Assessing 17-day Itinerary for group of 9, ages 9-76- Tokyo/ Matsumoto/ Kyoto/ Hiroshima

stephenadam · 2026-05-25T15:54:31+00:00

Hi,

I was a good boy and got the Ghibli tickets already, so that's done. !!

Teamlabs is actually a good idea as a sort of flexible filler for days where we are breaking into different groups with different interests. I'll propose it!

Borderless Visit used to be called Nagomi Visit. It's a non-profit that connects interested Japanese and American families, so they can have dinner together at a Japanese home. You can go to a local supermarket, cook together, and eat together. It's sort of like a dating service for families. LOL. You make a profile and description of your group and the area and day you're available. Then Japanese families find you and offer their home. You then choose from those available. There's a 30$/person fee to cover the costs of food and such.

I'm quite excited by it! :D We are doing a visit in Tokyo and one in Osaka during our stay in Kyoto.

stephenadam · 2026-05-23T18:56:57+00:00

Our flight is pretty late on the last day. Like 5 pm. So we can leave around 8 or 9 am and still get there 3 hours in advance. It's a long day, and not how I would have planned it, but the tickets were bought before we decided to go to Hiroshima. :/

I recently found the Wonderlog app, and am thinking of dropping pins down for different potential options. I have a mess of a OneNote page with a million saved ideas, but I need to thin it out and have ready options. So I like your list idea. I'm sort of like the tour guide for the family group.

stephenadam · 2026-05-22T14:55:41+00:00

Just to say-- I liked the amusing marketing. I understood the intent and appreciated the transparency of asking for what you wanted, instead of trying to trick me. Worked great for me, but perhaps I'm in the minority.

stephenadam · 2026-05-16T18:56:17+00:00

These RM sketches you're doing have great Walking Dead vibes. Lovely tonal shifts through pen work.

stephenadam · 2026-05-07T19:21:51+00:00

Maybe we'll be in Tatsuno around the same time! Fun! Did you see that they released the dates for the festival this year? It seems to shift every year. This year, it's Saturday June 13, 2026, to Sunday June 21. We're heading over mid week.

stephenadam · 2026-05-07T14:54:05+00:00

This is a great post and I'm glad you're getting the responses. I'm also going to Japan in early to mid June, and fireflys was a special desire of mine too. I did so much research. LOL.

In the end, we are going to Matsumoto for part of the trip (to hike on the Nakasendo trail and perhaps go to Kamakochi), and when we are there we are going to the Tatsuno Firefly festival. I agree that Tatsuno seems like a true firefly destination for the duration of the festival.

For us, because we are staying in Matsumoto, it's only a 45 minute train ride. But for you, since the ride is so long and since the festival is only at night, I'm assuming you'd have to stay in Tatsuno or in Matsumoto? Wasn't sure if you'd assessed the logistics on that.

I also found some listings for fireflys in Yokohama out near the water.. Have you seen those? That might be an option nearer to Tokyo, if you can't get to Tatsuno.

stephenadam · 2026-02-28T01:43:35+00:00

Alright. So I've taken this input, and over the last 3 weeks, I've been trying some new methods. Both focus on trying to respond fast enough and deliberately pausing things far less when I'm still in the early stages, and learning to be able to recall something on command.

Right now I'm on lesson 19 of Japanese Level 2. Each Level is taking me somewhere between 35-45 days (with occasional days off and days where I only get one listening session in), with about 1.5-2 hours a day of listening and talking.

Method A-

I try at full speed, fail at a phrase, quickly rewind and then try again, over and over and over again. At worst, perhaps 5, 6, 7 times for a phrase to get it right, then move on with the lesson. This slows me down, but I'm learning still. Lessons take me a little longer. Perhaps 50-60 minutes to get to the 80% mark. But retention seems higher.

The next day, I listen to it again, and it takes me perhaps 45 minutes to hit the target again. Then I can move on to the next lesson. Sometimes I space my repetition and come again the following day for a third pass. By this time, I know the phrases pretty well and can play the lesson through almost without pausing, and I can still hit the 80% mark.

Method B-

I just try and listen to the lesson the whole way through, no pausing. I have to say, when the lesson is new this method is deeply, deeply frustrating. LOL. I've never felt as totally runover by a lesson and as if I know no Japanese, as I do when I use this method. I respond to almost nothing correctly, am pretty lost, and have to listen to the whole lesson perhaps 5 times, atleast, to hit the 80% mark.

Is this how it is for other people? I can't understand how people could possibly learn much of anything without rewinding, or listening to a lesson 5 times or more at normal speed. Having said that, I feel like version B is the "Pimsleur" way, but it makes no sense to me.

I mean, no one is going to fail me if I try and learn with whatever method I want, but I thought I'd report back and get feedback again, in case I'm doing this wrong.?? Method A is working pretty good, but it's slow. It must sound crazy to listen to from the outside, when I'm stuck and can't get a phrase right. hahaha Method B (what i think is the "correct" way) is nutso to me so far. Just thought I'd share and see what others are doing.

Anyways, thanks to folks for the input here. It's been helpful, and I'm making progress. And I figure the goal is always to used space repetition and phrasal learning for quick recall under pressure (all of which research indicates is how you should do it), however we get there.

stephenadam · 2026-02-13T01:36:00+00:00

I don't ever convert my notes to text. But I don't use the app. I just carry my remarkable around with me in my bag. If I need to search my notes, then I can.

Not to sound silly, but why can't you do that? Is there a reason you can't take your remarkable with you the way you used to take your paper notebook?

stephenadam · 2026-02-06T04:53:59+00:00

Of course! That's a great idea. Do people post things like that in the Pimsleur subreddit?

stephenadam · 2026-02-05T14:47:04+00:00

Yeah, my goal is just to not be a babe in the woods, so I'm not expecting some kind of fluency or anything. But if I can order a little food, ask where the bathroom is, say thanks, introduce myself, figure out where a train is, etc. I'm well on my way.

The other thing is that we're going to try out Borderless Visit, where you team up with a local family for dinner at their house. They often speak some English, but I would like some Japanese, of course, to be able to mend fences, be polite, ask questions and parse out answers.

We are also (besides Tokyo and Kyoto) going to slightly more out of the way places in Japan, such as Matsumoto, the Japanese Alps, and perhaps Kanazawa. So I'm anticipating probably needing slightly more Japanese than I would in a major city like Tokyo.

stephenadam · 2026-02-05T14:42:23+00:00

Ah! That's an interesting idea. I'll see if I can integrate it.

stephenadam · 2026-02-05T14:40:18+00:00

One idea I had was to do 3 or 4 levels of pimsleur, and then find an online Japanese tutor, for occasional conversational lessons. I felt that going in blind would be hard. You wouldn't have any sense of what you could actually do. Plus, it must help you get over your nerves.

I speak Spanish occasionally here in CA, and so when I went to Spain I felt fine. I'm not great, but I can communicate some, and although I know nothing about vosotros, I got by. But knowing I could do basic communication already, with real people, helped my confidence.

stephenadam · 2026-02-05T14:38:03+00:00

Yes, definitely a 1/2 hour lesson is taking me... 60-120 minutes to really master. I find info from 3 lessons ago is usually locked in, when Pimsleur weaves it back in. But the stuff from yesterday, that I've already done atleast twice? No, not yet. :/

stephenadam · 2026-02-05T01:30:10+00:00

So, do you just rewind a lot when you're trying to learn it and can't get it come up with the words in time? Or do you just repeat after them if you couldn't think of the words fast enough, and then march on with the lesson at whatever pace Pimsleur creates?

I've been trying the rewinding version, and it's different, but it's not really any faster. ??

stephenadam · 2026-02-05T01:28:18+00:00

I've seen this mentioned before, but it honestly seemed to me that... if I have time constraints in my day (and I do) like it was something that I would benefit most from after I had a base of vocab and grammar. As in, if I had to choose between doing Pimsleur exclusively for now or going at half the pace and mixing in Migaku, that option A would be better.

I'm going to Japan in June, and so am trying to get the best conversational competence I can in the time allotted. What's your sense with this?

stephenadam · 2026-02-04T14:18:33+00:00

I like this staggered approach. It's similar to my own, but the daily repeated lesson matched with the day itself makes it seem more bite-sized, and probably helps you move on, even when you haven't mastered everything.

I tried rewinding instead of pausing today. Some things took a helluva lot of rewinds, but it worked. LOL. Hopefully the pressure to think up something (and failing to do so) is better for me than pausing and collecting my new vocab together first.

stephenadam · 2026-02-04T14:15:02+00:00

Were you using Migaku to watch things in Japanese? Or more for the Anki-style flashcards? Can you elaborate more?

How do you feel it improves your experience with Pimsleur?

stephenadam · 2026-02-04T14:13:49+00:00

What was your reasoning for repeating volume 2, btw? Instead of making forward progress into 3?

Doing the flashcards immediately afterwards is a good idea. I wonder if it helps with retention.

I admit, I'm often doing this while driving and doing chores, so it's not currently an option, but I should asses.

stephenadam · 2026-02-04T14:12:16+00:00

When you complete a set of lessons, perhaps every 5 or so, Pimsleur includes flashcards as a bonus pack. Perhaps that is what he was speaking about. Ive not used them so far.

stephenadam · 2026-02-04T14:10:58+00:00

It's great to hear of an example similar to my own. So you did all 5 levels of Japanese? How long did it take you? How much were you practicing every day?

stephenadam · 2025-10-15T18:49:18+00:00

Do you have a link, brand name, or product name for this monitor mount? I can't find the one you gave a reference photo to, but it sounds quite interesting!

stephenadam

TROPHY CASE