Originally Posted by
joer1212
By the way, do store owners at the airport speak some English?
Most mobile shop clerks at Narita and Haneda do speak some English and offer online reservations in English so you could just show them a printout of your reservation. Android can be set to English language, even if it is a Japanese phone meant for the domestic market.
A tip on Google Maps - plot out your main attraction points and star them in Google Maps ahead of time, from your home computer. Then on the Android/iPhone, sign into the same Google account you used with Google Maps. You'll see the starred locations appear on the smartphone's Google Maps app, too. I find this a lot easier than trying to input it in Japanese or the English translation while on the go. Copy in Japanese, paste to
https://www.google.com/maps (my language default is English) also works.