Chapter 0 - Planning
My wife and I decided to go to Japan for our honeymoon and here's what we did and went through.
I had been to Japan once before in 2012 for the military but my wife never got to visit before this trip, and we both love everything about Japan so it was a no brainer to take a trip to Japan for our honeymoon! We don't speak much Japanese at all, we've taken Japanese classes in high school and college a bit years ago. I know enough phrases and words to put some broken Japanese sentences together and I can read some kanji. I'm also fairly good with maps and getting around so we decided to take this trip on our own without a guide.
To begin with, these are the things we thought about while planning our trip.
Japan Rail Pass
My wife and I decided to get the JR Pass because we were planning on doing a lot of traveling on the shinkansen. We decided to spend a little more and purchased two 14 day green car rail passes for a total of $1132 (¥125,900) from a website called Japan Rail Pass by Japan Experience (https://www.japan-rail-pass.com/). The green car offers a little more space as there are only 4 seats in each row as opposed to 5 or 6 seats in each row in the ordinary cars. The smoking room for green car passengers is generally less crowded as well.
The rail passes also make traveling via JR lines simple and convenient as you don't need to worry about purchasing the correct fare ticket or dealing with fare adjustments if you do purchase a ticket with the wrong fare. To use the rail pass, just show the pass to the JR employee at the manned ticket gate at the departure and arrival station.
Shipping was $16 and only took 2 days via FedEx. If you order the rail pass from the website like I did, you'll receive a rail pass exchange order (it's like a voucher) which you'll need before you get to Japan. Once in Japan, take the exchange order to a rail pass exchange office which are supposedly at major JR stations (we went to the JR office in Narita, so I don't know where all the different exchange offices are at).
In the end it was well worth it as our total fares for JR transportation came out to ¥248,540.
There are a number of restrictions with this pass, for more information check out http://www.japanrailpass.net/en/index.html
IC Cards
We also purchased two Pasmo IC cards from the Japan Experience because we knew we would be using the subway and some private rail lines for some of the places we wanted to visit where the rail pass isn't accepted. IC cards can be used to pay for almost all transportation (trains, subway, busses, taxis) and are not limited to only JR transportation. These are great because like the rail pass, you don't need to worry about purchasing the correct fare tickets. Just scan the IC card at the ticket gate at the departure station and when you scan the IC card again at the arrival station, the fare is automatically deducted. The cards can be purchased and reloaded at almost every station (at least the ones we went to). I would definitely recommend purchasing an IC card if you do not plan on traveling enough to make use of the JR rail pass. I remember on my 2012 trip, some of the stations outside of Tokyo did not have maps in English, so trying to figure out the fare based on the station I needed to get to was a bit more difficult without the English maps.
IC cards can also be used with vending machines, coin lockers, arcades, restaurants, paying for things at stores and much more! However I did notice that outside of Tokyo, the use of IC cards for other than transportation is lower. When we went to Kyoto, not very many restaurants or vending machines took IC cards.
We ended up buying Suica IC cards after we used up the funds on the Pasmo cards because Suica has a cute penguin mascot.. I don't believe there is any fee to get an IC card or if there is, it's like 100 yen.
Wi-Fi
When I went to Japan in 2012, wi-fi was quite a big issue.. There wasn't any pocket wi-fi devices at the time and wi-fi didn't seem to be everywhere. For this trip we decided to use two different wi-fi devices.
I have two wi-fi devices from my last military deployment. One is a TP-Link M7350. We didn't use this one because it requires the purchase of a local sim card loaded with data. We didn't want to deal with purchasing SIM cards because of the language barrier. The other device is a Sapphire Mi-fi. I purchased this before leaving Kuwait and it uses a "virtual sim technology" meaning it does not require a sim card and instead uses something like "cloud" technology. Just turn it on, purchase your data (on the app) and you're connected to the internet. I was able to use this in Kuwait, Turkey, Germany and the United States using the same global data package. Both devices are around $150 and data packages on the Sapphire are about the same price as purchasing data locally. For Japan, the largest data package is 3GB for about $25 (quite expensive!). Purchasing data on a local SIM card cost about as much, around $22 for 3GB. I also imagine there's also a fee to purchase the SIM card itself. I decided to take the Sapphire as a back up wi-fi.
A Sapphire might be a good idea for those who are traveling to multiple countries.
We also decided to rent a pocket wi-fi device from Japan Experience. I felt it was decently priced at $76 for 13 days with unlimited data. I chose to have my pocket wi-fi delivered to the Narita Airport post office so I could pick it up upon arrival into Japan. The folks at Japan Rail Pass made picking up and returning the pocket wi-fi very easy. They include a pre-paid return envelope so when I was done with the device, I just put everything in the return envelope and asked the staff at my hotel to mail it for me as I was checking out.
The pocket wi-fi turned out to be significantly faster than my Sapphire. I did speed tests from the hotel room and found the pocket wi-fi was at 100Mbps compared to my Sapphire at 30Mbps. However the pocket wi-fi's battery only lasted around 8-10 hours under light use while the Sapphire has lasted over 24 hours under moderate use.
I'd definitely recommend getting the pocket wi-fi through Japan Experience.
Information on the Japan Rail Pass, IC card and pocket wi-fi rental can be found on https://www.japan-rail-pass.com/ and I would definitely recommend going through them for your transportation needs.
Hyperdia
If you plan on traveling by rail, whether it's JR, private lines, or subway lines, this app is really all you need when traveling through Japan. All you need to do is put in the departure station, arrival station and what times to search for and the app will give you 5 detailed routes to take. The app will tell you the total estimate time of the trip, how many transfers are involved, distance, and total cost (broken down between the base fare and seat fare). It also shows the name of the train, what time it leaves and arrives at the next station, duration for each segment of the trip, which track to go to, the cost again but you can also select what type of seat fare to see the difference in pricing between unreserved, reserved and green car seats.
It will also show you the train's time table to see all the different stops that train will make and when.
There is also an interval timetable that will show you how frequently that train is running.
This was the only app we used and needed. I believe when you download the app, there's like a free 30 day trial, after that you have to pay for a 30 day or 1 year subscription. Definitely worth it in my opinion.
Money
It had been so long since I last visited Japan, I couldn't remember how common ATMs were. The lodging I stayed at in 2012 had an ATM in the lobby so I never worried about trying to get money out else where, and one of my concerns was to find a hotel with an ATM It turns out that ATMs are pretty common and there's usually one in or near by convenient stores. Neither of the hotels we stayed at had ATMs in the hotel but there were ATMs located within a minute walk from the hotel.
Laundry
Our trip was 12 days long, we would have to do laundry at some point. We got lucky and booked a room at a hotel that had a washer/dryer in the room so that alleviated our concerns about laundry. There didn't seem to be too many coin-op laundry facilities around Tokyo and most hotels have a laundry service, however that can turn into a huge expense. We stayed at two hotels, one in Tokyo and one in Kyoto. Both offered laundry service, unfortunately I didn't take a pictures of their laundry prices but both were similar. You have to pay for each piece of clothing, it was something like ¥1,000 for pants, ¥800 for shirts and ¥500 for underwear/socks. I'm not sure what the turn around time is either but I wasn't going to find out. Some hotels have their own coin-op laundry but it can be limited. The APA hotel we stayed at in Kyoto only had two washers and dryers and one set was in the male public bath area and the other was in the females.
I had been to Japan once before in 2012 for the military but my wife never got to visit before this trip, and we both love everything about Japan so it was a no brainer to take a trip to Japan for our honeymoon! We don't speak much Japanese at all, we've taken Japanese classes in high school and college a bit years ago. I know enough phrases and words to put some broken Japanese sentences together and I can read some kanji. I'm also fairly good with maps and getting around so we decided to take this trip on our own without a guide.
To begin with, these are the things we thought about while planning our trip.
Japan Rail Pass
My wife and I decided to get the JR Pass because we were planning on doing a lot of traveling on the shinkansen. We decided to spend a little more and purchased two 14 day green car rail passes for a total of $1132 (¥125,900) from a website called Japan Rail Pass by Japan Experience (https://www.japan-rail-pass.com/). The green car offers a little more space as there are only 4 seats in each row as opposed to 5 or 6 seats in each row in the ordinary cars. The smoking room for green car passengers is generally less crowded as well.
The rail passes also make traveling via JR lines simple and convenient as you don't need to worry about purchasing the correct fare ticket or dealing with fare adjustments if you do purchase a ticket with the wrong fare. To use the rail pass, just show the pass to the JR employee at the manned ticket gate at the departure and arrival station.
Shipping was $16 and only took 2 days via FedEx. If you order the rail pass from the website like I did, you'll receive a rail pass exchange order (it's like a voucher) which you'll need before you get to Japan. Once in Japan, take the exchange order to a rail pass exchange office which are supposedly at major JR stations (we went to the JR office in Narita, so I don't know where all the different exchange offices are at).
In the end it was well worth it as our total fares for JR transportation came out to ¥248,540.
There are a number of restrictions with this pass, for more information check out http://www.japanrailpass.net/en/index.html
IC Cards
We also purchased two Pasmo IC cards from the Japan Experience because we knew we would be using the subway and some private rail lines for some of the places we wanted to visit where the rail pass isn't accepted. IC cards can be used to pay for almost all transportation (trains, subway, busses, taxis) and are not limited to only JR transportation. These are great because like the rail pass, you don't need to worry about purchasing the correct fare tickets. Just scan the IC card at the ticket gate at the departure station and when you scan the IC card again at the arrival station, the fare is automatically deducted. The cards can be purchased and reloaded at almost every station (at least the ones we went to). I would definitely recommend purchasing an IC card if you do not plan on traveling enough to make use of the JR rail pass. I remember on my 2012 trip, some of the stations outside of Tokyo did not have maps in English, so trying to figure out the fare based on the station I needed to get to was a bit more difficult without the English maps.
IC cards can also be used with vending machines, coin lockers, arcades, restaurants, paying for things at stores and much more! However I did notice that outside of Tokyo, the use of IC cards for other than transportation is lower. When we went to Kyoto, not very many restaurants or vending machines took IC cards.
We ended up buying Suica IC cards after we used up the funds on the Pasmo cards because Suica has a cute penguin mascot.. I don't believe there is any fee to get an IC card or if there is, it's like 100 yen.
Wi-Fi
When I went to Japan in 2012, wi-fi was quite a big issue.. There wasn't any pocket wi-fi devices at the time and wi-fi didn't seem to be everywhere. For this trip we decided to use two different wi-fi devices.
I have two wi-fi devices from my last military deployment. One is a TP-Link M7350. We didn't use this one because it requires the purchase of a local sim card loaded with data. We didn't want to deal with purchasing SIM cards because of the language barrier. The other device is a Sapphire Mi-fi. I purchased this before leaving Kuwait and it uses a "virtual sim technology" meaning it does not require a sim card and instead uses something like "cloud" technology. Just turn it on, purchase your data (on the app) and you're connected to the internet. I was able to use this in Kuwait, Turkey, Germany and the United States using the same global data package. Both devices are around $150 and data packages on the Sapphire are about the same price as purchasing data locally. For Japan, the largest data package is 3GB for about $25 (quite expensive!). Purchasing data on a local SIM card cost about as much, around $22 for 3GB. I also imagine there's also a fee to purchase the SIM card itself. I decided to take the Sapphire as a back up wi-fi.
A Sapphire might be a good idea for those who are traveling to multiple countries.
 |
| Sapphire Mi-fi |
We also decided to rent a pocket wi-fi device from Japan Experience. I felt it was decently priced at $76 for 13 days with unlimited data. I chose to have my pocket wi-fi delivered to the Narita Airport post office so I could pick it up upon arrival into Japan. The folks at Japan Rail Pass made picking up and returning the pocket wi-fi very easy. They include a pre-paid return envelope so when I was done with the device, I just put everything in the return envelope and asked the staff at my hotel to mail it for me as I was checking out.
The pocket wi-fi turned out to be significantly faster than my Sapphire. I did speed tests from the hotel room and found the pocket wi-fi was at 100Mbps compared to my Sapphire at 30Mbps. However the pocket wi-fi's battery only lasted around 8-10 hours under light use while the Sapphire has lasted over 24 hours under moderate use.
I'd definitely recommend getting the pocket wi-fi through Japan Experience.
Information on the Japan Rail Pass, IC card and pocket wi-fi rental can be found on https://www.japan-rail-pass.com/ and I would definitely recommend going through them for your transportation needs.
Hyperdia
If you plan on traveling by rail, whether it's JR, private lines, or subway lines, this app is really all you need when traveling through Japan. All you need to do is put in the departure station, arrival station and what times to search for and the app will give you 5 detailed routes to take. The app will tell you the total estimate time of the trip, how many transfers are involved, distance, and total cost (broken down between the base fare and seat fare). It also shows the name of the train, what time it leaves and arrives at the next station, duration for each segment of the trip, which track to go to, the cost again but you can also select what type of seat fare to see the difference in pricing between unreserved, reserved and green car seats.
It will also show you the train's time table to see all the different stops that train will make and when.
There is also an interval timetable that will show you how frequently that train is running.
This was the only app we used and needed. I believe when you download the app, there's like a free 30 day trial, after that you have to pay for a 30 day or 1 year subscription. Definitely worth it in my opinion.
 |
| This is a screen shot of a route option from Tokyo Station to Izu-Inatori. Here it shows how long the train takes, how many transfers, the distance traveled, and the total cost (broken down into the regular fare and the seat fare). Below that it displays the route information. The seat fares have a drop down that can be used to display the prices for unreserved seats, ordinary car reserved seats and green car reserved seats. |
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| This is the train's time table from Atami Station to Izu-Inatori Station. It shows all the stops the train makes, and what time it arrives and departs those stations. |
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| This is the interval time table for the train from Izu-Inatori Station to Tokyo Station. This shows all the different trains that will leave Izu-Inatore and arrive at Tokyo, along with the train's name and departure time from Izu-Inatori and arrival time into Tokyo. Opening the hyperlink on the train's name will display that train's time table. |
Money
It had been so long since I last visited Japan, I couldn't remember how common ATMs were. The lodging I stayed at in 2012 had an ATM in the lobby so I never worried about trying to get money out else where, and one of my concerns was to find a hotel with an ATM It turns out that ATMs are pretty common and there's usually one in or near by convenient stores. Neither of the hotels we stayed at had ATMs in the hotel but there were ATMs located within a minute walk from the hotel.
Laundry
Our trip was 12 days long, we would have to do laundry at some point. We got lucky and booked a room at a hotel that had a washer/dryer in the room so that alleviated our concerns about laundry. There didn't seem to be too many coin-op laundry facilities around Tokyo and most hotels have a laundry service, however that can turn into a huge expense. We stayed at two hotels, one in Tokyo and one in Kyoto. Both offered laundry service, unfortunately I didn't take a pictures of their laundry prices but both were similar. You have to pay for each piece of clothing, it was something like ¥1,000 for pants, ¥800 for shirts and ¥500 for underwear/socks. I'm not sure what the turn around time is either but I wasn't going to find out. Some hotels have their own coin-op laundry but it can be limited. The APA hotel we stayed at in Kyoto only had two washers and dryers and one set was in the male public bath area and the other was in the females.
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