• Japan Through My Eyes
• Japan - No Problem
• Travels to the South: A Trip to the Other Japan
• Omiyage - Art of Gift Giving
• Ukiyoe: "The Floating World" Revealed
• Seto: Japan's Porcelain City

Japan - No problem

by John Heckathorn
Award-winning magazine editor and writer

The night before I left for Japan, my daughter, who studies Japanese in high school, made me a series of index cards: useful Japanese phrases like "'Where is the bathroom?" and "I am lost."

I could hold up the card so that someone in Japan could read the phrase in kanji. On the reverse was the phrase in English and a more-or-less phonetic version of the Japanese.

I tried reading several cards out loud. "Oh Dad," she said, with cheerful teenage brutality. "You're going to be so lost in Japan."

Gee, I hoped not.

No one could have been less prepared for Japan than I. Helpful friends had brought me guidebooks, I bought a few myself. But given the work that needed to be done before anyone can get out of the office for a week, I let them pile up on my window sill, unread.

As I tucked my daughter's cards into my carry-on, I had a moment of panic. I was about to solo for a week in a country about which I knew virtually nothing, where I could not speak the language and had only a shaky grasp of the place names. That was, however, the point of going. Americans can be reluctant to travel to Japan. It's far away. The language is difficult; the food, culture and customs all strange. The money's unfamiliar, and everything's supposed to cost a fortune.

I did have plane tickets, hotel reservations, a Japanese Rail Pass and a rough itinerary. Thus equipped, I was supposed to find my way around by public transportation, not spend much, and, despite my daughter's dire prediction, prove how easy Japan was for a foreigner to navigate. If I could do it, anyone could. "It will be no problem," I was told. I didn't believe it, but it was the truth. I not only survived Japan, but I had one of the most instructive trips I'd ever taken.

It's no problem to navigate Japan because it is the best organized place on the planet. The night before I left, realizing I had no clue how I was going to get from the airport to my hotel in Akasaka, I googled Narita Airport. On its web site, I found a clear, comprehensive graphic, in English, outlining every step from getting off the plane to finding ground transportation. I printed it out, though the airport was so clearly marked, I never needed it.

Also I found a timetable for the Airport Limousine bus, with a list of destinations, including my hotel. So how do buy the right bus ticket in a crowded foreign airport? The ticket counter is orange, the young women behind it wear orange blazers, the ticket is orange, the bus is orange. On the ticket is the number of the bus stop. You may not know the word juroku, but 16 is 16 in any language. Everything in Japan is numbered, color-coded and clearly labeled, usually in both Japanese and English. If you have to catch a bus at the East Exit, the signs will say, in English, East Exit.

Sure, you may say, that may be true in an international airport. But what happens out in the country? My second day in Japan, through a series of mischances, I found myself in a small country train station, trying to get back to Tokyo.

As Japanese train stations go, it wasn't much. Big-city Japanese train stations have hotels, department stores and underground passages that reach as deep as 200 feet below sea level. This little station, painted a subtle shade of yellow, was all above ground, perched on the side of the mountain. On its two tracks, you could see small yellow trains.

It was far from deserted. At the start of a holiday weekend, there were people everywhere, eating in the station café, bustling through the ticketing area, everyone except me apparently sure where they were going. I just stood there, hopeful that sooner or later I would pick up some cue as to how to proceed.

Suddenly a woman in a yellow blazer, clearly some sort of senior staffer, just sort of materialized at my elbow, speaking English.

She was a brisk soul. I told her what I wanted, she told me that no, there was a cheaper, better way. She led me to a ticket machine, pointing to the slot in which I put my coins. Then, when I hesitated over the touch screen, she waved my hands away. Then, as I clutched the little pasteboard ticket, she marched me to the stairs and pointed to the right track, so I didn't head off the wrong direction.

She'd put me on a small local connecting train. Fearful I'd miss my stop, I spelled out ODAWARA, where I needed to get off and catch another train, in big block letters on a notebook page. I showed it to the man in a pinstriped suit sitting next to me. "Me too," he said, in English. Of course, when we got to the station, the signs said Odawara in blue letters a foot tall. Anyone over the age of 8 could get around in this country, I thought.

That's true. I saw unaccompanied young children rocketing around Tokyo by subway all the time.

Even armed with little Japanese, I found getting around to be a variety of child's play. In other words, it was a kind of adventure, but an entirely safe one. And like a child, you learn something every step of the journey. You learn, for instance, that even without language, you are not entirely illiterate. You can read a map, an infographic, a timetable. You understand train stations, bus terminals, airports.

I returned home to weeks of dreams, dreams in which, for instance, I'd be searching a map for Kasumigaiseki where I had to change trains for Roppongi. But in real life, I never missed a connection.

I did occasionally find myself momentarily lost. Then the one Japanese word I did master, sumimasen, excuse me, always solved the problem.

Japanese train and subway stations almost always have clear graphics showing which exit leads where. But one afternoon, I just followed a crowd out of Shinjuku Station, the busiest in Tokyo. When I got to the streets—street signs are one lapse in the Japanese tendency to label everything—I could not orient myself on my map. I sat down on one of those little concrete stools that substitute for benches in Japanese public places and puzzled. The station went on for blocks, and I had no idea which side I was on.

Next to me was an older gentleman in a gray windbreaker and a day's beard. Finally, I said, Sumimasen. He spoke no English, but he understood from my pointing to the map that I wanted to find Takashimaya Department Store. Like everyone else I ever asked for help in Japan, he leapt to my assistance, leading me around a corner and pointing until I understood where to go.

So helpful was everyone, I was glad I'd packed two dozen small bags of American coffee, to use as thank-you gifts.

A note, however: Gift giving in Japan sets off a complex train of mutual obligation. If you are going to give something to someone, make sure it's just as you're about to walk away.

On the Shinkansen, the bullet trains, you can buy drinks and food from a wagon that comes down the aisle. On the Shinkansen to Kyoto, I fell into a long conversation with a wagon girl named Yoko, who'd learned her English in Florida. There, she told me, she'd developed a liking for the burgers at Steak n Shake and the margaritas at Chili's. Grateful for the extended conversation, I gave her some coffee. She immediately disappeared, coming back with a 45th Anniversary Shinkansen refrigerator magnet. Then, apparently deciding that was insufficient, she disappeared again and returned with a box of chocolate-covered almonds. Only then did she feel at ease to resume the conversation.

As they are with gifts, the Japanese seem scrupulous about money. There's no trouble understanding the money in Japan; it's decimal. As a rule of thumb, I thought of a yen as a penny, which meant a 1,000 yen was $10.(It was only $9.20, but close enough.)

The hardest thing to get used to was that the coins had value. In the United States, you're likely to drop your change in the tip box at Starbucks. But a 500 yen coin is worth about $5, a 100 yen almost a dollar. Once on a subway, a few hundred yen coins fell out of my pocket onto the seat. As I got up to leave, a tough-looking character in work boots called out to me, pointing to the coins so I could retrieve them.

I relaxed about money. Any time I ever bought anything, the clerk or waiter or bartender made absolutely sure I understood how much it cost. When I got a check in a restaurant or your receipt in a store, someone would point out every item and then the total.

Once I jumped out at a station along a bullet train route to get something to eat, the wagon girl being out of food. I raced to the station kiosk, tried to buy the first thing I recognized, some hard-boiled eggs packaged in a white plastic net, thrusting a 1,000 Yen note at the clerk. Then the train made that little doorbell noise it makes just before it leaves. Realizing all my stuff and my passport where still on the train, I tried to snatch my money back and hand back the eggs. With amazing rapidity, the clerk made change. I jumped into the nearest train door which whished shut as we accelerated out of the station. When I got back to my seat, the change was correct. It always was.

The eggs cost me $1.25 and were fresh and delicious. Before I left, everyone warned me food in Japan was fearsomely expensive. Eating in Japan can be pricey. In the same way that New York is pricey if you eat at Alain Ducasse, or Chicago is if you want to eat at Charlie Trotter's. However, you can tell a high-end restaurant from a reasonable one at home; you can do the same thing in Tokyo.

Akasaka, a district in Tokyo for which I developed a real affection, has any number of high-end restaurants. However, one night as I wandered the impossibly narrow streets, I'd found a restaurant, a little shoebox of a place, full of Japanese businessmen eating, drinking, smoking, and chattering. Now, a few blocks from there, you could have a patty melt and apple pie. In fact, you could exist in Japanese cities on American food, especially American fast food, if you wanted. But why would you want to?

The Japanese are as fussy about their food as the French. They will not serve you anything that isn't fresh and good to eat, even if you're shaky on what it is. In fact, the best preparation for a trip to Japan isn't a Japanese phrase book; it's trying as many different Japanese dishes as possible.

The little place I'd found in Akasaka was far from fancy. In fact, it had a display of plastic food outside and signs indicating that every item cost 300 Yen, less than $3. I'd tell you the name of place. Unfortunately, the only part of the sign I could read was the big red 300 Yen. (It's on Misujidori Street, no sign there either, but I could find it because at its intersection with Aoyamadori, there's a Kinko's and a Starbucks.)

I began to eat there regularly. One night, on my way through the hanging curtain at the doorway, I deferred to a 60-ish Japanese businessman. Tokyo is so crowded, being as polite as possible is the only way to cope. We sat down next to each other and began to talk, in English.

His name was Haruhiko Utsumi ("Call me Harry"). He came to this place every night after work (he works hard, it was after 8 p.m. on a Saturday). "I come to eat and DRINK SAKE!" he said. That we proceeded to do, for hours.

Haruhiko's English was less than conversational, but it was a thousand times better than my Japanese. We talked about our families, about Hawaii where he'd honeymooned more than 20 years before, about baseball, American movies, his trip to New York, his desire to go back and take flowers to Ground Zero. He told me of his parents' difficulties in China during the war. We discussed Chinese and Japanese relations, the American presidential election.

We ate yakitori, the best I've ever had, four different preparations of chicken on skewers. We ate some raw tuna, and then something Haruhiko ordered on that was deep-fried on a stick, that night's special. He had me dip it in katsu sauce. Didn't know what it was, but it was good.

Each time we ordered another glass of sake, the 20-something waiter in a T-shirt would fill our glasses so full the sake would overflow onto the saucers beneath.

Finally, Haruhiko jumped up to catch the last train home. When I got my check, I'd managed to spend hardly a thing. The restaurant was inexpensive, and Haruhiko had clearly picked up most of the rounds of sake. That dinner taught me two lessons. One, you can eat well for very little in Japan. And, two, not being able to speak Japanese was not a terrible handicap.

In fact, if you are American, no one expects you to speak Japanese. I gave up trying. If someone wanted to strike up a conversation with me, they'd never say, "Konnichiwa," they'd say, "Hi."

I had conversations with a Japanese sightseeing couple at a temple, with a pair of miniskirted and booted girls in a sushi restaurant, with a Starbucks barista. All you need is a reasonable amount of patience and the ability to listen. I did hear Americans talking rapid-fire colloquial English, expecting the Japanese to understand. And I wanted to say, whoa, slow down, you're the one who doesn't speak the language here.

Even if people had little conversational English, they often knew enough English to do their job. A waitress would know the word menu or coffee, a railway guard the word restroom, a store clerk sizes in English.

Once you master a few basics, traveling in Japan was not only easy, but a source of endless fascination. Without much trouble and for a few dollars, you can subway all around Tokyo. To the ancient and beautiful Meiji Shrine, a complex of wooden buildings surrounded by trees, where you see Japanese wedding parties, the bride, groom and priest in traditional dress.

For contrast, you can subway to Roppongi Hills, the brand-new and quite stunning glass and steel complex of shops, apartments, hotels, office buildings, theatres and restaurants, so big even the Japanese stand studying the maps to find their way around. The maps, of course, were also marked in English.

You can walk along the Ginza, its vast video billboards, glittering department stores and luxury shops—Bulgari, Tiffany, Louis Vuitton—which just sort of ooze affluence. The crowds are startling well-dressed, there's the occasional black limo pulled up against the curb.

And you might also walk the entertainment district of Shinjuku, where the definition of entertainment is pretty broad. The streets are full of theatres, nightclubs, book stores, the curbs crowded with young people, smoking and playing with their cell phones.

Or take yourself to Harajuku on a Sunday, where thousands of teenagers throng down narrow Takeshita Street. From the shops there, they assemble their astounding variety of dress from American jeans and t-shirts to a look called Elegant Goth Lolita, donned in imitation of Japanese pop rockers. Harajuku was, in fact, the only place I ever used the cards my daughter so laboriously prepared for me. It wasn't the cards with Japanese, however. It was the card with her sizes, so I could buy her hip Japanese clothes from Harajuku.

There's more, of course. Tokyo is a city of 12 million, the first 21st century city; it's hard to even scratch the surface. I hated to leave, but I also wished to squeeze in a quick trip to Kyoto. Kyoto's smaller, only 1.4 million people, and it's more spread out than Tokyo. Full of ancient temples and cultural sights, it's the kind of place the Japanese themselves travel to sightsee.

I had barely more than 24 hours to see a city that is worth at least a week's visit. Since the hotel was obliging enough to collect my bag at the train station, I went straight from the station by bus to one of Kyoto's main attractions, the Silver Pavilion. Guided to the right bus stop by a pair of young women from Nagoya, I trudged up the hill to the temple, regretting the coat that had seemed necessary that morning in Tokyo.

It was a national holiday, Health Sports Day. The street was filled with people, both ascending and descending, and was lined with souvenir shops and places selling soft whip ice cream in green tea and vanilla flavors.

I braved the crowds, and, that day and the next, saw the major temples: the Silver Pavilion, the even more stunning Golden Pavilion, two stories of which are actually covered with gold, and the famous Zen garden at Ryoanji. These are national treasures—religious, cultural and historical places. The Japanese visit them like Americans might visit the Statue of Liberty or the Washington Monument. However, the best moment came my first afternoon. To be honest, I was by that time hot and tired. I'd walked down the Philosopher's Walk, a lane without cars along a stream, made famous by a Japanese sage who walked there every day.

That day, it was not conducive to deep thought—crowded with pedestrians, lined with souvenir shops, tea rooms and rickshaw drivers who offered short rides and pictures, a deliberate archaism like the horse-drawn carriage rides available to tourists in American cities. My only philosophical reflection was that tourists were tourists, the world over.

From Philosopher's Walk, I negotiated a tangle of streets, thinking maybe I better knock off for the day. Then I stumbled upon Nanzenji, a once important Zen temple, and still a functioning temple complex. It was vast, lined with trees, cooler and far less crowded than anywhere I'd been in days.

There was a massive wooden gate, perhaps 30-feet high, up on a stone platform. There, a few people bowed in reverence. But there was also a holiday spirit: Small children ran playing, young couples took each other's pictures with their cell phones, a pair of women ate some packaged noodles, a few people seemed lost in contemplation or fatigue.

I wandered past the ancient brick aqueduct, a beautiful structure that seemed to blend with the trees, and found the historic hojo, or abbot's residence.

There, I took off my shoes, dropped off my superfluous coat and carry bag into a coin locker, and paid the nominal fee to enter. It was quiet. You walked along a dark corridor and then suddenly found yourself on a narrow wooden porch, fronting a rock garden.

It's not a large garden compared to its more famous cousin at Ryoanji. There's a bed of gravel carefully raked in arcs and circles, a few strategically placed rocks and boulders, a handful of trees and shrubs, and above it, as a kind of borrowed scenery, the trees of the mountain that rises behind the wall.

The rocks of the garden are said by some to represent young tigers crossing a stream. I was unable to visualize that. But the rocks seemed to have a strange dynamism. They seem to move or at least quiver with suppressed life. It was hushed here, a few people sat quietly. A gong resonated in the distance. It would take hours to deconstruct the cultural significance of this place, which is surrounded by rooms full of remarkable, historically and artistically significant paintings on shoji screens.

But too many words are not necessary. You can simply sit and feel the powerful aesthetic at work. A refined artwork like a Zen garden is, after all, meant to be experienced, not merely explained.

Nanzenji, as much as the narrow, crowded streets of Akasaka where I met Haruhiko, seemed like the place I came to Japan to see.

I stayed for hours, and then reluctantly left to find a subway station my map showed was somewhere in the area. A young man hopped off a bicycle, said he was going home, but he would lead me there. No problem.