Oh, and for getting around in Japan without learning Japanese, there are many gaijin who live there for years without learning it, but your experiences will be enhanced exponentially even if you just learn some basics. Some tips for learning: observe signs/things around you, get familiar with seeing certain symbols and hearing certain sounds over and over (especially on the subway/trains). Make friends (it's often symbiotic when it comes to each other's language), watch TV (it'll drive you crazy at first), and practice reading, writing, and speaking when you can. Most other gaijin will likely echo what I've said. Good luck.
Dtogo wrote: "Oh, and for getting around in Japan without learning Japanese, there are many gaijin who live there for years without learning it, but your experiences will be enhanced exponentially even if you just learn some basics."
All true. Spoken Japanese is quite pleasureable to the ear, and not terribly difficult to pronounce once the minor differences in vowel pronunciation are understood.
The written word is an entirely different matter, with Kanji, Katakana, Hiragana and, yep, Engrish all jumbled together in an incomrprehensible mess. 