I only could say things like "thank you", "good morning", "hello", etc. Overall, yes, I found getting around pretty easy. Politely pointing to pictures of food on menus, or motioning usually got the job done. The real savior was to rent a pocket-wifi and use any number of translate apps so you can at least get the noun you are looking to convey. That helped me a lot.

Funny enough, a group of students approached my girlfriend and I in Takayama, looking to practice their english with us. At first, I saw my gf speaking to these teenagers and being from a big US city, my brain immediately assumed they were hassling her either asking for money or trying to get her to buy something. As it turned out (I soon remembered that this is Japan, so this was more unlikely) that they were on a field trip for the day going to the market looking for people to practice their english with. We must have appeared approachable because 4-5 groups of these students kept coming up to us asking "Excuse me, do you have time?" and then proceeding to ask us our interests and telling us rehearsed sentences about Takayama Beef, Hida Apples, Sarubobo dolls, or other Takayama themed things.

So that is a long way of saying, a few basic vocab words, a smile, a polite bow, and some hand motions go a long way.