General Japan observations/travel tips

Traveling Tips/Observations on Japan

This post is dedicated to a few tips and observations that I picked up while in Japan. It wasn't my first time traveling to Japan, but it was the first trip I'd made while in charge (generally speaking) of my own travel arrangements and plans. Previously, I'd been there as part of a tour group or with my parents, so it was definitely a learning experience.

Japan is a country where people/service is ineffably polite and incredibly clean. I love Japan, in all honesty, partly because it's a pretty good bet that you'll get very polite service almost anywhere you go. The following is based upon my own observations, and may not reflect every person's experience in Japan.

Language

In Kyoto, a fair number of the locals speak a smattering of English, especially in tourist-heavy areas, but it's not something you can rely on. Knowing some basic conversational or travel Japanese is really helpful, such as being able to ask and understand the following:

(Edited: Godel helpfully suggested edits/additions to this section. Thanks very much! I'm not actually knowledgeable about Japanese, so it's useful to have input on this section.)

• Kore wa ikura desu ka? How much does this cost?


• Kore wa nan desu ka? What is this? (Not really helpful if you don't understand the answer, but sometimes is helpful to determine what something is :) )


• (Kore)/(Thing) no namae wa nan desu ka? What is this/thing's name? (Useful if you're trying to figure out what restaurant you're in, or literally what something's called, rather than what it is.)


• Kono densha wa doko yuki desu ka? Where is this train going? (Useful if you're somehow lost in the romanji- and English-fraught subway system trying to figure out of that Shinkansen train is heading to the right place :D) (Edited: correction provided by Godel!)


• (Place) wa doko desu ka? Where is (place)?


• Koko wa doko desu ka? Where is this place? (Lit. What place is this place? Probably not actually correct way to ask, but it works.)


• Sumimasen. Excuse me/Sorry. (for if you bump into someone, or want to get someone's attention to ask a question or to buy something. Generally not a thing you can say too often. :) )


• Konnichiwa. Greeting for after 10AM (~10AM~6PM)


• Ohayo (gozaimasu). Good morning (More polite with "gozaimasu", used until 10AM).


• Konban wa. Good evening (Greeting for 6PM+, e.g. anytime at night) (Edited: correction provided by Godel!)


• Oyasumi nasai. Good night. (9PM onwards, if one or more party is retiring for the night, e.g. "goodbye for the night").


• (Domo) Arigatou (gozaimasu). Thank you (with varying levels of politeness. Domo is very casual, such as if someone gives you something (they are likely to say Dozo); arigatou and arigatou gozaimasu are more polite, while domo arigatou gozaimasu is extremely polite and, in many cases, overkill)


• Nihon-go ga wakarimasen. I don't understand Japanese. :)


• Nihon-go ga sukoshi wakarimasu. I only understand a little bit of Japanese.


• Asking someone to speak more slowly is very useful, but I can't remember how to say it! So is asking whether they understand English or whether they have an English menu. :P
• Yukkuri hanashite kudasai. Please speak slowly. (Edited: Contributed by Godel.)
• Eigo wakarimasu ka? Do you understand English? (Edited: Contributed by Godel.)
• Eigo no menyuu wa arimasu ka? Do you have an English menu? (Edited: Contributed by Godel.)

Tokyo, in recent years, has undergone rather significant changes - a fair number of people in Tokyo in the service business understand English, some to the extent of being able to have relatively coherent conversations in it. While we were in Tokyo, we found relatively little difficulty in having people understand us.

Transportation

Getting around Japan and within the cities is pretty costly. There are a million different ways to get about, and it can get really confusing.Tina recommends using hyperdia.com for planning travel in Japan, especially on the trains, and for navigating the Tokyo subway system from Point A to Point B, if you know what the destination/arrival stations are.

Nationwide
The JR (Japan Rail) system is one of the most prevalent in Japan, and probably the most useful for getting between Japanese cities. If you're planning to go between cities a lot, you should definitely look into getting a JR pass. This is a 7-, 14-, or 21-consecutive day non-transferable pass only available to foreigners that allows unlimited travel on JR lines for 7, 14, or 21 days. You must purchase a JR pass voucher at a travel agency (JTB offices always offer these) in the US prior to leaving for Japan, as they are not available for sale within Japan itself (again, it's only available to foreigners). When we bought it, the JR pass cost US$315 for a 7-day pass. The cost may vary depending upon the exchange rate, but the JPY cost is ¥28,300/¥45,100/¥57,700 for a 7/14/21 day pass respectively. You can look up more information on JR passes (there are also regional JR passes if you're planning travel in a particular region only) and nationwide travel here.

Alternatively, if you're planning to travel between 3/1-4/10 (Spring), 7/20-9/10 (Summer), or 12/10-1/20 (Winter), there is an alternative JR pass you can purchase for only ¥11,500 and use on 5 non-consecutive dates. Read more about the Seishun 18 Kippu here.

When you reach Japan, you must present your JR Pass voucher at a JR office to receive your actual JR pass. It is when you pick up your pass, not when you buy your vouchers, that you decide when the pass will be activated - for us, since we were staying for 8 days, we decided to activate our passes on 4/5 instead of 4/4 and to purchase the N'Ex+Suica pass for traveling from Narita airport that day (more on this below).

JR Passes (and the reserved seat tickets you receive with them) cannot be used in the automated gateways in stations and must be manually shown to the gate guard in order to pass through. With a JR pass, you can reserve seats on the JR trains anytime before the train departs for no additional fee - just visit a JR station office, show your JR pass, and receive your JR reserved seat ticket in return. If you don't know when you're departing, every JR train also has unreserved seat cars; you're just not guaranteed seats with your group if you go for this option. Generally speaking, I thought it was a lot more worth it to get reserved seats. If you're traveling during rush hour, be sure to get tickets ahead of time!

JR lines also run (to a more limited extent) within Tokyo and other cities - you can use the JR pass for these as well.

Tokyo
Within Tokyo, there are several privately-owned subway/railway systems that take you to various parts of Tokyo for varying prices. For the most part, the in-subway maps and ticketing systems do a good job of telling you how to get from point A to point B, as they often have explanations in English. It's extremely helpful if you pick up a Tokyo subway map from a tourist information center, or from a JTB or other Japanese travel agency while you're in the US - Yokoso! Japan has several map versions that can help.

After landing at the Narita airport, we visited the JR office to purchase a N'Ex (Narita Express) + Suica pass for ¥3500. The N'Ex is the express train from Narita airport to Tokyo, takes about 1h 15m to get to the Shinagawa station where our hotel was (1hr to get to Tokyo Station), and leaves Narita airport every 30-60 minutes. The N'Ex requires reserved seats and typically costs ¥3500 for a one-way general-class ticket to Tokyo, so the ¥3500 N'Ex+Suica combo was more than worth it.

The Suica is an RFID card with a deductible balance that you can use to travel on (almost) any inner-Tokyo subway and bus system; when bought through the N'Ex + Suica combo deal, the Suica card comes preloaded with a ¥1500 balance and includes a ¥500 deposit. You can get your deposit and remaining balance returned to you if you return your Suica card to a JR office at the end of your trip, and can also add balance to your Suica card at marked ticketing machines in the Tokyo subway stations (in ¥1000 increments). In general, the Suica card is really easy to use - simply tap the Suica card against the sensor as you go through the subway security gates, and keep moving (tapping isn't really necessary, as Teenes pointed out, since the card's RFID and proximity is more than enough).

The subways in Tokyo are destination-determined fare systems. That is to say, your fare depends upon the distance between your embarcation point and your de-embarcation point. Before entering a subway, check the fare maps to see how much you'll have to pay to get to your destination - if you're purchasing a one-way ticket, instead of a Suica, you can pay for an exact-fare ticket based on the map (don't try to put more on your ticket! You'll simply lose the extra fare when you feed it to the exit gate machine, as we found out the hard way). If, upon arriving at your destination, you find you don't have enough fare on your Suica card or ticket to exit, there are fare alteration machines just inside the gate that allow you to add (and possibly remove) fare from your card/ticket. When exiting the subway, simply tap your card again and the correct amount of fare will be deducted from your Suica card balance (or feed in your one-way ticket and never see it again).

Usually, you will have to tap your card/use your one-way ticket even if you're transferring to another line in the station. Most stations cater to more than one subway line, so you have to tap upon entrance to/exit from different platforms, since your fare is going to different companies.

The destination of each train is clearly marked and indicated by maps, so make sure you get on the right train. Also, be careful: some trains are Express trains, which means they skip over certain stops. Make sure you don't accidentally get on a train that skips your desired stop!

Last piece of advice: unless you really enjoy feeling like a sardine, try to avoid traveling on the subways during rush hour (~5pm-7pm). The rumors about packed Japanese subways really are true - people end up packed in tightly with one another, shoved into cars by conductors to fit, and it's...not really that much fun. Luckily, there was no infamous groping while we were on the train during rush hour once, but there are actually women-only trains on certain lines to help prevent groping during certain hours.

Interesting note: the gates to the subways are usually kept open, unlike the turnstiles in US subway stations, which are locked until you pay the toll. We didn't test if you could just walk through without paying a fare, but it seems like it's a heavily honor-based system. True, there are guards at all gates, so they'd probably catch you if you just tried to run through...For the most part, though, they only lock up and close if you try to feed the gate an invalid ticket or don't have a lot of fare on your Suica card (the ticket gate flashes a warning if your balance is below ¥100).

Kyoto
In Kyoto, they have both a well-established bus system and a subway/train system, as well. We got around mostly using the bus system, which is fairly regular and low-cost. At the Kyoto Tourist Information Center (in the Kyoto Station), you can buy day passes for the bus routes. They sell 1-day unlimited bus passes for ¥500, which allow you to travel on any of the city buses (more below) an unlimited number of times in one day. They also sell multiple-day passes and bus+subway passes, but we didn't bother with those, so I don't recall the details.

The 1-day bus passes are relatively straight-forward to use. On any flat fare bus, you typically pay the fare when you exit the bus. The first time (in a day) that you ride on a bus, feed your bus pass through the machine at the front of the bus while disembarking - the machine will date-stamp your pass. For the rest of the day, all you need to do is show the driver the date when disembarking the pass.

If you choose not to get the day pass and instead choose to pay the flat fare, the machine at front gives change for up to ¥1,000 bills; once the money is deposited into the pay slot, no change can be given, so try to pay exact fare. If you choose to go outside the city bounds, you need to pick up a number when you board the bus, and then check the fare on a chart on the bus to determine your fare; again, you can make change with the fare machine, but no change can be made once you've paid the fare.

The most important thing to know is the differentiation between the areas covered by the flat fare/city buses and the places considered out of the city bounds - e.g. Arashiyama, to the west of Kyoto, is considered out of city bounds and is on a different fare level, whereas Kinkakuji temple, also to the west of Kyoto, is within city bounds, though just. The flat fare/city buses are all covered by the 1-day bus pass, but the out-of-city locations are not. Keep that in mind when boarding buses and choosing what sort of pass/fare to purchase/pay.

Bus system-wise, you have a lot of choices that are generally limited only to which stops you where you want to get on or off. The Bus Navi map is super-helpful for helping determine which buses you want to board (more below).

The Ruka bus system is meant for tourists - they have stops at most of the major tourist attractions and, like all city buses, have a flat fare of ¥220 for adults (so if you plan to ride the bus only twice in a day, you don't really need to get the 1-day bus pass). They also have English audio descriptions for tourist attractions and English text on their route maps and directions. The only downside is that the convenience of the Ruka and city bus systems mean they're almost always stuffed full. Get ready to stand a lot, and to crowd with a lot of people in a rather warm bus - they rarely (for some reason) open the windows unless given explicit permission from the drive to do so.

Bus stops are usually marked with their name and also have posts that describe the schedules of the buses that stop there. Check those to make sure you can catch the bus you want when you want. Also remember that buses and cars travel on the left side of the road when determining which direction you want to go in.

Cabs
If you're in a hurry to get somewhere, or your destination is far away/inconvenient to get to from public transportation, you might need to take a cab. They're everywhere and not hard to catch - in Kyoto, they often lined up in front of popular tourist attractions and shopping districts. All cabs have a base fare of anywhere between ¥500-650 or so; if your destination is less than 1km away, the base fare applies. Otherwise, the fare will be the base fare plus the fare for the additional distance past 1km. Cabs are not cheap, but they are convenient.

If you get in a cab, make sure you know the name of your destination in Japanese. Even if your destination is a major landmark like "Yoyogi stadium", the cab driver may not understand. Try to have the address on hand, as well, written preferably in Japanese and not English or romanji. Otherwise, you'll have an extremely difficult time getting your cab driver to understand where you're headed! We had this difficulty many times. Without an address, building name (not business name - building name), or Japanese name, it usually took quite a lot of effort to get the driver to understand where we were going!

 Resources

Tina borrowed the Rough Guide and Fodor's from her library for this trip. According to her, "Depending on the area, often one was more useful than the other, but one wasn't always universally better. Fodor's has more thorough restaurant recommendations, I found Rough guide pretty useless on that front."
Food
There is a lot of good food in Japan! Try street food, good restaurants, okay restaurants, everything!

One of the most interesting things we did was to take a cooking class in the Kyoto homemade style; we prepared and made our own dishes under the guidance of a Kyoto housewife named Mariko. You can look up English-language cooking class options online (via Google) and book your reservation ahead of time; I definitely recommend Mariko's Kitchen, where we took our class. Mariko deliberately chooses and prepares regional and seasonal dishes from fresh, regional ingredients, and then gives an interesting and informational account of how you should choose your ingredients, why different components should be used for different dishes (for example, dark vs. light soy sauce, the different textures of tofu and their appropriateness in use for different dishes), and how your ingredients should be prepared for the best presentation and taste.

Bento.com is a somewhat good guide to Japanese cuisine and has many restaurant recommends and things to try while in Japan. The search functionality sucks, and it's not entirely comprehensive - it doesn't include Sakura-tei, for example - but it's a good overview and place to start.

If you're in Kyoto, try to see if you can book a kaiseki meal - this is a traditional multi-course meal, wherein every course is fairly small but a good sampling of a number of dishes. It's typically very expensive per person, requires more formal wear, and needs to be booked ahead of time, but is a very delicious and interesting piece of Kyoto culture & cuisine. Your hotel can help recommend kaiseki restaurants in the area and to make a reservation for you ahead of time. I'll have more specific recommendations in my following posts about the day-to-day travels we had in Kyoto and Tokyo.

In general, different dishes have greatly fun experiences associated with them - ramen, for instance, has different regional styles that you can all sample in the Kyoto Ramen Alley in the Kyoto station, and which you buy a ticket for from a machine and present to the cook. There is a fun Do-It-Yourself Okonomiyaki/Monja-yaki/Teppan-yaki restaurant hidden behind the funky Design Festa Gallery in Harajuku Alley (Sakura-tei).

All in all, there are a lot of really fun restaurants and dishes to try in Japan! Eat as many as you can. :)

Tokyo
Try to pick up a Yokoso! Japan map of Tokyo, which usually contains a (simplified) subway map. English travel guides that you buy or borrow in the US usually have a good description of what places in Tokyo are good to go to, which areas are known for what, and what restaurants are good to eat at. I'll try to find out the names of the guides my sister used. However, a map of the subways is definitely imperative if you don't want to get lost! My friend Rachel recommends the superfuture site for city maps and transportation maps, if you have access to WiFi/Internet while in Japan.

Kyoto
In the Kyoto station, there is a Kyoto Tourist Information Center, where almost all the agents speak English. I definitely recommend stopping at the Info center to pick up maps and information before delving into Kyoto. The Kyoto Handy Guide (which the Information Center didn't have, but which is a free English-language publication that you can pick up at tourist locations in Kyoto) highlights current events and activities going on in Kyoto that you might want to chck out. Another very, very useful resource to obtain is the Kyoto Map for Tourist (it's a pink-mauve map), which has the romanji and hiragana/katagana/kanji names for streets, tourist attractions, shrines, and temples all labeled very clearly. I picked up mine at the JTB office in Seattle, but the Kyoto Tourist Information Center also has copies. You should also pick up a copy of the Bus Navi for Kyoto, which maps out all the bus routes and stops in English (they also have Chinese and Korean versions).

Communication
My sister, her bf, and I didn't use our cell phones while in Japan, but there are several options that I've heard of if you need to keep in touch with your buddies. If you use a phone with a SIM card, you can purchase a temporary SIM card (I'm not sure where); or you can try purchasing/renting a Japanese phone at the Narita airport. The latter option is quite expensive (hundreds of dollars for a week, I believe), but also allows you to access the internet and gives you access to a lot of the features that Japanese phones have.

Money
Where you should exchange your money to get the best exchange rate is always a good question. In my brief research into this, it seems the best way to get money in Japan is via ATMs, if you have a card with partnerships in Japan - the 7-11s (called 7-iHoldings or something in Japan) have international ATMs that you can use and are widespread enough that finding one is almost never a problem. (Tina notes that they're not that widespread, though, so you shouldn't count on finding one on every street corner; plan ahead accordingly.) Also, the minimum amount that you can withdraw from a 7-11 ATM is ¥10,000 in increasing ¥10,000 increments. My sister has a Charles Schwab account that does not charge foreign exchange fees (though may take a small commission on such transfers) and also refunds ATM fees, so we let her withdraw all the money and just tracked what we owed her.

Alternatively, if you want to exchange cash for cash, the Post Office in the Narita airport theoretically offers the next best exchange rates, but is only open between M-F from 9AM-5PM. Other than that, the hotels also offer to exchange money for you. At the PO and also at hotels, for some reason they offer a slightly better exchange rate for Travelers' Checks than for cold hard cash. You should check exchange rates online before you go to Japan - when we went, the exchange rate was around ¥94/US$1, but when we left, it was closer to ¥90/US$1.

General
A few general travel tips

• Bring a small packet of tissue paper with you. Though most bathrooms do come with tissue, a few do not - these usually sell packets of tissue paper for ¥100 in a machine outside the bathroom, but you might as well bring your own.


• Bring Purell/Travel soap with you. Most bathrooms in Japan do not offer soap - because of the swine flu, many offer hand sanitizer, but not all. Bring your own sanitizer and soap if you want to keep your hands clean!


• Don't blow your nose or point at things in public areas. They're not generally considered polite actions.


• Bring coins with you. There are lots of vending machines where you can buy drinks, and well, lots of things don't cost that much. Coins go in 500, 100, 50, 10, and 1 yen denominations, and are generally nice to have.


• Put your payment in the payment tray. Most vendors have a little tray to put your money in when you're paying for something - it's considered polite to put your payment in there; they'll usually put your change in there or hand it to your directly, but a lot of vendors got confused when we tried to hand money to them directly.


• Get used to not paying tip. Japan does not have a tipping culture - most people will be confused or even insulted if you try to pay tip. A few higher-class establishments might expect a small service fee or charge or include such a fee in their bill, and will include a note on their menus saying so. The only place we went to that expected a service fee, I believe, was Benoit, a French-cuisine Michelin 1-star restaurant, and it noted that a 10% service fee was not included in their charge. That pretty much was a polite way of saying that you needed to add a 10% service fee yourself. :)


• Don't be afraid to ask for directions. It might not be easy to ask sometimes, but we found that people were all too willing to help us figure out how to get where we wanted to go. A few times, the person we asked for directions even went out of their way to walk us there without us asking them to!


• Leave all your unnecessary travel stuff behind. Unless you're staying in hostels or much cheaper hotels, most 3-star or 2-star hotels provide shampoo, conditioner, and soap for you, as well as many other amenities (razor/shaving cream, "cotton set", shower cap, toothbrush/toothpaste) in copious amounts and for free. The hotels we stayed at also usually included slippers, and a few provided bath salts and robes. It was pretty pleasant, staying in Japanese hotels! Even the business class hotels are very comfortable, though the rooms were a bit on the small side.
  
• Bring a small plastic bag for garbage. And be prepared to carry your garbage with you. While Japan is replete with recycling bins, many of which separate metal cans, PET bottles, non-PET bottles, paper, and plastic, there are very very few garbage cans. Culturally, people are used to carrying their garbage with them - so be ready to carry your with you! One memorable day, we carried garbage with us from Asakusa all the way back to our hotel room because we couldn't find a single garbage can in Asakusa.
  
• Be prepared to inhale cigarette smoke. If you're like Scott, Tina, and me, and you hate the smell of cigarette smoke, you will be somewhat miserable part of the time. When reserving seats on a train, make sure you get reservations in one of the non-smoking cars; usually the JR agents default to non-smoking for tourists, and there is usually only one smoking reserved car and one smoking non-reserved car, but you can never be too careful. Most restaurants allow smoking in their facilities, and some - mostly in Tokyo - don't have separate non-smoking areas. In public areas, generally people are much better about smoking near other people, but in restaurants...yeah, you want to be careful. Similarly, not all hotels have non-smoking rooms available when you want them, so try to reserve far enough ahead of time that you can get a non-smoking room.