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INTEREST: Dedicated Fan Travels 77 Hours to Get to Comiket — By Bike

That is dedication. But how can a person get lost with a good GPS device? One should also travel with printed directions. I use a GPS device that use glonass and American GPS signals and never got lost.

That is dedication. But how can a person get lost with a good GPS device? One should also travel with printed directions. I use a GPS device that use glonass and American GPS signals and never got lost.

hikura wrote:

That is dedication. But how can a person get lost with a good GPS device? One should also travel with printed directions. I use a GPS device that use glonass and American GPS signals and never got lost.

Well, the short answer is that GPS devices don't work that well with Japan, and the long answer...

Japan has one of the most convoluted roads and streets on planet earth among the developed nations, most often than not, not even locals know how to move around their town safe for the routes they usually take. The usual lookout for different routes in many shows and anime that involve modern settings also comes from this, they actually need to know various routes, otherwise if there's some sort of obstacle, be it an accident, a roadblock, or someone moving in and blocking the street, it isn't as simple as going around the block, one would usually get lost.

In that sense, GPS navigation systems such as google maps or Apple's maps, though in theory they shouldn't have a hard time, due to the incredibly complex road system in Japan, they are often wrong or not precise enough to differentiate two (or more) streets. And speaking of which, not all streets are named and/or numbered, most are nameless and are just part of some obscure area that isn't always a square on the map.
I'm pretty sure Google Maps and Apple's Maps would be able to guide one around Tokyo pretty well, alas, I don't think that works very well for less known locations... for example, I made a trip to Japan around 3 years ago, and while I was in Kyoto, I was asked to visit a local shop and get something... well, even by using both google and apple's maps apps I was completely and utterly lost, and I can read and speak Japanese quite well, reading signs is not an issue at all, but there I was, lost in some random neighborhood. The solution was quite simple though: search for the closest police box and ask for directions. The Japanese have to do so, even the mail delivery guys often ask policemen for directions... and printed directions? Take a look at all those series when a character draws a "map" with random elements like vending machines and shrines to know you're in the right place, well, those are actually useful, no map will help you in Japan, really...

I swear, once you get to know the "normal" Japan, many of those novels, anime and movies about getting lost and/or spirited away in some strange town with streets that repeat themselves for eternity don't seem to be fiction at all, it actually feels like the authors really got lost and told their tale...

hikura wrote:

That is dedication. But how can a person get lost with a good GPS device? One should also travel with printed directions. I use a GPS device that use glonass and American GPS signals and never got lost.

The GPS tells you where you are. The other half of navigation is, "right, so I'm here, where do I go next"; this is hard, in japan.

[the core of japan's road network was designed for foot traffic, because carts were uncommon under the bakufu. And because in meiji they built mostly railways, the road network wasn't significantly upgraded until after the war, and when it was they mostly built limited-access highways you can't cycle on. So you'd be cycling on road alignments that are, like, five or six hundred years old.]