because they were so calm and orderly and quiet.

Food-wise (another ASD worry!) you’re never more than a couple of minutes from a 7-11, Lawsons or Family Mart in those cities with food for every preference, however restricted. And there are excellent bakeries everywhere. But I was surprised how adventurous (for him!) he was willing to be and how much he enjoyed it.

Japan is the perfect trip-of-a-lifetime place there is something for everyone there. I won’t tell you to relax because I know how impossible that is, but enjoy!

We were in mid range restaurants, and have dietary restrictions. I must add that the food where ever you eat is excellent.
As previous poster suggested - 7/11, fresco, family mart are everywhere.

Try Aquarius rather than pocari sweat as it contains less sugar.

Go with open mind, get some activities booked so you have a loose plan for the day.

We don’t have any dietary restrictions, which probably helped us to be quite relaxed about where we ate.

If you’ve got vegetarians or allergies in the group I can see why you’d want to book to secure somewhere that you know will cater for you.

Hi, what does the weather tend to be like in October in Japan?

Definitely the safest country! Clean clean clean. Lived there for a year - kind helpful people keen to practise their English by helping you.

Japan is probably far more civilised and safe than the UK.

You might benefit from trying to work out why you are so unreasonably scared. Xenophobia?

FFS seriously?? What the fuck is happening to this place these days?? Every thread I’m on right now it seems someone comes on to post ludicrous goady nonsensical bullshit. Like this.

It’s quite a leap to go from travel anxiety to xenophobia.

Peiple invest a lot of time, money and energy into planning a big long-haul, multi-centre trip. It’s normal to worry about something going wrong.

If that’s xenophobia, then there’s nothing wrong with being xenophobic.

Wtf? No xenophobia here.

If you want a life story I'm actually not from the UK originally although moved here more than 20+ years ago.

I can speak 6 languages and I guess that plays a part in anxiety. Most places in Europe I can understand or have a good idea (eg Dutch is understandable from German and English) and the place I felt more "lost" was Finland as the language doesn't resemble any of the others I speak...

Funnily enough Egypt was ok as it's a different writing, similar with Japan where I have been learning hiragana

Anxiety comes probably from being ADHD, having kids with SEN (ASD and OCD) and feeling overwhelmed from planning it all to try and please everyone

@TinyTear Are you also learning katakana? I found that katakana was generally far more useful in Japan than hiragana.

I can read both but hiragana wasn’t as useful for deciphering things that were beyond my Japanese level. Reading Japanese out in the wild felt very Kanji-limited for me. I could only read as far as my Kanji could carry me as the hiragana is mostly used for grammatical stuff rather than content words.

Katakana, on the other hand, enabled me to read all sorts of things on menus and signs that are essentially English written in katakana. In coffee shops, bakeries, casual restaurants, theme parks and cafes being able to read katakana was a huge help. The menus in those places were overwhelmingly “English” that had been been katakanised.

I’d recommend doing a bit of Duolingo katakana practice in the next few days if you’ve only been learning hiragana. You can pick up katakana quickly.

I have 100 days Duolingo in Japanese. Eldest kid has 400+ days Duolingo Japanese. I am counting on her 🤣

Maybe I'll spend the next few days doing some katakana practise... And watching anime 😄 thanks

And back to the xenophobia person - I'm not exactly asking about fish and chips in Tenerife? Not that it would be a problem if I had a child that only ate fish and chips.

This is a holiday I don't think I will be able to afford ever again unless I win the lottery, so pardon me for being stressed.

And to be honest I'm more stressed about logistics and not missing trains and can I find the Osaka b&b and will anyone get sick and that sort of things...

Not the actual experience of Japan.

We had a holiday a few years ago with a 5 year old and a 6 year old.
We had a brilliant time - it's a pretty easy country to travel in. Everything went smoothly.
There is lots of western-style food available: burgers, pizzas etc. It's not the most exciting but your kids will be happy. We imposed a rule of alternating Japanese and other food. Sushi has been by son's favourite every since!

We didn't know any Japanese. There was more English around than I expected. It was absolutely fine. And in those days (2008) even though it is not that long ago we didn't travel with smart-phones, have google translate, google maps etc. Trains were easy as they were always exactly on time so you knew exactly where you were.

It's safe and clean and the food is fabulous (and I'm not an adventurous eater either!)

@pinkspeakers I first went to Japan in 2008 too. It was great and we had a wonderful time. When I went back this year I felt positively spoiled with Google translate, Google maps that tells you exactly which carriage to get onto the train for where you’re transferring or exiting, Suica cards that work across the whole Tokyo transit network and so much more romaji/english signage than before.

It is so much easier than in 2008 and we managed just fine then too.

Hoping that you’ve made it to Japan all in one piece and are having a wonderful time!

Thanks to this thread I’m also now watching Skikanoko Nokonoko Koshitantan. I love it!

Thanks for remembering and yes, love shikanoko Noko

Made it, I'm in Osaka now. Have been to Akihabara, Ueno Park, Sensoji, Skytree, Pokémon Café, two Pokémon centres, two Jump shops and Universal

All going well, Google translate in my friend and DH should use it more after buying natto sushi and almond tofu jelly in Lawson's 🤣🤣

Have navigated the underground, the trains and so far so good...

Will update another day