hello tokyo bye bye osaka

TIPS ON TRAVELLING TO JAPAN

Getting educated:

The more you learn about the places you are visiting the more it will enhance your experience there. I really enjoyed reading the Japan Rough Guide and having it as a reference whilst in Japan. Tokyo Cooney on YouTube and the stuff he gets up to in Tokyo manage to be both informative and entertaining to watch. If you're interested in acquainting yourself with the street fashion scene of Tokyo then Style-Arena, is worth checking out. But if you want to hunt down a particular brand or shop in Tokyo, then you should definitely grab a copy of the Tokyo Superguide. 

Getting copies of suggested itineraries, made customising my itinerary that much easier. The one I kept referring back to was the Japan Package Tours (JPT) 14 day cherry blossom tour. JPT have plenty of other suggested itineraries too, but while I was looking through other cherry blossoms tours I notice alot of them excluded Osaka. Don't exclude Osaka, especially Dotonbori as this was really a great place to visit, especially if you're a foodie like myself.

When I was booking my hotels in Japan, my number one source of information was TripAdvisor. I love this website. Here, you can get travellers' first hand experiences of the hotels they stayed in and also reviews on some of the things to do in the cities you are visiting.

If you own the Lost in Translation dvd, there's no harm in taking it out and watching it again. Getting into anime/manga is another great and easy way to pick up a few Japanese words and get an insight into some of the Japanese nuances (check out Anime Season). If you're a real big anime/manga fan, then make sure your trip coincides with the Tokyo International Anime Fair, one of the largest of its kind in the world, you won't regret it.  

Also, learning a few basics in the language goes a long way. If you have an iphone, the app I found to be the most useful and enjoyable to use was "Talking Japanese Phrasebook" by Coolgorilla. It cost me $1.10 for this app. Another app that was suggested to me was Sushipedia which is a free app that might come in handy if you plan to order sushi and like to know what it is you're eating.

To get a JR Pass or not to get a JR Pass:

The only reason why I purchase one is because the guide books and a bunch of other resources I read usually told you to do so. However, my friend and I shortly realised whilst on our Japan trip that we could of saved ourselves alot of money if we didn't purchase one. So the next time I go to Japan I won't be buying one. Here's why;

- in Tokyo you can buy a "Common One-day Ticket" for the Tokyo Metro and Toei Subway which allows you unlimited used on these lines for the day. These are the main lines used in Tokyo and they cover a far more extensive area than the JR lines. An adult ticket will cost you 1000 JPY. 

- in Hakone, we just purchase the Hakone Free Pass from Odakyu Sightseeing Service Center at Shinjuku. From Shinjuku, a 2 day pass is 5000 JPY and for a 3 day pass is 5500 JPY. This allowed us to get to Hakone-Yumoto and then have unlimited use on the tozan railway, tozan buses, cablecars, ropeways and the sightseeing (pirate) ship in the Hakone area.

- in Hiroshima we bought the 2 day trip card which cost us Adult 2000 JPY. This covered us for the streetcar, ferry and ropeway (handy if you plan to visit Miyajima Island and do the ropeways). There are also other passes available like a 1 day trip card for streetcar only which costs Adult 600 JPY or a 1 day trip card that covers streetcar and ferry boat which costs Adult 840 JPY. In Hiroshima, we didn't bother with trains, all we used was the streetcar to get us around to all the sightseeing places. 

- if you plan to visit the Kansai area, you can buy a 2 or 3 day Kansai Thru Pass. The Kansai 2 day pass cost Adult 3800 JPY and the 3 day Adult 5000 JPY. This gave us the option to ride on the subways, private railways and buses (except for the JR lines and limited express trains) in the cities we visited like Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and Kobe. When you buy it, you also receive a kansai guide book with coupons and discounts.

- if you plan to visit Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan, they also had a special pass called the Osaka Kaiyu Ticket. This covered the entry cost of the aquarium as well as allowed us unlimited pass for the day on the subway, new tramlines and city buses in Osaka city. Depending where you buy it, we bought it in Osaka, the cost was 2400 JPY.

I wish someone had told me that I would have been better off buying the bullet train tickets outright and then just supplementing it with the day passes on offer in the areas I was visiting, instead of getting the JR Pass. It was a costly lesson. Hyperdia is a really good website suggested to me, which allows you to calculate the cost of the train fares In Japan. If travelling by bullet, stick to the Hikari or Kodama bullet trains, unless you want to pay extra for the Nozomi bullet trains which are the the super express bullet trains.

Stairs: 

Tokyo easily takes out the title of the city with the most stairs! I can't begin to fathom the number of flights of stairs I walked up and down on while using the subways in Japan (who needs StairMaster when you live here?) So my tip is when you see an escalator or that rare elevator use it!! You will thank me later. My friend and I had to carry our luggage up so many flights of stairs on so many occasions just to get to our exits.