I was wondering how much WaniKani has at this point.  I’ve gone through RTK, I’ve gone through the Textfugu Kanji Vocab, and I’ve gone through Textfugu Ultimate Nouns and Adjectives (skipped verbs, never got back to them).  I’m working on Core6k and, including the words I learned on Textfugu, am about a third of the way through (2200/6000). I also need to finish Textfugu at some point – I did the first four seasons last year, haven’t made much grammar progress since then.

Would WaniKani be of any help to me, or is it not quite there yet?

5 posts in, including two about a tennis player, and nothing mentioning Kei Nishikori? Though granted, he’s been AWOL since Barcelona and seems to be out for a while. I hope he’s back in time for the Olympics, though…

You’ll learn them in the near future. The very next kanji (when you get to the next lesson or two) is 人, which includes the words 人 and 一人 (but not 二人 for some reason). Koichi used to include some “optional” or “advanced” vocabulary with many kanji – these words used kanji you hadn’t learned yet, and weren’t intended to be learned immediately, but were more to give a sense of additional important words that the kanji was a part of. He has since removed the optional/advanced vocabulary to try to prevent confusion issues such as yours. There might be a few stragglers though in the Anki decks that are mislabeled or shouldn’t be present at all (since he’s only up to 8-stroke kanji).

I’d “suspend” the cards for these vocabulary words in Anki, and submit a “bounty” (use the button at the bottom of the page on any page of the textbook) to let Koichi know of the error so he can fix it. You can un-suspend the cards when you get to the 人 kanji and associated vocabulary.

I’ve done things all out of order by doing some Textfugu, then RTK, then back to Textfugu. For what it’s worth, I’d recommend getting ahead on the kanji and related vocabulary instead of the ultimate decks. There’s a lot of kanji-related vocabulary, and I find it a lot easier to digest – since the readings help to relate kanji and kana – than random vocabulary, where I have to come up with a separate mnemonic to remember each word. There’s also a lot of overlap between the ultimates and the kanji-related vocabulary on Textfugu, so by the time you get through the 7- or 8-stroke vocab (yes, I know that there’s no 8-stroke yet, but there will be soon), you’ll already have learned much of the ultimate vocabulary anyway.

Of course, if you have some spare time, you could just do RTK instead. There’s a bunch of threads on here about RTK, so I’ll spare you the speech.

Edit –> Select Facts might be a superfluous step. As I said, not an expert on Anki.

koohii.com, though it’s mostly focused on Remembering the Kanji (RTK). They have a (small) wiki, too, which can be useful.

Note that all the below is for the Kansai region. YMMV elsewhere.

There should be somewhat-cheap hostels in various cities. I didn’t stay at hotels in Kyoto when I was there in December (as I was staying with friends), but I remember seeing places advertising for around 6000 Yen, or 80 USD/night, which didn’t seem outrageous. Hostels are probably cheaper still.

Money is a pain. I tried 3 ways of getting yen. I took some cash with me, and exchanged it at the airport. There was approximately a 4% fee for doing this. I used my credit card; there was a 1% fee for doing this. And I used an ATM (look for 7-11, most/all US ATM cards should work there); there were three fees for this, totaling around 4%. Needless to say, use your credit card whenever possible (but not all places that accept cards will accept US cards). And, as noted above, the exchange rate sucks. Take any number in Yen, divide by 100, and increase by a third (i.e., 6000 Yen –> approx. $80) for everyday use.

Most shrines/temples were free. Some had a nominal fee, usually 300-500 Yen. The most I saw was 1000 Yen, though that included tea, and was technically a garden. Food prices were not unreasonable (compared to the US).

Train prices are dirt-cheap compared to how much it costs to get around in other countries by car. The Seishun 18 ticket (http://wikitravel.org/en/Seishun_18_Ticket) can be awesomely cheap, though note that it’s only for JR lines, and that there are many rail operators out there besides JR. Also, at least in the Kansai region, there was a card you could buy that essentially functioned as a debit card for rail use; once you bought it, you could just add money to it, and didn’t have to buy individual tickets for each trip. And it worked for all train operators. And at the end of your trip, if you talk to JR at the airport, they’ll even give you back your 500 Yen deposit and any money you have left on the card. This is really awesome, and I recommend that you get one ASAP.

For flights, I think Koichi has a decent summary: http://www.tofugu.com/2010/11/16/how-to-get-cheap-airplane-tickets-to-japan/ There should be a place at the airport to ship your bags to your destination, if needed. I did this when flying in to Osaka (KIX) and then staying in Kyoto; I think it cost around $40 for two (large) suitcases.

Note that, for the most part, signs are in Japanese. I repeat: signs are in Japanese. Unless you’re relatively far along in your studies, don’t expect to be able to read much of the historical background signs at temples/shrines/museums/etc. My wife (native) could read them no problem, my other two friends (one has lived in Japan for 3 years, the other has been there 9 months, both also studied in the US) can get by on the trains and the like, but were also mostly lost at temples/shrines/museums. For myself, 6 months into Textfugu and 4 months more into RTK, I could read the occasional word (and recognize many of the kanji), but that was about it. Note that I’m slower than most other learners, though, due to being an old fogey and not getting school breaks. Trains stations (well, airports too) are about the only exception, you don’t absolutely need Japanese for trains (though it doesn’t hurt). But most temples/shrines/museums will have a one-sentence (at most) explanation for each item of interest in English with a wall-of-text in Japanese, and most do not have English tours (though a couple did have English audio tours).

And, as always, Wikitravel is your friend.