I bought a phrase book, and installed an ipad app for learning kanji.
I wish I’d spent more time learning the kanji before I went. They’re arranged by school year in the Japanese curriculum and I learnt the meanings of all the ones for 6-7 year olds, and both pronounciations for about half of them. Walking round with the reading ability of a 6 year old is possibly more frustrating than not understanding a word. It was like “that sign is politely telling you not to do something, but I have no idea what”
I found people just kind of talked at me in Japanese and pointed and hoped I’d get the gist of whatever they were saying.
Edit- this official list used in schools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyōiku_kanji
