Japan travel tips

So for those wanting to travel to Japan, here are a couple of sage advices from us to you.

Tip #1: Learn Japanese

So you don't really need to learn Japanese to come to Japan. You can always bring your Japanese friend or Japanese sister-in-law with you. We kid of course. Getting around Japan knowing no Japanese and being fluent in English has been more than adequate. Not as easy as getting around the Philippines of course but I have a feeling that it might be more difficult in South Korea, China, and Vietnam. There are plenty of people in Japan that speak English. We really only had one tiny problem, which is why we thought of this tip.

Our language barrier at a Fugu (puffer fish) restaurant in Osaka was quite the experience. We sit down and look over the drink menu and the picture/english menu. We pick out two items from the menu and look over the drink menu. We tried ordering sake and the waitress kept saying "wata". So we thought she was asking us if we wanted water. We said yes. But she kepts saying the same thing after ordering the sake. And after not understanding her questions, our waitress kept giggling and turning to the other waitress in confusion. They too knew little to no English. So we decide that no sake for us. I post the picture in hopes that someone (Fumi) might be able to shed some light on our drink confusion.

So after being settled w/ our dinner order and water for drinks, the waitress comes back and asks us another question in Japanese. She points to the Japanese menu and we infer that we have an option for our meal. Darin thinks we get to choose which part of the puffer fish we want for our bbq plate. So we try to ask the waitress, "head, body, tail" and point to the appropriate body part. More giggling and looking at her waitress friends. After a couple more minutes of this, she runs of and finds another waitress who can speak English. Turns out, we get a choice of sauces for our bbq dish. So having spent around 10 minutes in utter confusion, as soon as the English speaking waitress says that one of our sauce choice is ponzu, I immediately ask for that since I know and like ponzu.

We also got to choose to have vegetables with our fugu. The only thing we were able to decipher from our waitress was mushroom. And the rest we tried to figure out on or own when it arrived. We were able to figure out the bell pepper and the leek, but that was it. There was an okra-looking thing that tasted like a very mild pepper. And there was a potato-looking thing that was crunchy like a water chestnut.

To add to the problems in communication, I see this little contraption on the table and thought it might dispense a toothpick or napkin or something. So I grab it, press the button, and say, "what's this do?" Darin knew exactly what it was but it was too late. The waitress comes by and Darin waves his hand saying "no, no, sorry" in his limited Japanese. The little contraption is generally used to call the waitress to your table. Who knew? Ooops, my bad.

Tip #2: JR Pass

A couple of weeks before leaving for this trip, I had a couple of friends give us this advice to purchase a JR pass. And since you can only purchase this pass outside of Japan, it was best that we purchase it before leaving for the trip. Granted, you can get the pass in other Asian countries as well, but for the sake of simplicity, we just got our pass at a travel agency in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles.

The JR pass allows travel on all JR busses and trains in Japan, which include most bullet trains and at least one line in most big cities. Getting around in cities would require paying for the local metro, but we were still able to get by without doing that since we walked around quite a bit. In total we used a local metro twice in Tokyo and once in Fukuoka. We then used our JR pass six times within Tokyo and six times within Kyoto. But we primarily used our passes to get in between cities which accounted for all of our 7 train rides in our transportation tally. And the best part was that we were able to change our tickets whenever we wanted. We actually changed our city destination twice and changed to an earlier departure time 3 or 4 times.

Our 14 day pass cost us 41,000 yen a piece and doing a rough calculation, our trips would have added up close to 60,000 yen per person. And that doesn't include the reservation costs or the change fees that we might have had to pay. So the pass even gave us more flexibility than what we would have normally done if we hadn't bought the pass.

Darin As a Bullet Train

For those only spending a week in Japan, the JR pass would pay for itself if all you do is Tokyo and Kyoto. A 7 day pass costs 28,000 yen and a round trip ticket from Tokyo to Kyoto is 26,000 yen. With the round trip cost of getting from Narita airport into Tokyo at 3000 yen a piece, your 7-day pass would have paid for itself. If you're an intense traveller and visit 3 cities in 7 days, then you're making some great savings. If you were to do Tokyo-Kyoto, Kyoto-Hiroshima, Hiroshima-Tokyo, it would cost 42,000 yen total. Meaning the 14-day JR pass would have paid for itself and adding more stops and cities would all be savings.

So Darin and I concluded halfway through our Japan trip that the JR pass was a good investment. Even though it cost us close to $500 each.

Tip #3: www.japan-guide.com

Need help figuring out where to go in Japan? www.japan-guide.com. Need help figuring out how much it might cost to get from Japanese city to Japanese city? www.japan-guide.com. Need help figuring out when the cherry blossoms will be in bloom and where to see cherry blossoms? www.japan-guide.com.

I used this site a lot and help me figure out the best way to get to Hida-Takayama and Kinosaki Onsen. Plus the various ideal places to view cherry blossoms. Very helpful site for those english speakers visiting Japan.

Tip #4: Shoes that you can easily remove

You would think that I would know this already, but man, did we have to remove our shoes a lot. I love walking around in socks or go barefoot, so I don't mind at all. What I do mind was having to untie and tie my shoelaces up over and over again. If only there was an invention where i can easily unstrap and strap my shoes. Oh wait. It's called velcro. Sadly, I don't have any velco shoes. Nor did I bring any slip-on shoes. My slip on shoes are dress shoes or a pair of vans (which don't provide much arch support). So I pretty much loosened up my shoelaces instead and walked around with loose shoes and was able to slip my shoes off and on fairly easily.

Tip #5: On a budget? Stay at a capsule hotel

This tip only works best if you're male and not claustrophobic. Yes, I said male. Apparently, there are no capsule hotels for women. And the savings is far greater if you are travelling alone since for two, the savings wasn't as great as staying in a hotel since you're paying per person as oppose to paying for a room.

Our Capsule Hotel in Osaka

Darin and I got to stay in a capsule hotel in Osaka. It was pretty great, but not something we would do regularly as we kept hitting the walls as we moved around in our sleep.

Tip #6: Japan uses 100V for electrical equipment

Previously, I recommended bringing an internation adaptor/converter instead of just an international adaptor. Scratch that tip. Instead, make sure you only bring electronics that accept anything from 100V-240V. The converter we bought in the Philippines didn't work out quite well in Japan and I ended up killing my electric shaver. So I tossed that away and bought a new shaver in Japan. One that takes 100V-240V. So with my international adaptor, this shaver should work anywhere in the world. Now the only thing that Darin and I have than need a converter is the hair clipper. Hopefully, we can start using it again in Korea or China.