Knowing about 20 words of Japanese was all I needed to get around. We traveled from Tokyo to Kyoto, stopping at all kinds of places along the way. We stayed at a monastery on top of a mountaintop in a village of 1000 people, hand-fed friendly wild deer, ate real Kobe beef in Kobe, got lost in downtown Osaka, hiked to the top of the Fushimi Inari (red-gate shrine), stayed out way too late singing karaoke in Tokyo, and ate street food at a new years' celebration at the Senso-ji temple near Ueno.

It was totally worth it and we're doing another trip next year. :)