Visited Japan(Osaka) recently with my 5 year old son. While there is infrastructure setup for people with kids such as stroller only elevators, kids/elder section on the train, nobody, I mean, nobody followed the rules. Regularly the stroller only elevators were full and nobody got out. Or able body adults didn’t even glance up to let my sleepy child sit in the kids designated seats.
There were glares at us when my son was having a hard time, almost like we were inconveniencing them.
In my week-long experience there, people in general are not tolerated for children. No wonder nobody wants kids. I wouldn’t want to if I was treated that way.
Don’t get me wrong Mario land was great. But just weird shit drove us mad even inside a family friendly place like Universal Studios.
We had a friend with us that had a 3 year old girl with them. The airline lost their stroller(this was an major ordeal, nobody spoke English at the airports there)so they decided to rent from Universal Studio instead.
First of all, the person who was attending the stroller section didn’t speak a lick of English. Fine. Whatever. We used Google translate. He asked us how old the girl was and I said 3 years old.
The next question was
"Is it her birthday? "…
Us: ummmm, no. That was a month ago.
They immediately said: "No rent to you. "
Wtf dude. Why?!?! Because the rules are 3 years old or younger. That means less than 36 months, not less than 48 months.
Just random shit like that seems the norm for the Japanese.
As a counter point, I had a great time in Osaka with my young daughter this summer. I’m not saying the previous poster was wrong, just that my experience was apparently very different.
Thanks for the feedback. I know my kiddos will want to visit Tokyo but as we all know sometimes kiddos don’t act proper 100% of the time :)
If we go first time we’ll be non central or South American. There everyone welcomes kiddos so trying to make sure I don’t get a culture shock when visiting Japan.
Visited Japan(Osaka) recently with my 5 year old son. While there is infrastructure setup for people with kids such as stroller only elevators, kids/elder section on the train, nobody, I mean, nobody followed the rules. Regularly the stroller only elevators were full and nobody got out. Or able body adults didn’t even glance up to let my sleepy child sit in the kids designated seats.
There were glares at us when my son was having a hard time, almost like we were inconveniencing them.
In my week-long experience there, people in general are not tolerated for children. No wonder nobody wants kids. I wouldn’t want to if I was treated that way.
Turns out conservatives were the moral hazard to society this whole time.
To nobody’s surprise.
Interesting, just came back from Japan and had a completely opposite experience.
Which part? Maybe I’ll visit there next time.
Also, I’m coming from Taiwan which is very VERY friendly to kids and families. So I guess I was expecting a similar experience.
Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto. The majority of folks moved as needed and we did the same.
So sounds like hard pass for folks with kiddos?
Don’t get me wrong Mario land was great. But just weird shit drove us mad even inside a family friendly place like Universal Studios.
We had a friend with us that had a 3 year old girl with them. The airline lost their stroller(this was an major ordeal, nobody spoke English at the airports there)so they decided to rent from Universal Studio instead.
First of all, the person who was attending the stroller section didn’t speak a lick of English. Fine. Whatever. We used Google translate. He asked us how old the girl was and I said 3 years old.
The next question was
"Is it her birthday? "…
Us: ummmm, no. That was a month ago.
They immediately said: "No rent to you. "
Wtf dude. Why?!?! Because the rules are 3 years old or younger. That means less than 36 months, not less than 48 months.
Just random shit like that seems the norm for the Japanese.
Thanks for the clarification. Sorry your trip was so rough. I may hold off going then with the new info.
As a counter point, I had a great time in Osaka with my young daughter this summer. I’m not saying the previous poster was wrong, just that my experience was apparently very different.
Thanks for the feedback. I know my kiddos will want to visit Tokyo but as we all know sometimes kiddos don’t act proper 100% of the time :)
If we go first time we’ll be non central or South American. There everyone welcomes kiddos so trying to make sure I don’t get a culture shock when visiting Japan.
No kids are perfectly behaved. We had a great time all over the Asian countries we visited, more accommodating than North America in some ways.
You will definitely get culture shock when visiting Japan if you’re never been to Asia though, just for many others reasons.