For those of you who have never been to Japan and are longing to go.....or maybe who have been before but are dying to go back......is there one place, above all else, that you would like to see? Perhaps it's a particular city, in general, you would like to visit. Maybe it's a certain hot spring, castle, or park. Let everyone know where you'd like to go and, most importantly, why....

Kyoto. My ex-boyfriend was originally from Kyoto and all the pictures he showed and the stories he told made me fall in love with Kyoto and I've never even been there.

I would love to go everywhere. That is a dream vacation of mine. The main reason I don't go is the language. I went to Ukraine with Ukrainian speaking people, and I speak Spanish so I've been to Mexico and Costa Rica. Even in Europe everyone tended to speak English. But I've never been somewhere that the language was completely unknown.

Lisa,

Japanese is a fairly easy language to learn. Much easier than any other Asian language, in fact. There are many books, CD's, and courses available. You should look into it

I studied Japanese for about 3 years, and it's really not that difficult of a language to grasp. Even so, if you want to go to Japan and don't know even a single word of Japanese, there are ALWAYS bound to be people in the bigger cities who speak English. There are a lot of foreigners in Tokyo, many signs are written in English (as well as in Japanese), and there is even a daily English newspaper. Young high school students are always eager to practice their English skills on visiting Americans. It's not too hard to get by. If you visit a small city or rural village, there may not be ANYONE who speaks English, and you may struggle. Many people in small towns have not, in fact, ever even seen a foreigner and will look at you with a mix of awe, fear, and astonishment....as if they want to touch you to make sure you are real!