Japan Spring 2023 - Costing and Planning

View of Mt Fuji from the plane

The 3 most costly mandatory expenses for travellers are air tickets, food and lodge. Some personal guidelines that we used:

1. We book hotels which accommodates 2 adults and a child under 12 into a single room - averaging around ¥15000/night. 

2. Our daily food budget is ¥1500 for breakfast and lunch respectively and ¥3000 for dinner per day per pax - roughly ¥6000/day/pax - this can include food, snacks, mineral water, fruits, etc - e.g. if we had donburi (averages ¥3000-4000/bowl) at Tsukiji Market for breakfast, we will have soba in the afternoon which is less than ¥1000/bowl, adjust accordingly as not to burst the budget too much :)

Hotels we stayed in in this trip:

1. Tsukiji - Koko hotel - a bit of walk (10-15 mins) from the nearest station but the hotel is just next to Tsukiji market and walking distance to Ginza

2. Nagano - Tokyu Rei - very near station and food

3. Toyama - Comfort hotel - very near station and food

4. Takayama - Wat hotel - a bit of walk (10-15 mins) from the station but the route is mainly flat. Excellent buffet breakfast at ¥1000/pax!

5. Osaka - hotel Androoms Shin-Osaka - a bit of walk (10-15 mins) from the station, you might have trouble finding it the first time, it's located behind the station. Great fish broth ramen opposite the hotel! Plus you get a free bowl of soba from the hotel every night from 9pm-11pm 😊

6. Shinjuku - The KNOT - not recommend as it’s too far from Shinjuku station, at least 20 mins from Shinjuku station, takes a lot more time if you are dragging your luggage along. Rooms are not that clean and air-conditioning is not cold, we needed to request a standing fan from the reception, it's early-mid Spring by the way! Taxi from Shinjuku station to the hotel is around ¥800.

Below are some items which you can/must purchase prior to your trip:

1. JR Pass - there are many travel agencies selling this and their pricing differences is usually due to exchange rates and/or shipping. This must be bought prior your travel date, we bought it from Klook 2 months before:
7/14/21 Days Whole Japan Rail Pass - Klook Australia

This is a 3 step thing, first you buy an exchange voucher from a local travel agent/JTB authorized seller prior to your travel. Second, upon arrival, you use this voucher and your passport to redeem an actual ticket (with a QR code). The exchange can only be done in person at the major JR offices e.g Narita/Haneda airport, Tokyo/Shinjuku Station. This site has covered this extensively in Transforming Exchange Order | Information | Japan Rail Pass. Lastly, activation. You do not have to activate this immediately after redemption, you can activate any time within 30 days from redemption.

Note: Please ensure your name on the exchange voucher is as per your passport as this will be verified by the JR counter staff when you are in Japan. If you find out otherwise, you must contact the travel agency/seller immediately to sort it out. 

2. SIM card - we got the 21 days SIM direct from Sakura Mobile. Due to our early arrival time around 6am, we only had this option because the collection office is only closed between 12am-4am. Else you can go for Mobi, etc:
Travel SIM - Pocket WiFi & SIM Card Rental Japan - Sakura Mobile

Note: Most mobile companies apply the fair data usage policy. I.e. you only have 3GB worth of downloads per day. Anything more, you will be capped at KB speed and will only reset after 24 hours 

Some useful tips:

1. Vegetables and fruits are not cheap in Japan, try to look for supermarkets to buy those. Food halls located in Department stores like Isetan, Takashimaya, Keio, Aeon, etc usually have sales at the end of the day, somewhere after 6pm to clear food, fruits and vegetables. Water, snacks, etc are usually around 20% cheaper compared to combinis (7-11, FamilyMart, Lawson)

2. If you are using Wise card, we tried ATM cash withdrawals from Seven bank and e-Net without any issues. Although Wise doesn’t charge fees for withdrawals up to ¥30000/month, the local ATM charges ¥110 for withdrawals up to ¥10000 and ¥220 for withdrawals above ¥10000

3. IC card (Suica, Pasmo, etc) reloads only accept cash, please ensure you have enough. We topped up everyday when we were in Kyoto because the attractions were pretty scattered. 

4. Clearing your IC card before leaving Japan is commonly done at combinis. But bear in mind they can only do it with IC card+cash, NOT IC card+debit/credit card. Please share if you are able to find a shop which allows the latter 😊

5. Most shops or tourist areas accept credit/debit cards, only markets, shops or restaurants which are off the main road accepts cash only 

6. Always bring an umbrella with you, we learned the painful way as the cheapest umbrella we can find in Ginza when it was pouring cost ¥3000!

7. If you have an early trip the next day, you can buy sandwiches from combinis the night before

8. If you already have a full itinerary and you roughly know what time you will be leaving each city, you can actually reserve all Shinkansen seats from one JR office. It saves you the hassle of dragging your luggage to the JR office, queue and then drag the luggage up to the platform. We reserved Shinkansen seats from Tokyo-Nagano-Toyama-Takayama-Osaka in Tokyo JR office. For Osaka-Kyoto, we just hop on the non-reserve carriage, it's just a short ride anyway. Don't worry if you needed to change the timing after you make a seat reservation, you can do it in the JR office. We finished Takayama early hence we went to the JR office in Takayama to change the train timing to an hour earlier, no extra charges or issues.

9. Because we used the trains a lot (plus we were travelling with a child), we were all using lanyards with a card holders for the Suica card, it's much more convenient :) Do note that you need to keep your JR passes safe and always remember to retrieve it after you insert and pass the barriers. We had 1 person from each family to keep all the JR passes, distribute and keep them every time it's being used.

10. Google translate is your best friend. English is not widely used in Japan, hence some restaurants might not even have an English menu. You either need to hover the Google translate camera over the Japanese characters and/or type in English and translate your question to Japanese and show the waiter/waitress/staff. Quite a number of Japanese people speak on the phone and show them to you in English. It’s a funny way to communicate but it works 🤣 Also, a lot of ramen shops use vending machines to take orders, some don’t even have photos!

11. If you are staying more than a week, there will be a need to use the laundry service. Some hotels offer it though the machines are a hit/miss and usually there’s a long queue. Another option is going outside to a commercial 24x7 laundromat. We tried Earth Laundry (https://www.earth-laundry.jp/) at Tsukiji. It’s a bit more expensive at ¥1000 for 8kg of washing and drying but it’s more worth it than the hotel ones as hotel machines are usually smaller and they charge separately for washing and drying (usually ¥300-¥400 per 30 mins cycle. And of the 2 hotels we tried, we had to spend a couple of hours there at night because the clothes weren’t dry enough. Sweet spot is 4 tshirts and 2 pants and a couple of undergarments, anything more you will need additional drying cycles!

Our 20 day itinerary:

Date	No	Day	City	Event/Places	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
13/04	1	Thu	Tokyo	Arrive in Japan/Tokyo Skytree		Misokuma (ramen)	Hitsumabushi Bincho (unagi)
14/04	2	Fri	Tokyo	Shinjuku/Shibuya	Donburi Ichiba (donburi) 👍🏻	Kameya (soba)	Bonbori (yakiniku)
15/04	3	Sat	Tokyo	Makuhari -Mitsui outlet / AEON / Costco	bakery	Toritetsu (yakitori) 👍🏻	9th Keisuke (duck ramen) 👍🏻
16/04	4	Sun	Tokyo	Ginza / Itoiya / Incense / redeem JR Pass	bakery	Peppers café (pizza) 👍🏻	Ginza Kagari M1* (chicken ramen) 👍🏻
17/04	5	Mon	Tokyo-Nagano	Odaiba / Science Museum	bakery	Sukiya (ramen)	Asakusa Yukari Karage (fried chicken) / とんこつラーメン(stir fry)
18/04	6	Tue	Nagano-Toyama	Jigokudani Koen (Snow Monkey Park)	bakery	Enza Café (ramen/pizza) 👍🏻	やけるやんか (okonomiyaki/yakitori)
19/04	7	Wed	Toyama	Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route (Snow wall)	bakery	Hotel Tateyama (curry rice)	Joya (Izakaya) 👍🏻
20/04	8	Thu	Toyama-Takayama	Hida Village	Hotel buffet	Unnamed shop (soba)	Monjatei (okonomiyaki)
21/04	9	Fri	Takayama	Ainokura / Shirakawago	Hotel buffet	Hanamizuki Shirakawa (udon/dessert)	Matsuki Burger 👍🏻
22/04	10	Sat	Takayama	Kamikochi	Hotel buffet	Kamikochi Restaurant (various)	炒飯 花 (chinese)
23/04	11	Sun	Takayama-Osaka	Takayama old town	Hotel buffet	Hida (soba)	Maruya (unagi) - takeaway from Nagoya
24/04	12	Mon	Osaka	Osaka Aquarium / Namba	bakery	Okonomiyaki Okaru 👍🏻	Shabutei (shabu shabu)
25/04	13	Tue	Osaka	Nara park / Lalaport Expocity	Vie De France (bakery)	Mizuya Chaya (udon)	Mango tree café (thai)
26/04	14	Wed	Osaka	Fuji Daimaru / Higashiyama Jisho-ji / Fushimi Inari Taisha	bakery	Blue Leaf Café (western)	Ginpuku (fish rice box)
27/04	15	Thu	Osaka	Bamboo forest / Sagano train / Kinkaku-ji	bakery	Sushi Naritaya 👍🏻	Maru de Sankaku (fish ramen) 👍🏻
28/04	16	Fri	Osaka-Tokyo	Himeji castle	bakery	Memme (udon)	bento box/McD
29/04	17	Sat	Tokyo	Kawaguchiko	Fujiyama cafe (various)	Haostay Coffee (fried rice)	Tempura Shinjuku Tsunahachi Souhonten 👍🏻
30/04	18	Sun	Tokyo	Tokyo Disneyland	bakery	pizza	ramen
01/05	19	Mon	Tokyo	Shinjuku	bakery	Ichiran (ramen) 👍🏻	Morethan Grill (western)
02/05	20	Tue	Tokyo	Leave Japan	bakery

Attractions where we booked in advance online:

Item	Booking (days in advance)	Website
Tateyama Kurobe Alpine Route	30	https://www.alpen-route.com/en/info/web_ticket.html https://tateyama-kurobe-webservice.jp/AlpenTour/html/VW001W0010.html
Fuji excursion	30	https://www.eki-net.com/en/jreast-train-I reservation/reserve/wb/RouteSearchConditionInputByStation/Index
Takayama-Shirakawago Nohi	30	https://www.nouhibus.co.jp/hida/bustrip/teikan-ainokura-en/ https://japanbusonline.com/en/Detail/11900040002/0/4212032/4162027/
Sagano romantic train Kyoto	30	https://www.sagano-kanko.co.jp/mobile/reserve_en.php
Museum of Emerging Science Odaiba (Miraikan)		About Online Booking & Ticketing | Miraikan – The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (jst.go.jp)
Osaka Aquarium	30	Tickets | Osaka Aquarium KAIYUKAN

Attractions where we cannot book online:

Item	Booking (days in advance)	Website
Jigokudani Koean (Snow monkey park)	NO	Our guide: Our first journey: Japan Spring 2023 - Nagano Jigokudani koen (Snow monkey park) (wlst-ourfirstjourney.blogspot.com)
Kamikochi	NO	https://www.snowmonkeyresorts.com/smr/matsumoto-kamikochi/how-to-get-to-kamikochi/ Our guide: Our first journey: Japan Spring 2023 - Kamikochi (wlst-ourfirstjourney.blogspot.com)