Japan Travel 2022

[chadbag]

21 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

I can see that! While a few times a year I may have KFC, but that was more out of convenience and a tad of nostalgia (it was very new and a big deal when I was a kid). Sometimes though folks just gravitate to the exotic over good…

 

jeff

 

Well, KFC in Japan is better than the KFC in the US.  We usually go once or so when were on one of our multi day trips.   Just because it is different.
 

but it seems Christmas KFC on Christmas in Japan it is more a "tradition" than because it is something great or wonderful.  I mean, how many of us have something we eat on a specific holiday, that we may not even like that  much?

 

Anyway, the sister in law suggested it so I am game to partake.  I'm easy to please.

 

[bikkuri bahn]

FWIW the whole xmas= fried chicken thing started in the early 1970s, with KFC, which opened its first Japan restaurants in 1970, promoting their product as the fashionable thing to do for Xmas (primarily a novelty holiday for children back then). As back then Japanese had no culinary tradition of eating any meat on the bone, much less a whole roast turkey, the association of fried chicken with American culture and Xmas had appeal and the commercial promotion caught on and eventually became a tradition. The ironic thing is this past few years KFC has been heavily promoting regular periodic eating in/take out at its stores on non-Christmas days, with its "ne ne, kentaki ni shiyou" (hey lets make it KFC today) campaign, rather than the special treat of once a year.  

[maihama eki]

17 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

 Not sure what is going on with Flying Honu and ANA's A380s.

 

 

The green Flying Honu A380 was at Narita when we arrived on Nov 16th, and the blue one and the green one were there when we left on the 26th. They both seemed to be in use and not parked long term. The blue one was at a gate on the 26th. They were originally intended to only fly to Hawaii, but perhaps they are using them on other routes now. I've still never seen the orange one.

 

 

[mojo]

9 hours ago, chadbag said:

 

So we got all 4 of us "Blue" with our pre-registrations!   One stress down.  (We had to do Covid tests and upload)

 

 

Oh, don't you have vaccination certificates? I haven't done any tests, just uploaded the certificates, and it's all blue now. I'll do a lateral flow test just for my own peace of mind tomorrow.

[chadbag]

3 hours ago, mojo said:

 

Oh, don't you have vaccination certificates? I haven't done any tests, just uploaded the certificates, and it's all blue now. I'll do a lateral flow test just for my own peace of mind tomorrow.

 

We had to do the PCR.  Works the same.  Upload the test cert.  Wait a few hours.  All goes blue.

 

[Tony Galiani]

@maihama eki - I think, but am not completely sure, from what I have recently read that the A380s are back on the route to Hawaii but currently not every day.  I guess demand is still not high enough.  I think I just need the patience to check the web site with a bunch of different dates to see when they might be on the route.

Really want to try ANA and flying the A380 to Japan would certainly be my preferred way to do that.

I was really impressed by my last experience on an Asian airline - Korean Airlines pre-Covid.  Not so impressed with my recent experiences on United and Delta but they got me to my destinations on time and safely so I should appreciate that.

Ciao,

Tony

[chadbag]

I saw an article yesterday or the day before that ANA is going full-hog on hawaii with 5x A380 if I understood the article correctly.    I just skimmed it and I don't remember when they said teh schedule would actually start.

 

I'd like to ride an A380 one day but probably never will with most airlines looking to phase them out when they can (if not already -- yes I know a bunch of being put back in service). After our trip tomorrow we probably won't be traveling internationally for another 2 years.  Our one chance would have been 2019 with Singapore from LAX but by the time we got the flight, or the one we took, it was a 777

 

[Tony Galiani]

It's a great plane but the timing for it was wrong I guess.  Though Emirates has asked Airbus to build them again but that does not seem likely.  I expect ANA's will be around for a while as they were the last ones built.

Tony

[Sean]

Posting this message from the shinkansen, using its wi fi. Here is a random shot out the window of some scenery between Hakata and Kokura 🙂

 

Pulling into Hiroshima station now. Somebody took the window seat next to me in Kokura so no more pictures. Will crane my neck to see the baseball stadium on the right as we leave. Hope my running commentary of my journey isn’t hijacking this thread!

 

One thing I’ve always wondered about is that when you travel on the shinkansen through Yamaguchi and Hiroshima prefectures all the farm houses have orange tiled roofs. Then when you hit Okayama prefecture they are all grey, like they are in most of the country. Curious if this is some regional cultural thing or if the roofers in Western Honshu just got a really good deal on orange tiles.

 

Next stop is Fukuyama, which is a cool station that has a castle literally right next to it which you can see from the train. Never been, but always love seeing it out the window when passing through.

 

———————————-

 

Am stopped at Fukuyama station now, really wish I had a window seat, the view of the castle is really impressive.

 

I do have a picure of the castle from the station, from many years ago, but can't find it right now...

 

19 hours ago, railsquid said:

I do have a picure of the castle from the station, from many years ago, but can't find it right now...

Nice! You must have had a window seat! I’ve got this old guy from Kokura next to me so am missing out on a lot of photo ops. 
 

Next stop: Okayama.

———————————-

Actually, while I can’t post pictures of the scenery, I can share this one of my backpack on the floor next to me. As you can see from its contents, I stopped at the model railway shop (Ponpondetta) in Hakata Station this morning before getting on the train 🙂

 

This is the return leg of a work trip to Fukuoka, but I always stop at that shop when I’m down there.

 

Pulling into Okayama now. My in laws live in Shikoku so when we visit we always change here to take the Marine Liner over to Takamatsu. Thus I always associate Okayama Station with uncomfortable visits with the in laws.

———————————-

Just passing by Himeji. Our train doesn’t stop here so will just see the castle zip by for a few seconds. I used to live in Himeji in the early 2000s, its a nice place to visit and I always get sentimental during these 20 seconds that I spend passing it by on the Shinkansen when making this trip.

———————————-

Pulling into Kyoto Station now. They have a new railway museum that you can see from the train. Looks really good from here, hope to visit sometime.

———————————-

Next stop is mine in Nagoya.

[chadbag]

I should have been in bed a few hours ago.   Trying to take care of a few last minute things.  Now I have to try and cancel something from Amazon that was supposed to arrive today but was delayed and now we'll be gone.  Arghh

 

Went to the airport tonight and rented a minivan.  We'll return it in the morning.  Is cheaper for a 1 day rental than a shuttle or Uber to the aiport for 4 people, 4 suitcases, 4 carry ons, etc.

 

Have to get up gain in 3.5 hours to pack last minute things and make sure we're ready.

 

 

[Guest]

Maybe it’s just me, wouldn't it be better for individuals to start their own specific “travel blog” threads rather than cluttering up this generic Japan Travel 2022 thread?  If not,  I’m more than happy to fill this thread up with my 3000+ photos an boring observations from my trip last month. 😜

[Sean]

1 hour ago, Bob Martin said:

Maybe it’s just me, wouldn't it be better for individuals to start their own specific “travel blog” threads rather than cluttering up this generic Japan Travel 2022 thread?  If not,  I’m more than happy to fill this thread up with my 3000+ photos an boring observations from my trip last month. 😜

Apologies for that, it was a spur of the moment thing that I didn't really think through.  Sorry for mucking up the thread (just saw "Japan" "travel" and "2022" and thought I was hitting all three and just started typing, but you are right, should have posted this elsewhere if at all.....).  

Edited December 9, 2022 by Sean

[cteno4]

We are pretty loose here and a small spontaneous outbursts happen. It was a nice burst of actual travel on the topic for a short bit. Sean can start a topic for the rest of the trip. 
 

i merged hist travel posts into a single post.

 

have fun sean.

 

jeff

[Grant_T]

On 12/1/2022 at 7:40 PM, maihama eki said:

The pass is now in the format of a typical Shinkansen ticket - about the size of a business card.

 

Hmmm, that sounds easy to lose.

 

 

[Grant_T]

Anyways, I'm flying out to Japan on Thursday for a month. I'm taking a backpack, thermals, hiking boots and 3 week Green pass (and face masks). My wife is going to join me on Christmas day and we have a nice hotel booked in Kanazawa for New Years and ryokan stay in Hakone after that. 

[cteno4]

Have some good goyza for me and a visit to the sculpture park! Enjoy Grant!

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[chadbag]

We made it.  Easy peasy through the gauntlet getting off the plane.   We had done the pre-registration online but I messed up somehow and only my record for immigration got saved (I entered info for every person) but I did get everyone “blue” for the “quarantine” (Covid) part.  No one as scanned our QR code for quarantine.  Just thrust some pink info sheet into our hands and pointed to immigration. 
 

my internet was slow and I couldn’t bring up my QR code at immigration and the links for my family weren’t active so they gave us the old school arrivals cards a d we filled them out.  There was no line so we got aback to the agent and by then my QR code had come up and my family had the cards so we breezed through immigration and got to customs. They had some sort of self serve scan thing you had to scan your customs QR and confirm what you had previously entered and then you waited 5 minutes in the line to get out.  We had to go to a special line since we had 4 people on one declaration and they wanted to scan all 4 passports but we were right through there and out into the arrivals hall. 
 

The hard part was figuring out what to do with our luggage after customs for our domestic connecting flight. JAL has not made it easy at Haneda for catching a continuing flight after coming out of customs. 
 

we made it to Itami. Had to get something to drink at a vending machine.  Our iPhone based Suica cards have worked great and we’ve been able to recharge them using the Apple Card MC using Apple Pay.  
 

After landing at Itami and getting our luggage we had one monorail, 2 different Hankyu, and a Kobe subway ride to finally get to my Sis-in-laws house. 
 

today amongst other things my son and I visited the Joshin Denkin Super Kids Land in Den Den Town and I saw a ton of stuff I wish I had funds for.  Didn’t buy anything but I may try and swing some containers and a KATO Swiss locomotive (not Rhätische Bahn) and some KATO TTX/ONE well cars (40’) double stack that I’ve had a hard time finding at home. Plus a Tomytec and maybe a KATO tram.  We’ll see 

Edited December 12, 2022 by chadbag
Typos

[mojo]

Was not impressed by ANA Premium Economuy.

 

The main problem was that the tray was stored in the armrest of the seat. That prevented it going forward very far, so it was uncomfortably close. Couldn't use a laptop on it, and eating was difficult.

 

You get a bigger screen, although for some reason it's like all plane screens and has crap viewing angles. I thought it might be for privacy but it doesn't help with that. You get a 100V power outlet, but the normal seats have USB anyway. Well, my laptop's battery lasts 10 minutes, although because of the tray issue I couldn't use it anyway. It's still a 2-4-2 arrangement so you can get stuck in the middle, like I was. No option to select a seat.

 

The food was supposedly upgraded too, but it's airline food so it didn't really help. You get noise cancelling headphones but they were not very good.

 

The seat was not all that comfortable either.

 

Was not worth the money. Spend it on a decent pair of noise cancelling headphones. Won't bother on the way back.

[E233 Series]

Hi everyone,

 

i will visit Japan for the first time in March 2023.

 

Does someone know, where the Railway companies inform about open depot days (where you can visit the depots and look around). Its probably very unlikely, but would be pretty cool if something like that would be possible.

 

Also I hope that I can ride the E217 Series and the Tokyo Metro 02 Series. For the E217s I think my chances are good, but for the 02 Series i am not so sure, The Red List of Trains says there are around 20 trains left in service but also that the service will be provided by only the 2000 series in 2023. Does anyone have more insight here?

[Aleks]

On 11/30/2022 at 10:40 PM, maihama eki said:

We had a one week Japan Rail Pass. You still exchange a voucher for the pass once you arrive in Japan. We did that at Narita with a short wait in line. The pass is now in the format of a typical Shinkansen ticket - about the size of a business card. You run it through the reader like a regular ticket. No need to show it to an JR staff member at the ticket gates anymore. The pass has your passport number on it, and you may be asked to present your passport to prove that the right person is using the pass. That never happened to us. We were never asked to present the ticket on Shinkansens or local / express trains. You can also use the ticket to make seat reservations at one of the automated ticket machines. That was pretty easy too.

 

Do you know if the new pass allows you to walk into and out of the station without travelling? This was possible with the old JR passes due to paper format and visual inspection, but e.g. if you tried to do the same with the typical SUICA or another card, without going anywhere by train, it would not let you out without having you pay a "visit fee" of sorts (small but a nuisance). 

[railsquid]

8 minutes ago, Aleks said:

Do you know if the new pass allows you to walk into and out of the station without travelling? This was possible with the old JR passes due to paper format and visual inspection, but e.g. if you tried to do the same with the typical SUICA or another card, without going anywhere by train, it would not let you out without having you pay a "visit fee" of sorts (small but a nuisance). 

 

I don't know the definitive answer, but I imagine it would work in the same way as a normal commuter pass, which gives you free access to any station it's valid for.

[Aleks]

I am scheduled to fly to Japan on Sunday, first time in almost 3 years, for about 11 days. Really looking forward to it. This time most of the time will be in Kyushu, where I plan to see pieces of 5 of the prefectures in 7 days, with two days in Tokyo and a day in Hiroshima. I will have JR Pass for the initial week but will rent and drive a car most of the time in Kyushu, so the JR Pass extension was not needed there. Plan to explore tram systems in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Kumamoto (will not have time to get to Kagoshima). The car will give ability to drive into the mountains where I will stay in ryokans for 3 nights and also see the Chikuho "interurban" line from Kurosaki/Kitakyushu. Although as I understand this https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10925367 model (which I am getting in a couple of months) has been retired now. 

 

Going back from Fukuoka to Tokyo I am taking a morning Nozomi shinkansen, which I have never done before as I always had a JR pass and you can't use this train with the pass. Should be exciting, and I did make sure to get a window ticket on the left side to be able to see Mount Fuji. This ride is on December 30, and I bought the ticket on the 1st day they were open for sale and there were already plenty sold. Busy time of the year for travel, and as a result the early purchase shinkansen discounts also were not available.

 

In a couple of days in Tokyo plan to visit a couple of model stores. I recently compared prices on the aoba-mokei website to those on Plaza Japan, and it looks like in general aoba-mokei is a few % cheaper, and this is after tax, vs. Plaza is without tax. Aoba is in Osaka where I won't be this time, but I wonder if Tokyo stores have similar prices too, and I plan to visit and see if there are things that make sense to get as I am getting into final prep stages to create a new layout in 2023. 

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Aleks said:

Do you know if the new pass allows you to walk into and out of the station without travelling? This was possible with the old JR passes due to paper format and visual inspection, but e.g. if you tried to do the same with the typical SUICA or another card, without going anywhere by train, it would not let you out without having you pay a "visit fee" of sorts (small but a nuisance). 

Yes, the pass functions as a “platform ticket”

[Aleks]

Thank you @Bob Martinappreciate the info! I suspect I may be using this on my trip (typically quicker if you want to go through a station than to use a special walkway typically to the side, and there are also some shops inside). Of course you can also do train spotting!

Edited December 18, 2022 by Aleks

[Aleks]

I visited today the Popondetta Akihabara store. I spent about an hour and unfortunately:) my wallet suffered zero damage. Key observations:

 

1) I was hoping there would be some recent models available that have been sold out on Plaza Japan and HobbySearch. There weren't many - none of interest to me - substantially, what is sold out online, seems to be sold out in this store. And given I had purchased this year what I wanted and what was available through online purchases, there was really nothing to buy...

2) I was hoping to buy some good amount of Tomix track for my layout. While some stuff was available that I don't think is in stock online (at least not on Plaza Japan), prices were 20+% higher than on Plaza Japan. Even after taking out tax, and even after considering the shipping costs for online sale, it did not make sense to purchase. I will check for items not in stock online and might visit it again tomorrow if I see something I feel I need to buy.

3) Older (or used?) models on the 4th floor were behind locked glass covers and not easy to look at, and I can't tell them by name/item code. I had to run, otherwise I could have spent another hour, I guess, asking to open the covers to browse through, but I suspect it was unlikely to hit gold, so to say.

4) Trains are organized on shelves by region/system (which are stated in Japanese), and different manufacturers are commingled. While this is convenient for most local people, since I am not trying to collect or reconstruct a specific region on my layout and am limited to Kato stock for the most part due to DCC, not quite as convenient...

5) Since I had to run, I did not have a chance to rent a track on their model layout (you can do on a "trial" basis for 20 minutes/4000 Yen I believe, or you can do for an hour with your own train, which I obviously did not have). Now me running out of time is on me, but overall I am not sure I'd try to go there again.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Aleks