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Visiting Japan - What to see, what to bring?
AspectVoid
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So, my Dad retired last year at 70, wanted to visit Japan, and my mom didn't want to go with him. He asked me if I would go, and I said yes. So, we're going in May, have passports, tickets, and hotel rooms in Tokyo, and now we need to figure out what to do and what we should take to make the trip easier. I'm hoping that there are some wonderful PAers here who can help me out. I've never visited a foreign country where English was not the primary language, so any advice would be great on what would make things easier. I'm also looking for suggestions on things we should see, because I have little clue on that as well.
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I’m assuming you’re arriving at narita airport and unfortunately it is far as fuck from the city. There are multiple options to take from the airport to the city and depending on which one you take you may only get partway to your destination (bus, NEX, Skyliner, taxi, etc). I arrived around 9pm and by the time I got through security many of those options weren’t running.
Getting around is much easier with google maps. Tokyo has an extensive subway system but there’s multiple owners and multiple entrances for different lines close by each other so can be a little tough if you don’t have data and arent familiar with the place.
I took the subway everywhere within Tokyo. They have English options on all the ticket machines and announce stop in English too. Taxi seemed to be pretty pricey and Im not confident I could get around using them as I found English to be very poor in general outside my hotel. If you absolutely need to take a car somewhere then use Uber. If taking a taxi get someone from your hotel to talk to the driver and write down in Japanese on pieces of paper the address of where you are going and where your hotel is.
If not using some sort of rail pass or daily pass then get a prepaid Pasmo or Suica card. They’re basically competitors but their cards work on pretty much any subway. I’m not familiar with it but there’s a way to get any remaining balance back. There are different fares depending on how far you’re going and it wastes a lot of time to figure this out and buy tickets so it’s much easier to use one of those cards.
Subways in general stop running somewhere in between 12 and 1 depending on the line. The city pretty much shuts down then.
7-11 and Family Mart convenience stores are everywhere. On any major sort of street you will be able to see at least two of them wherever you are. People buy lots of meals from them so they’re an easy way to fuel up.
Two things that really stood out for me was that people seemed to dress quite nicely in Tokyo and were super polite. I visited quite a few of the districts and I noticed it in all of them.
Other than a cellphone I can’t think of much else to recommend you bring. You can likely buy anything you need there if you forget anything or find you really need something.
As chance would have it, I'll also be in Tokyo around May, although we haven't settled on our full itinerary yet so you're probably more well-prepared than we are. Are you only going to Tokyo? If there's any flexibility in your accommodations, or if you can manage a day trip, I'd really recommend taking a Shinkansen (bullet train) somewhere -- it's a really neat experience, and a good (and fast) way to see some more of the country. That said, Tokyo is a massive city already, with enough variety that you're not likely to run out of things to do regardless how long you're staying.
I'd need to look up what we actually did in Tokyo, but my main memories are about food, and I really don't think you can go wrong on that front. We went to Akihabara, of course, toward the end of our trip, but honestly unless you're a huge nerd and your father is really patient, you can probably afford to give it a wide berth. There's an amazing whiskey bar upstairs somewhere in Shinjuku that could be a good night out if either of you are into whiskey.
When we went, we only knew a word of Japanese, and that was honestly enough to get us much further afield than Tokyo. "Sumimasen" translates to 'sorry' / 'excuse me' and is basically the most useful word you can know over there. You may want to brush up on some other useful phrases, but it's by no means necessary to speak the language.
http://genyamamoto.jp/bar_tokyo/English.html
It's amazing and showcases all the best things about japanese craft and care.
Our current travel ideas once we arrive is a JR Rail Pass since our hotel is a 5-10 minute walk from a JR station, though I'm a bit unsure how good a deal it is since I don't know how much train/bus/etc passes cost.
My cell phone should be fine. I use Google's Project Fi for service, and its straight up supported in Japan. I switched to it last year when Verizon decided to put limits on video streaming over wifi, and bought a Pixel through Google, so it's fully unlocked and good to go.
As for Hotel, we're semi-locked in I guess. My dad had millions of frequent flyer miles and hotel points, so our travel to Japan is on that, meaning we're pretty much just paying taxes for the hotel and flight. My company also allows me to get reimbursement on vacation travel (one of my benefits for being with the company so long) so we can afford to get away from Tokyo for a day or two without feeling like its costing us money. So, while we'd prefer to keep it cheep by staying at our Tokyo hotel, we don't need to.
Things we did in Tokyo that were nice/fun/interesting:
traditional tea ceremony (examples: https://www.imperialhotel.co.jp/e/tokyo/facility/tokoan.html and http://www.keioplaza.com/offers/tea.html)
Meiji Shrine and Imperial Garden
Sensoji Temple
Tokyo Tower
Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden
Edo-Tokyo Museum
Japanese Sword Museum (https://www.touken.or.jp/english/)
Japanese phrases we found helpful to know:
Sumimasen - sorry, excuse me, get waitstaff's attention, use before asking for directions on the street
Arigato - thank you (said a lot when buying stuff)
______ wa doko desu ka? - where is the ______ ? (used this by pointing at addresses, place names, etc)
Suica cards are great, and super easy to use (all the kiosks are multilingual, and at every station bar rural ones).
Conversational English is somewhat uncommon outside of hotels even in Tokyo, but travelling somewhere with little of the language (which I've done a lot now) isn't as rough as it sounds, and you quickly pick up how much you can get by with pointing, gestures, and what few common phrases are known. It helps that Japan has a lot of little conveniences like pictures on menus and vending machines, too.
I would recommend a day trip or so outside of Tokyo - the city is almost a country in itself culturally, and rural Japan, even just the small Edo-era towns scattered about, can be breathtaking. Nagano was one of my favourites, and is 2h from Tokyo.
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Another thing you can do if your paranoid like me is download the Google map to your phone offline, so you can still navigate without internet should that happen for whatever reason. Also, the Google Translation app is garbage for spoken words, but it has a feature to translate signs with pictures taken. So if you encounter a sign with no English you can determine what it means.
I never really had to speak to people except with buying things, and I found some helpful English speakers at train stations, often employees who can help at info counters will speak English. Also, at service counters some stations sell discounted visitor train passes, all you need is to present a passport.
And I guess it's a good thing that this thread came up: if I continue my trend of making a visit every two years, I guess I should get a rechargable rail card instead of needing to buy tickets every time I need to take the subway or train.
We'll definitely be going outside of Tokyo on some day trips. My father wants to see Mt Fuji and I want to spend a day in Kyoto, so that's two round trips at the very least. Our hotel is in Shinagawa on a 5 to 10 minute walk to a station on the Tokaido Shinkansen, so we have easy access in and out of the city. Does anyone happen to know of a good fair calculator so we can see if a JR rail pass is worth it?
Hyperdia was a life-saver while I was over there — I didn’t use it for fares, so much, but it’s really easy to plan trips using it.
Yeah, if your phone plan is supported in Japan you should be good. It's what we did when we visited.
One thing about the JR Pass, is that if you do decide to go for it, I think you need to actually get the pass before you arrive. It's meant to be for foreign visitors, so there were complications if you wanted to get one after you arrive. I'm not sure if that's still the case, though.
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Fuji
Kyoto
Osaka
Yokohama
Kanazawa
Kamakura
Nikko
Takayama
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Thanks everyone!
edit- also, this is anecdotal, but I've heard that traveling during Golden Week can be a bit of a pain. You might want to use those days for Tokyo stuff, maybe Yokohama.
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You can do Osaka, Nara, and Kyoto all from the same location, too. As in, if you do make it a multi-day thing, you have your hotel in one of Osaka/Kyoto, and then grab a train to the others and back when you're done.
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Round trip from Tokyo to Kansai on the Shinkansen is roughly equivalent to the cost of a 1 week JR rail pass. You should absolutely get one if you're planning to go to Kyoto.
But I'll also just say: Don't overplan. There's so much to see just by walking around. If you overplan you may miss all sorts of stuff that you would just stumble on otherwise. Tokyo is like sensory overload. There will always be something to do/see with no schedule at all.
Kyoto is great for that too since you can just walk on into the shrines. Just check out a map, pick a direction and start seeing.
Oh, on that note: Tokyo Skytree is very cool, and gives a great perspective of just how vast the Tokyo metropolis is. There's a separate line for tourists which is usually much shorter, with passport as proof. Try going on a weekday though; lines for it can get pretty intense (as with... pretty much everything in Japan).
Edit: Found a list of festivals for May. Worth a look to see if any sound interesting and fit into your itinerary.
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I'll second the Shinjuku government building if you want an areal view of Tokyo. The way I see it, your options are the Sky Tree (insanely long line-up and costs) or the government building (no lineup and free).
I spent two weeks in Japan with these four phrases:
- Konichua (hello)
- Ay (yes)
- Arigato gozailmas (thank you very much)
- Sayonara (goodbye)
It's insane how many conversations you can navigate with such a basic vocabulary (and a lot of pointing).I want to add the Tokyo zoo. When I went they had pandas, elephants, penguins, kangaroos, giraffes, hippos, and a host of other exotic animals I had never even heard of, much less seen in real life. Definitely worth an afternoon, especially if your hometown doesn't even have a zoo at all (as mine doesn't).
7-11s are your friend. ATMs that'll get you cash (albeit with some hefty transaction fees), good food. Sake in little juiceboxes.