Visitng Japan, few questions

[yojitani]

I've got a question for everybody, I planning on doing my college study abroad in Japan. Is it worth it take Japanese language classes when I get to college, or would I be fine just knowing English for a whole semester there?

Why would you study there without knowing the language?? I guess my point is that one can get by in Japan without knowing the language, but you aren't planning on a vacation, but study.

Also, you are hijacking a thread. Starting your own would be nice.

 

[Eraserhead]

For clarity the public transport in Japan does "just work" and is very rarely late. I believe I only saw one late train, and I got about 5 trains/day. And it was only 10 minutes late.

The signage for public transport is also excellent and all the signs for the trains are in English as well as Japanese.

 

[Makosuke]

The only negative thing though is the weather, apparently this time of the year the weather is humid and also it will be raining very frequently (mainly in the south).

I didn't see the actual dates you were going, but I didn't see anyone else comment on the weather so I thought I might add that right now is indeed the rainy season (more or less), and it can be pretty miserable--the weather-widget 6-day forecast for Kofu (my family's area; it's about 50 miles inland of Tokyo) currently shows six days straight of thunderstorms with temperatures hovering around 30C.

Not that this should in any way discourage you from going--it's a great place to visit (though I'd personally stay far away from rental cars unless you're experienced in driving in cramped European cities). Just be prepared for hot and wet weather.

Then again, I was there from late June through late July a few years ago, and it really wasn't that bad--hot and miserable, sure, but not that hot (plenty of places in the US I've been that are far worse), and it wasn't raining constantly, just on and off.