Random Japan Trip Notes

I'd love to do a cycling tour of Japan one day, and see the rural areas. It looks like it would be great cycling and pretty safe roads? Or do the hills get too much?
 
Thanks for creating this thread.

I'm currently thinking about heading to Tokyo in March/Feb '16. My main question is how much spending money I'll require?

Plan is to spend no less than a week there. And as it'll be my first time there I'll only be staying in Tokyo. Will jump on the trains during the next visit.

Thanks again!
 
If you're picking by season, I'd recommended spring when the hanami parties are in full swing. The cherry blossoms are beautiful, and it's a week long party in all the parks with many drunk Japanese people.

If you so wished, you could actually party for about a month if you start in the south west and follow the staggered bloom across the country :D
 
A Heads up for those of you interested in going. When I went I stayed in both Hotels and Air bnb listed apartments, I found that the apartments (with kitchen) were far better than any of the hotels I did. It was also cheaper, a lot cheaper, and I mean really a lot cheaper.

Have a look on Air BnB in Japan and if you are willing a JR pass, get 1 apartment for 2 weeks ish and use it as your base for travel. (1 week in 2 places is also a good idea if wanting to travel long distances to visit places).

Next time I do Japan, and any other times I will be using Air bnb and looking at apartments / rooms, had so much more fun in them then in a cramped hotel room.

gf suggested this for our next trip over end of 2016 for christmas and new years. looking at chopping our accommodation costs in half which means more fun things will have to be found to do :D
 
Thanks for creating this thread.

I'm currently thinking about heading to Tokyo in March/Feb '16. My main question is how much spending money I'll require?

Plan is to spend no less than a week there. And as it'll be my first time there I'll only be staying in Tokyo. Will jump on the trains during the next visit.

Thanks again!

Depends on what you are covering with the money .... personally I don't include accommodation and rail pass costs when calculating my spending money as those have been paid in advance.

How much you need depends on what sort of level of spend you are happy with ... meals can be had for 500-600yen, but you can eat well for 1000yen and very well for 2500yen/meal (one of my favourite lunches in Tokyo costs me ~950yen for a large bowl of sashimi on rice with miso soup on the side and ice water). 1000yen at the moment is around £5-6.

Public transport can come to ~1000yen a day depending on how much you are traveling around Tokyo (get a Suica card and put some money on that ... stops you getting loads of change).

It also depends on whether you have interests which you want to buy things for and hence need more cash on top.

Personally I work roughly on the basis of 10000yen/day and round up to the nearest 50000. You don't really need that much but it depends on the amount of shopping you want to do. Sounds a lot but 10000yen is only £50-60.
 
Depends on what you are covering with the money .... personally I don't include accommodation and rail pass costs when calculating my spending money as those have been paid in advance.

How much you need depends on what sort of level of spend you are happy with ... meals can be had for 500-600yen, but you can eat well for 1000yen and very well for 2500yen/meal (one of my favourite lunches in Tokyo costs me ~950yen for a large bowl of sashimi on rice with miso soup on the side and ice water). 1000yen at the moment is around £5-6.

Public transport can come to ~1000yen a day depending on how much you are traveling around Tokyo (get a Suica card and put some money on that ... stops you getting loads of change).

It also depends on whether you have interests which you want to buy things for and hence need more cash on top.

Personally I work roughly on the basis of 10000yen/day and round up to the nearest 50000. You don't really need that much but it depends on the amount of shopping you want to do. Sounds a lot but 10000yen is only £50-60.

I'm currently looking up flights and accommodation. So wont need money for hotels.

Money will be on food/drink, site seeing and shopping. I've been looking online and it looks as though £5/600 might be enough.
 
I'm currently looking up flights and accommodation. So wont need money for hotels.

Money will be on food/drink, site seeing and shopping. I've been looking online and it looks as though £5/600 might be enough.

£500 for flights and accommodation or £500 for each respectively?

And how long stay are you doing?
 
I think he means that £500-600 is for spending money over and above flights and accommodation.

I did see a good offer the other day on flights, Air France / KLM had on offer on indirect flights for £449-499 but you had to book before the end of July for travel my the end of March (excluding some periods).
 
I'd like to spend at least a week there.

£5/600 spending money - excl flights and accommodation
 
£500-600 is ~90000-110000yen at current tourist rates.

As I said previously I personally would work on 10000yen/day and then round up to the nearest 50000yen so that would be 100000yen for a week so I would say £500-600 should be fine unless you are planning a specific expensive purchase.
 
Cool. Time to start learning the language!

Any idea on what the price of clothes are usually like?
 
Cool. Time to start learning the language!

Any idea on what the price of clothes are usually like?

language is handy i guess but unless your venturing out of tokyo you can get away with the international language of pointing.

as for clothes how big are you as if your 6ft+ you'l be struggling for a lot of japanese brands.
 
I am going for business at the back end of September/start of October. Two days of work and five days of tourism. Thankyou for this thread, looking forward to it!
 
Any idea on what the price of clothes are usually like?

I guess it depends on what you're after.

Uniqlo is not bad for some things. The flagship store in Ginza has the top floor dedicated to nice looking graphic t-shirts.
 
Great thread. I'd love to go to Japan. Some of my favourite bands of all time are Japanese, so be able to see them live would be a dream. I'd probably be on my own too though, and the language issue does worry me a little, as I'm very shy and reserved as it is.

I went to Beijing last year with my family (2 of which speak good Mandarin), and that place would have been quite a struggle had they not been there, particularly when it comes to getting fleeced. I imagine Japan is not nearly as bad as China for getting conned though?
 
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