kon ni chi wa! I wouldlike to give you some idea for enjoying visiting Japan.My Englishi isn’t very very good I hope you understand what I am trying to tell you.Please feel free to email me if you have any questions. *1 make email/pen friends with Japanese before you go to Japan! *2 ask for information about the city or town you would like to visit . Tourist information centres in each city will help you. *3 stay at Japanese family’s home!Ryokan(inn)s and hotels are good, but I would like to recommend HOMESTAY.(all of my friends from USA, AUST and Spain, stayed at Japanese family’s house/flat and they just loved it. They told me that they enjoyed being part of the family and saw Japan from the inside, most of the tourists visitng Japan, they only see Japan from the outside I mean just the surface.mmm hard to explain...) *4 learn basic Japanese language before you go to Japan! Not many Japanese understand spoken English(many of them undersatnd written English!) so if you try to communicate with them in Japanese too, they will be pleased. *5 local peole have the best information about the area! travel guide books are usuful but we can find the best info from the local people, don’t you think? I don’t think all the tourist places are bad, but I would like you to visit where all the local people go and shop. Tourist places, many of things are very expensive too! They say that Japanese people are very shy, and basically I think it’s true. Many of us feel shy when we make a sciene in public, I mean some Japanese might run away when you try to talk to them in English...I believe they don’t want to be rude but just feel shy to speak Engilish in front of other people. for example, I met some tourists from HK in China town in Yokohama the other day.They had a map in their hand looked like they were lost or something, so I tryied to talked to them if I could help them. at first I spoke in Japanese, but found out they don’t understand it so I spoke in English, then we could understand well. I told them how to get where they wanted to go, I said bye to them and went back to my friends(Japanese), and I was very surprised about what my friends just said ’’Everyone was looking at you because you were speaking English, we felt too shy so we couldn’t stay around you. by the way what they wanted? Where are they from?’’. you see? they were very interested in the tourists but too shy to be friendly because there were many people around there. so if anyone run away from you when you just wanted to ask a question, please don’t feel too bad! Of course it’s not nice attitude to run away like that but please forgive them. oops I have to go now. please feel free to email me I hope I could help you someway!