Send me your bean sprouts. I don't even know why, but I'm obsessed with them.
They've all been cooked now, which is good since they would have started rotting today. Now I've got a fridge with... fried potatoes, slightly burnt hushpuppies that are soggy from being left in the fridge too long, okonomiyaki, and some mixture of egg, bean sprout, leafy vegetable, and ground pork.
What cities have the highest concentration of English speakers, do you think? I really want to go one day, but my Japnese is limited; I know essential phrases and a lot of useless words I'll probably never actually use like "crazy". Have you found you need to have strong Japanese knowledge to vacation there, or do people speak enough English for us native English-speakers to actually get stuff done?
Tokyo. I don't even hafta think about that one.
You should be able to find someone who speaks enough English to ask for directions and stuff, but you both might struggle picking words. I wanna say the metro and JR guys should have someone around that can show you what stops to take, since Tokyo has a bunch of tourists and they should be used to it. Some stations even have a tourist booth with multilingual people that you can go to. If nothing else, find another tourist, and ask them if they speak English. Tokyo has lots.
Outside Tokyo... I dunno. I'd say the best spots to put money on a bet would be... major railway stations, the hotels next to them, really famous attractions, and the hotels next to those. The English might be broken, but little bit a creativity and you should be able to get by. Shrine priests probably won't speak a wit of the language. Maybe get a phrasebook and bring it around with you. It might be easier to point at the phrase you want to say, then fill in the blanks by just telling them.
Many tourist attractions will have pamphlets in both English and Japanese, even obscure ones. The Japanese ones are sometimes (often times?) more detailed than the English ones, though.
If you're really good at gettin' around though, you won't need to use much Japanese to get to some places on the map. A lot signs have both Japanese and English on them, and the power of the internet (and some paper and pencil) can fill in the rest. Just a note when map making - be sure to write down intersection names, since streets don't always have names.
Restaurant menus are a different story, though - you might have to tap into the native human language of points and grunts if they don't have an English menu. Don't expect one.
