10 Things Americans Over 50 REGRET Not Doing in Japan

📖 Buy the book: "Before You Land in Japan" : 37 years at the concierge desk, every question a first trip asks → https://marikoaono.com ☎️ Japan Visitor Hotline (English, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year): +81-50-3816-2787 (from a Japanese phone: 050-3816-2787). Save it in your phone tonight as "Japan help". There is a moment in Nara you have seen on your phone. A deer walks up to a stranger, looks at them, and bows. I want you to have that moment, not watch it. There is a way to make it happen almost every time, an hour of the morning when it happens most, and one mistake that sends 159 people a year looking for a bandage. From behind a concierge desk in Tokyo, I watched two kinds of guests leave this country: the ones who saw Japan, and the ones who were let in. The difference was never money or fitness. It was ten small decisions, most of them free, and almost every one is easier at sixty than at twenty-five. I spent 37 years at that desk answering exactly these questions. 🔟 Ask a person at the station window to plan your route 9️⃣ Eat one dinner out of a department store basement 8️⃣ Ask for a volunteer guide (almost nobody knows this exists) 7️⃣ Book the green car, and the right seat for Mount Fuji 6️⃣ Give one whole morning to a great garden (and the price for over 65s) 5️⃣ Book one night in a room with its own bath 4️⃣ Go to the sumo, and buy the right seat 3️⃣ Shop with the new tax-free rule in mind 2️⃣ Put one number in your phone before you fly 1️⃣ Nara, first thing in the morning, and the bow 🗒️ Mariko's cheat sheet • At the station window: point, say "lift please." They'll draw the exit, the elevator and the right end of the platform • Depachika food halls: Daimaru at Tokyo Station, Isetan in Shinjuku, Mitsukoshi in Nihonbashi. Go outside meal times • Volunteer guide groups usually ask for about two weeks' notice • Green car seats are 2 and 2. Tokyo to Kyoto, Fuji is on the right: seat E in ordinary cars, seat D in the green car • At every ticket window, ask if there's a senior price and have your passport ready • Shy about the shared bath? Ask for a private family bath ("kashikiri") • Sumo: the balcony chair seats, not the floor cushions • Tax-free shopping: pay full price, get the tax back after customs. Keep those goods in your carry-on • Nara: one packet of crackers, hidden. One cracker, one bow, then show open hands. Go at 8 am • In the book: chapter 30 (talking to people), chapter 31 (when something goes wrong), chapter 39 (the Japanese year) 💬 Which of these ten will you do first, and was there one you had no idea Japan even offered? I read every single one. If someone you know is planning Japan, send them this. Number two alone is worth it. #JapanTravel #TravelOver50 #JapanTips ``` 🧳 What I tell every guest to sort out before they fly: 📱 Phone that works the minute you land (Japan eSIM): https://airalo.tp.st/qjjb87ms 📱 Or Yesim, if you want one eSIM for several countries: https://yesim.tp.st/rSkZxvF4 🚗 A driver waiting at the airport, luggage included: https://gettransfer.tp.st/NJrA92Cc 🎟️ Tickets, day trips and rail passes: https://klook.tp.st/S6nUi326 🏨 Hotels near the station (my short-walk picks are in the hotel guide): https://trip.tp.st/3HbSRK1n Some of these are affiliate links: if you book through them, the channel may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.