Ep 30: Post Japan - Tips, Tricks, & Experiences

Topic: Post Japan - Tips and Tricks

Okay, finally, we finished talking about what it was that we did on this two week vacation, now we get to share our knowledge and what we learned for anyone else traveling.  We really do hope this is useful to someone traveling to Japan, as we think this is some of the most useful information we can immediately think of outside of the language.  Next week we’re planning something else, but we felt this was important things that could help make Japan much easier to navigate.

Tips and Tricks:

Wifi Router / Sim Card
We highly recommend getting a Wifi Router while in Japan.  You can make arrangements prior to arriving to Japan to get a Wifi Router for multiple devices.  In our case, I made arrangements to pick it up at the Airport when we arrive and then drop off at the Airport before we left.  It’s amazingly useful to look up maps, information, or just to stay in touch, as we purposefully turned off our mobile data plans while in Japan so we could avoid roaming charges.

In Our case, because I wasn’t sure how much or little we were going to use, I got an unlimited plan that ran 900yen a day.  So we had unlimited data, but if we went over 3g ever day, it would start slowing down.  By the end of the trip, we probably only used 7-8g of data.  Use your best judgment when picking a plan, but definitely consider making arrangements before you arrive, so you’ll definitely want one.

Travel Around Japan
There’s probably two major ways to travel in Japan. 

Trains:
JR Railway
If you’re traveling AROUND Japan, this is a must have.  JR Railway represents Japan owned railways, which are train managed by the Japanese Railway company.  They’re all throughout Japan and most stations associated with them are usually bigger stations.  Most Prefectures and towns will have atleast One or Two JR Railways in them.

If you plan on traveling from different prefectures or in different parts of Major Parts of Japan, this is a very useful tool to have.  There are two versions, each available for either 7, 14, or 21 days: you have Standard Pass and Green Pass.  Green Pass helps for longer trips, where you are on trains you need to make reservations for, as Green will always get you a guaranteed seat in the Green Car on most long distance Trains and bullet trains.  Think of the Green Car as a Fancy business class car.

Once you pick up your JR Pass at the Airport, visit a JR Station and go to the Station Gate office, which is a small office that every Station has just by the entrance/exit to the Station’s platform entrance; they’re usually to the far right or left of the gate entrance/exit.  You’ll need to visit these Station Gate Offices every time you get on or off the JR Station. Just show your JR Rail Pass to the Officer at the Office, and he’ll let you through.

Local Rail/Trains
While JR Railway Trains are plentiful, most major prefectures will have their own independent lines that run in between the various parts of their prefecture.  Tokyo has about a dozen different trains it independently runs all throughout the Prefecture outside of the JR Railway Trains.

Because at some point, you’ll need to get on one, we recommend getting an IC Card.  They come in a variety of different names, like Suica, Pasmo, Icoca, or etc, but they’re basically reloadable Credit Cards you can use on the train at any time.  When you get one, you buy one at 2000yen, and it comes with 1500yen of funds on it.  You reload it as necessary, and there is always a place to reload by the gates entering and exiting the station.

To use an IC Card, you go to the gate entrance, pass it over an RFD reader, and it will make a good noise when you pass it over.  If not, it will have little gates stopping your progress, and you can check with a Railway Staff to see the problem.  Once you travel to your destination and go to leave the station, you pass by a similar gate and pass your IC card over the RFD Reader once again. Your fee is based off how far you traveled, so it will show you what the total cost was and the remaining balance. 

IC are great to have, because they work in other places, like some mini-mart and vending machines too, as an easy way to purchase stuff if you’re in a hurry.  We found that if you put about 10,000yen, you should be good for about 14 days, as I think we went through that amount, and only used it for trains and buses. 

Roads:
Buses
They use IC Cards too.  They’re sometimes like regular buses in the states, where you pay when you get on, or I some cases, you pay when you get off.  In most cases, we found most buses were a one time fee to get on or off, about 230 yen, but some might charge you based on how far you went like on a train.

Taxi
Taxi and some variations on Uber exist in Japan, but we don’t recommend them, unless you’re going somewhere very specific.  We never needed to rely on them while traveling.

Stations
The more trains that pass through them, the Bigger they’re going to be.  Most stations always have a Mini-mart attached to the station or just outside the station.  Some stations might have dining and shopping attached to the station, as in the case of Kyoto, Shinjuku, and Nagoya, they had full on department stores and hotels attached.  In Osaka, it had a full grocery store; butchers, fruits and veggies, pastry, the whole full on store.   

Money
The currency in Japan is the Japanese Yen, which at the time this writing is approximately 93yen to one $1.00usd.  For simplicity, it’s safe to assume that 100yen is roughly a $1.00US dollar.  While we could split the difference, by the time you paid taxes it would be roughly equal. 

If it’s under 1000yen, expect to get coins.  In Japan they have:
1yen – Very light weight, feels like plastic
5yen – No markings, bronze with a hole
10yen – Silver but smaller than 100yen.
50yen – Silver with a hole, mom liked these for earrings.
100yen – very popular coin, felt like a quarter in weight
500yen – bigger, bronze, kinda like a half dollar in Us currency.
Their Bill money is made of both paper and plastic. Bring a coin purse for the coins, because you’ll be collecting.

Japan is a very much a cash based country.  We often had multiple problems using credit cards in some places because they simply don’t take credit cards all that often.  We believe they didn’t pay for the service or let it lapse, but we were also only using Visa as our preferred card, never an AMEX or Mastercard, so it could be different.  In any case, unless you’re in a high end place, assume you won’t be able to use your credit card. 

That being said, ATMs are plentiful.  For Money, Mom used her bank to order money ahead of time, as where I pulled out money when we arrived.  Fees were included ofcourse, but it was reasonable, nothing outlandish.  In the end, Mom took out 250,000yen($2,325usd), as where I took out 150,000yen($1,400usd).  For me, about 10,000yen a day, and mom, close to 20,000yen a day. Almost all of our hotels were paid ahead of time, so less worry there about that, but in all, when you consider all the stuff we saw and did, transportation on trains, souvenirs, and food, we spent nearly all that money.  And might have been able to spend more, but we were always talking each other out of stuff.

While in Japan, and especially in areas with lots of shopping, we found that you can get Tax Free status if you spent over 5,000yen.  Most of the times this was while we were shopping for others, but it was pretty easy to spend over 5,000yen easily when shopping for others, and in some cases, ourselves.  They do need your Passport to do this, which they’ll fill up with additional paperwork.  Many stores are very open and public about them offering tax free as an incentive to purchase from them, so if you need to buy stuff for others, it’s easy to do.

Ryokans Vs Hotels
While in Japan, Mom and me wanted the traditional experience.  That meant sleeping on tatami mats and futons.  There are western style hotels, but Ryokans, along with being traditional, are also less expensive.  I love the design/construction of them, and Mom loved the notion of being in traditional as much as possible.

That said, we love Capsule hotels.  I’d do it again if it was just me, but for a few days where we were only in one place each day, it’s totally reasonable as an alternative to a Ryokan.

We both love the public baths as well.  Very efficient and convenient.
 

Food
While in Japan, we expected to eat a lot more fish than before.  But in reality, we ate probably more pork, chicken, and beef than we ever did rice on some days.  While I wanted to, we never got to partake in Japanese fast food like McDonalds.  We did see a few, but most of the places we went to looked like holes in the wall.  Maybe 400 to 500 square feet, and half of that was the kitchen, so that meant only a bar for us to sit at.  Most are small, run by two or three people, and usually have a small and limited menu.  Some have you even order via a ticket machine, then the waitress will take those tickets to the chef.

And they were plentiful: for consideration, they say that for every 266 people in Japan, there is a restaurant. It’s the highest in the world, and the US is second with one restaurant for every 547 people.  What’s that mean, they’re 474,048 restaurants in Japan, that’s atleast three restaurants ever square mile, vs US where they have roughly 600,000 restaurants, but that’s only one restaurant for every 6.25 square miles.  When you consider the size of Japan vs US, that’s a lot of restaurants.

Other thing Japan has, Minimarts like Seven-Eleven, Family Mart, Lawsons, and others.  Japan has roughly 50,000 stores; again for comparison, US has 145,000 stores. For comparison, that one minimart for every 3 square miles for Japan and one minimart for every 26 square miles.  Minimarts are plentiful and awesome!  Most are small, near train stations and other high traffic areas or corners, but they have everything drinks and snacks, medicine, and even full meals you can purchase and get heated up.  We only got a chance once to eat convenience store meals, but we picked up breakfast the night before in the form of chilled coffee, juice, pastries, sandwiches.  My favorite were the tall boys of soda for only a buck, along with the smaller size Monster energy drinks.  Every morning, we could purchase a 2 liter of cold water for about a 100yen, which was amazing as we traveled around Japan.

Vending machines were also plentiful in Japan.  While I won’t run the numbers, there’s over 5 million in the country, that serve everything from drinks, snacks, alcohol, and even more.  While I never really found any, some have food options that will serve full meals or even fresh fruit/veggies, some that have underwear if you really needed it.  Some of our favorites were trying to find the names on machines, like we found our siblings and cousins a few times as the names of drinks, but it where we found Peach Water.  If you ever visit Japan, first thing you Need to buy is Peach Water.  If you find a Asian market near you, see if they have Peach Water, an absolutely Must in Japan.

Luggage

While we had heard that Japanese people don’t like roller bags, we quickly learned that wasn’t the case.  While I brought a large travel/backpackers bag and mom brought a smaller sling pack, we quickly found a lot of Japanese people traveling with roller bags everywhere.  Some were huge travel cases, while others were smaller day travel size.  The custom you use when you use them is different: in America you see people often pulling them behind them, but in Japan, you roll them beside you.  Mom couldn’t stand her bag as it was heavy and uncomfortable for her, but we were able to get a hard case roller bag for about 6,000yen, which isn’t a bad deal at the end of the day.  It came in real handy as we put a lot of my souvenirs in there.