I went to Japan in Feb! Seemed at least in the areas I was in to be past the disaster, but then we didn't go near it... but yeah, that was absolutely not a factor in our trip.
I mostly stayed in Tokyo, but we had a few days in Osaka and then a day trip to Kyoto to see some shrines/a castle. Overall the trip was good! Not necessarily for our wallets but oh well. =p 10 nights all up, and we arrived in the morning/left in the evening.
Visited not one but two Pokemon Centres, haha. They have a bunch there (at least four?) Transport there is superior to Australia, most certainly. But it can be very packed.
I really liked their curries (different to Indian or Thai). And it was winter when we went and they have vending machines with
hot tea and cocoa everywhere and it was cheap so gooooood
Regardless of what they're doing, they will always take a few seconds of their time to help you out, even if they are complete strangers. The only thing bad about Japan, though, is that if you're from a different country, they will mostly treat you like an outsider. They'll constantly stare at you, speak to you as you're a little kid, and so on. Well, those are the only things that I've been hearing. Not sure how accurate they are, though, as I've never visited the place. d:
We went as a group of 6 people, one Arabic, one half Chinese, so that was interesting for going to a place like Japan. =p We had a mixture of interactions I suppose. Some people were pretty nice! One senior had a discussion with us for instance on a train trip.
On the other side, one instance I recall was a woman deliberately walking around our group and trying to ignore us. And in the Pokemon centre... well, when my Arabic friend kindly asked if some older teenagers would battle they refused. Yet the checkout person was pretty nice. So yeah, certainly a cultural thing there against foreigners, but not for every person you'll encounter in Japan. It does help though to know at least some Japanese, I can tell you that much.
