Please don't link to a newspaper's tweet when they have an actual story: <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/09/23/national/kishida-japan-border-opening/" rel="nofollow">https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/09/23/national/kishid...</a>
To fellow American HN people.<p>Right now USD/JPY is around 145, and it was about 100 in 2020, which means almost 30% discount for everything!
(Please note that CPI of Japan is not so high)<p>Come to Japan, and enjoy!
This is awesome! Me and a few friends were planning a trip, but their old policy was really confusing and I couldn't find good guidance on it, most of it contradictory. Hopefully they see a big boost, I imagine their hospitality sectors got hammered.
Does this mean tourists don't need a visa for Japan anymore? Including people with traditionally "weaker" passports like Uganda, India, etc.? The article linked elsewhere in the comments is not clear on this.
I wonder to what extent this reflects desperation for foreign currency (especially dollars) given the recent intervention by BoJ to stop the yen's freefall.<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/boj-keep-ultra-low-rates-remain-global-outlier-despite-weak-yen-2022-09-21/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/boj-keep-ultra-low-rate...</a><p>My guess is that this would be a drop in the bucket, but who knows?
This reminded me to check on Canada as I periodically do, and it looks like they also just made a related announcement today: they're ending vaccine requirements for the border at the end of the month: <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/government-lifting-pandemic-border-measures-1.6591883" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/government-lifting-pandemic...</a><p>I've previously been misdirected here, since they have different rules for vacationers vs business travelers or something like that. But, this sounds like a blanket lift of restrictions.
Personally I don't support countries which locked people outside under some false pretense of protecting anyone as Australia, NZ, Canada or Japan is doing and LATE reversal on such policy is even more reassuring me to not visit (out of those 4, only Japan is a bit interesting for me and worth visiting (as someone who lived for years in Eastern Asia)).<p>If you didn't fully open by spring 2022 for everyone, then you don't deserve my money and can wait at least 1-2 extra years before I even consider spending money, since you didn't rush I won't rush either.<p>Same reason I didn't even consider this year holidays in Spain (maybe not one specific harsh restriction but overal sum with locking children inside, wearing mask outdoors and other nonsense), Italy (work ban for unvaxxed takes the gold) or Greece (fines for unvaxxed seniors takes the gold) this summer in Europe, because of what they did to own citizens.
I'm fully expecting them to reverse this decision a few weeks in when their COVID cases shoot up again. Is it just me?<p>I really want to travel to Japan again though. I have friends there and I also miss the country in general.
Nooooooooooo, I was about to go to Japan this November, using my iPhone 14 Pro to take pictures of Japan with less tourists...............<p>With special privilege that’s not available for regular tourist of course.