2024 May to June Japan Trip Preparation Questions

[arkh]

Hello all!
 

My girlfriend and I are currently planning to visit Japan for about a month from May to June. We were originally looking to go in the fall, but due to some unexpected things with work and general life stuff, we've had to move our timeline up. So now that we're trying to get everything prepared, I figured it would be great to get some advice from you all here at the JNS Forum. We're doing a lot of our own research but it would be awesome to hear from you all who might have first-hand experience with some of these things.
 

Our goals for the trip:

• Spend most of our time visiting the more rural side of Japan and trying out hidden gem food spots.
• Ride a lot of trains, particularly local ones and tourist trains (especially the ones with a focus on food!).
• Do some otaku shopping in Tokyo at the end of the trip.
   

We haven't planned an exact route but we're thinking the Nagano to Kyoto areas will be where we spend a lot of time. We have points of interest in mind but also just like those areas in general from what we've looked up. We're not opposed to branching out and going to other areas but we don't want our trip to be super hectic, so ideally we won't be rushing from place to place constantly. The idea is to spend maybe a week or so in and around specific areas then move on the next week. We're big sumo fans so we might go watch a day of sumo in Tokyo when we first land (since the next basho is in Tokyo in May), but after that we plan to head out and not return to Tokyo until the final few days of our trip to do some shopping. We also have some friends that we're likely going to meet up with while we're in Japan which may change some plans depending on where they'd prefer to meet. So it's all very loose at the moment.
 

As an extra bit of info: My girlfriend recently passed the N2 JLPT and is working hard on her conversation skills through some classes where she talks with native Japanese speakers. I just started learning Japanese last year so I've only passed N5 but I have some alright kanji/reading ability that's accelerated with help from my Chinese language studies. It'll probably be harder than we expect, but between the both of us (well, mostly her!), we're hoping we won't have too many language barriers that get in the way of experiencing what we'd want to in Japan. 
 

Now for some questions (in no particular order):

1. I want to film some train routes from the front of the train when possible. I have a nice, small micro 4/3 camera (Olympus OM-D EM-10 Mark II) and we recently purchased a DJI Pocket 2. What's the best way to do this? I have a tripod but I think I have also seen some people use suction mounts to stick onto glass in the trains. Also what are the common courtesy rules around this sort of thing?
2. I get that this is highly dependent on the route we take through Japan, but are there any general opinions on the JR Pass and it's usefulness versus the recent price increase? From what we've looked at, it seems like some day passes might be a good alternative. We're totally fine taking the slower routes, so the Shinkansen probably wouldn't be as much of a factor in this for us. 
3. We want to travel relatively lightly but we were thinking we might each put a small suitcase within another suitcase so we have something to store our goodies in at the end of the trip. Would this be better than just mailing everything we can back before we leave? If we were to mail anything back, are there any taxes or extra fees we'd have to worry about other than the shipping cost itself? This would be shipping back to the United States.
4. I'm a graphic designer and would love to bring some acrylic keychains of Japanese train designs I'm working on as a personal project to pass out to random people we might meet. This may include my info like my website and email. Would this be something that is alright to do?

I will probably have some more questions that I'll post in the thread and update this top post with as well. I'd also welcome any suggestions at all. This will be our first trip to Japan so we're excited but of course we only know what we've looked up ourselves and probably don't know all the right things to look for. Of course, if there's any info I missed that would be good to know, I'll be happy to provide it!
 

Thank you!

EDIT: Some new questions!
 

5. We have a friend who may be in Hokkaido during our trip. Hokkaido is - without having been there, of course - probably one of my absolute favorite places in Japan in terms of trains as well as scenery. We're debating whether it would be worth it to put aside a few days for a short detour up there - or maybe even just use one of our weeks in Japan to be there for a decent portion of our trip. Does anyone have any thoughts on doing something like this? With the Shinkansen it might not be too bad but it would be very far from everywhere else we'd be visiting. 
 

6. I got into learning guitar recently so I would love to get some guitar gear in Japan. Most likely pedals, since they are small and easy to bring back, but I'll be lying if I said I haven't looked at Japan-exclusive guitars. If it's the latter, I have zero clue how we'd bring that back so that's probably not going to be a top priority by any means. I've seen there are some good deals on used guitar items in places like Ochanomizu Meidai Dori (a.k.a. "Guitar Street") in Tokyo or Hard-off stores. I know this is a Japanese train site but if any of you have any recommendations for buying guitar gear in Japan, I'd gladly hear them!

7. Does anyone know of cool tourist trains that run on weekdays? Particularly in the regions in or near Kyoto, Nagoya, or Nagano. We've found a couple but a lot seem to be mostly on the weekends. Since we probably will only get two weekends that we're for sure going to have time to do a tourist train, that doesn't leave much room for doing more than a couple during our stay! We're particularly looking forward to trying tourist trains with a meal service and those that seem to really support the local areas (i.e., not just feeding back into the JR system). 

Edited April 4 by arkh

[paolo]

Wow, great times ahead await you and your girlfriend, you'll have the time of your life on this trip!

Rural Japan is the best place to visit, people there are super kind, and they usually love having a conversation with two foreigners who took a lot of effort to learn their language. 

Though be careful about the time you'll go. The rainy season starts at the beginning of June, I'd avoid it like the plague. You will not have a nice time going around in June, unless you both love the rain and getting wet all the time. The best time to go is in May. Also be careful that the first week of May is Golden Week, which is when all Japanese have holidays and travel around Japan. So everywhere will be quite crowded and prices will be very expensive.

The area between Nagano and Kyoto is full of interesting places. Just to name a few of the most popular (I'm sure you'll have already found all those in your research): Suwa lake area, Kamikochi, Kiso valley, Kurobe Gorge (Kurobe Gorge Railway), Eihei (near Fukui, lovely private railway, Echizentetsudo), Inuyama and the Meiji-Mura Museum (near Nagoya), Shiraige shrine on lake Bika (the walk from the nearby Omi-Takashima station goes through rice fields and you have a nice view of the train line).

 

Now to your questions:

 

1. Since you both speak Japanese, I'd strongly suggest you ask the train conductor or driver for permission to shoot such videos. It's ok to shoot some short, random videos on your phone without asking, but if you wanna do it more professionally, using tripods or sticking suction cups on their train, I would ask for permission. Most of the trains have a window in the front car, so you can get some nice videos. Mind that some of those trains will be a green car, so you'll have to pay a supplement to go there (I'm thinking about the Shinano limited express).

2. If you plan on taking a lot of trains all the time, I think the JR Pass is worth it, even if all the private railways you'll take wouldn't be included. With the JR Pass, you could also ride a shinkansen here and there, and it will be included. The only way to know for sure if the JR Pass is worth it, is to plan all the different segments, using Google Maps or the Japan Transit Planner site, and then compare the prices.

3. I'd travel with just a backpack and do the laundry every few days at the hotel where you'll stay. Then in Tokyo you can buy a large suitcase and stuff all your souvenirs there. That's what I usually do, I have a big collection of Japanese suitcases now... You can buy them at Don Quijote shops, or like at Ameyoko market in Tokyo (near Ueno).

4. I'm sure they'll love getting some nice goods, I'd go for it.

[Kingmeow]

We were there last September; Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Osaka.  I can comment on #3.  Shipping to the US is very expensive.  If you are a N-Scale modeler you'll quickly find that out when getting stuff from Plaza Japan or Hobby Search.  US Customs allows $800 per person of duty free items.  It's best for you to stuff a suitcase and just bring stuff back with you.

 

As Paolo said, things are cheap there (as of this post) so I would get a bigger suitcase when you are there and on the final days before you come home.  This way you don't have to lug a big (relatively empty in the beginning of your trip) suitcase with you all around Japan.  Look in Yodobashi or Don Quijote as they have a lot of suitcases.  Yodobashi has crazy amounts to chose from.  This is only half the department!

 

We were there in September 2023.

 

 

Edited January 30 by Kingmeow

[Tony Galiani]

We went roughly the same time last year - roughly late May early June.  I tend to ignore weather considerations when scheduling trips as I have other scheduling constraints that affect when I can travel.  (Heading to Japan next week despite the potential for cold weather.)

 

We did indeed run into some heavy rain one day (with occasional lesser bits of rain on other days).  Even with the Typhoon hitting Kyoto (where we were at the time) people just seemed to get on with things.  My brilliant plan to have a waterproof jacket lasted about 100 meters at which point we just ducked into a combini and brought umbrellas which were really inexpensive.  And had I been more aware, the hotel would have lent us some.  Waterproof shoes would be a good idea.  A compact folding umbrella would be handy to have for sure.

 

The one thing we did not anticipate was the disruption to train services.  The weather was so severe that services the day after the storm were disrupted - our scheduled train was cancelled.  We worked around that but having a Plan B and some flexibility would not be a bad idea.

 

Ciao,

Tony

[arkh]

Thank you so much everyone for your comments and advice so far. This is all extremely helpful as, like I said, we're doing as much preparation and planning as possible but there's just a lot of things we don't know that we don't know, haha. 

We have some of those points of interest in mind already but not all of them so thanks for listing those out, Paolo! If you or anyone else has more suggestions, feel free to mention them as we wouldn't want to miss anything that we could easily have just hopped on over to while there. 

Unfortunately, similarly to Tony, we don't have a lot of leeway in the dates we can choose. We basically have just the one good slot for this year and then we won't be able to go anywhere for a while. We've been saving up and waiting for a long time to go to Japan now so we definitely want to take this opportunity now that we have it. Hopefully the weather won't make things absolutely terrible but we'll at least try to prepare for it. I was thinking we'd bring a raincoat and we do have a very compact umbrella we wanted to bring. Never thought about waterproof shoes though! Might have to look into that as we will be doing a fair bit of a walking it seems! 

I'll definitely be sure to try to ask about filming then in regards to Paolo's advice about that. It's not 100% a necessity, but I really would like to get some cool train route videos since I'm of course a fan of Japanese trains.

Speaking of which, I'll definitely be getting some N-Scale items among other things, so the tip about just buying a luggage at the end of the trip, while we're there, is brilliant. I had never considered that at all. We absolutely want to travel as lightly as possible for the majority of the trip so not having to worry about lugging around a large luggage with another luggage inside the whole time will be nice. We'll for sure be paying a visit to Yodobashi Camera at some point so that will likely be where we grab the extra luggage, especially if the selection there is as good as Kingmeow's picture makes it seem!

We'll have to look further into the JR Pass. Our impression was that we'd have to use the Shinkansen a lot to make it worth it at the current prices. But yeah, it's hard to know without actually mapping out an exact route and then comparing the price with and without. 

[MeTheSwede]

As a Swede I find the typical May weather of central Japan, 25C with a sunny morning and risk of afternoon showers, to be great. That's better than what we've got here 90% of the time.

 

If you want to check out past weather for different places, there are of course websites for that, for example this place: https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/japan/tokyo/historic?month=5&year=2023 . Umbrellas are good for stopping water, but also good for stopping the sun on those sunny 30C days.

 

If you're going to visit the Odaiba area of Tokyo which is home to various touristy places, coming from central Tokyo means going with the Yurikamome line. I wasn't aware of the driverless nature of the line as I took it the first time, but accidently ended up on the "driver's seat". You'll get some great views from there, both ahead and towards the side across Tokyo Bay. That's the only time I've shot a "cab view video".

[Gunzel]

First trip to Japan, exciting! I'm sure you will have a great time. I had about five words of Japanese on my first trip, I don't think you'll have any issues getting around, and Google Translate is amazing these days. 

 

 

 

Be somewhat cautious with your umbrella, they do seem to get treated as community property sometimes in Japan. Generally there will be bags as well as a rack outside a shop or hotel, and if it is special you may want to keep it with you in a bag. They are usually widely available and cheap as well. Often hotels will supply them for guests use for the day. Waterproof shoes or boots are pretty important, often you will be walking on the road.

 

The JR lines around Nagano are all pretty good and there are the Nagano Electric Railway and the Shinano Railway. In Kyoto the Sagano Romantic Train, the Eizan Railway, and the Randen are all worth a visit. Further afield in Kyoto Prefecture you have the Kyoto Tango Railway. In between I really enjoyed the Toyama Chiho Railway, the climb into Tateyama is awesome.

 

For your specific questions

 

1. I wouldn't even consider a tripod, I don't think you'll get a good reception, I have seen people using suction cups on the windscreen or glass partition. In some cars these areas are fairly high traffic so you may need to be prepared to "stand guard" as such (not for theft reasons, but so that people walk around you). I'd keep it as self contained as possible, no extra cables, batteries etc.

 

2. You really need to do the maths on your planned travel, and then personally I would pay some more for the flexibility and potential to be spontaneous that having a pass gives you. There are also a large number of regional passes, some of which are now much better value than a countrywide JR pass (the exception being JR Central). There are also a number of private railway passes, both single days ones available to everyone and multiple day ones available only to tourists. Some that might interest you based on where you've mentioned travelling are:

 

JR West Kansai Area Pass  Kansai Wide Area Pass (includes Kyoto Tango Railway)

 

JR West & East Hokuriku Arch Pass

 

JR East Tokyo Wide Pass JR EAST PASS (Nagano, Niigata area) Tokunai Pass

 

Private Railways Kansai Thru Pass Kintetsu Pass Greater Tokyo Pass Nagano Electric Railway Free Ticket Shinano Railway Banzai Pass

 

If you use the Navitime app it will give you the prices for all the trips, and you can specify a pass and it will show you if the pass is valid for the route.

 

3. As others have mentioned luggage can be fairly cheap at somewhere like Donki. I have done what you suggested in the past. If you can keep the transition days to a minimum it can work OK. Be aware Japanese hotel rooms can be fairly small as well though. Japan has great takkyubin services that will move luggage hotel to hotel as well for a reasonable fee. Posting something overseas can be an involved process, and fairly expensive, plus you have to find all the packaging etc. 

 

4. We always take little gifts for people, they are always well received. 

 

[mojo]

Lots of great advice. I can't comment on US customs, but in the UK I've never had my baggage checked upon return. Most of the time there is nobody manning the gates. If the allowance is $800 you should be fine.

 

On the other hand, with mailing stuff to myself it's about 50/50 if they decide to charge customs duty. They clearly have no idea how much things cost either, especially used items. The amount they charge seems to be essentially random.

 

For suitcases, Yodobashi and Donki are not the cheapest, but they are good quality. I usually end up getting one in Asakusa because I always stay at the same hotel there, and there are a couple of shops in the shopping street near Sensoji. Ueno also has some reasonably priced ones. But then again, if you don't mind lugging empty suitcases, you can save some money. I was going to do what you suggest with one case inside another, but my wife borrowed one...

 

The Kyoto area (Kinki region) is great to visit. I can recommend Nara and the temple complex there. As well as being a nice park and set of temples, they have wild deer living there who are very friendly. You can hand feed them rice crackers from vendors in the park.

 

If you are taking the Shinkansen to Tokyo, you could stop in Nagoya to see the Linear Shinkansen museum. I went many years ago and it was worth seeing I think, but not as good as the Omiya museum.

 

Have a look at the map in my signature for some POIs. Also I highly recommend getting a data SIM card (or eSIM e.g. Ubigi) as even if you speak the language well, it will be invaluable to have Google Maps available for getting around.

[mojo]

7 hours ago, arkh said:

I'll definitely be sure to try to ask about filming then in regards to Paolo's advice about that. It's not 100% a necessity, but I really would like to get some cool train route videos since I'm of course a fan of Japanese trains.

 

On that subject, what is the best way to go about doing that? I feel like I don't want to bother the driver while he is working.

 

Often the rural lines are unmanned, so if you want to talk to the driver it's probably best to get on at the terminal since they will have a bit more time during the turn-around.

 

As for sticking the camera to the window, I'm not sure it's a good idea. Some of the rural lines can be quite bumpy, and even if you clean the glass a suction cup may not hold.

[Kingmeow]

On 1/30/2024 at 12:53 AM, arkh said:

I'll definitely be sure to try to ask about filming then in regards to Paolo's advice about that. It's not 100% a necessity, but I really would like to get some cool train route videos since I'm of course a fan of Japanese trains.

 

On 1/30/2024 at 8:13 AM, mojo said:

On that subject, what is the best way to go about doing that? I feel like I don't want to bother the driver while he is working.

 

Often the rural lines are unmanned, so if you want to talk to the driver it's probably best to get on at the terminal since they will have a bit more time during the turn-around.

 

As for sticking the camera to the window, I'm not sure it's a good idea. Some of the rural lines can be quite bumpy, and even if you clean the glass a suction cup may not hold.

 

Interesting question but I don't have an answer, only some experience when we were there in September 2023 for 15 days.

 

Experience #1

I really had no intentions of filming a "cab ride" experience.  At most a few pictures here and there out of the cab.  But there were a few times where we ended up in the first car and it wasn't crowded.  We tend to go to the end of the platform due to less people and often times we don't know whether it will be the lead car or the end car.

 

The first time this happened, I took out the camera and I was off to the races.  No issues what so ever.  I made it a point to use my hand around my lens as a cushion to the glass figuring the constant knock of my lens hood would disturb the engineer (and make myself known).

 

The second time, an exam was going on in the cab!  Apparently there was a student driver being graded on her experience as there was an Instructor Engineer (said so on his arm band) behind her with paperwork with check boxes.  As I didn't want to interrupt a critical event like this I took a few snaps here and there and put my camera away.

 

The third time was interesting.  My posture and MO were no different than the previous two times.  But this time, the engineer must of have had tingling spider senses or saw reflections somewhere in his cab that I was there.  After a few stops, he turned around and pulled down his cab shades, cutting off completely my view.  There was no eye contact when he did this and no sour facial expression.  Either it was something else or he didn't want me recording him.  By then, I had already gotten my pictures.

 

Experience #2

We were in Tokyo Station awaiting our first Shinkansen ride to Kyoto.  While my wife was waiting I decided to explore the Shinkansen tracks and take pictures.  Walking to the end of one platform for a better view I came upon a JR employee with white gloves and a big'ish square brief case.  Looks like he was waiting too as there was an N700 Shinkansen parked right there.  Some how we got talking even though his English was marginal.  (And my Japanese was zero!)  Turns out he was model railroader.  I showed him pictures on my phone of some of the big layouts I run on in the US (combined T-Trak at major shows).  He was floored by the size given that most home layouts in Japan, if there is one, are small.

 

We must have talked for over 15 mins with me trying to ask him where are the good hobby shops.  Didn't make too much progress on that.  It was a GREAT conversation with him asking me about model railroading in the US.

 

Then he bows to me after looking at his watch and gestures he has to go.  I bowed back, thanked him, smile, etc.  Then he walks into the cab of the parked Shinkansen!!!!  WHAT???  He was the Engineer!  Wow!

 

I don't know if there is a window to the cab in a Shinkansen but I felt that if there were and if that was the train I was going to ride, he would have had no problem letting me film the cab ride.

Edited January 31 by Kingmeow

[mojo]

Interesting experiences! It seems like there is no rule about filming the cab, or they would strictly enforce it. It's just down to the driver.

 

The Shinkansen cab on every model I've ever seen is separated and raised a bit from the passenger cabin. Also, if you have ever seen one on TV, they always blur some of the screens in the cab, so I guess they are worried about industrial espionage or something.

 

I often want to photograph the front or back of the train, but try to wait until the driver/guard is facing the other way or out of the cab. I think in reality they don't care, or at least I see a lot of Japanese rail fans taking photos of the trains as they are entering the station with the driver fully visible. I think they are probably used to it, given how frequently I see people doing it.

[arkh]

 Sorry for the late reply! It's been a busy couple of weeks. We have our tickets for May 21 to June 18, flying into Haneda. So now we're buckling down and really trying to get everything organized in terms of major places we "must" visit and our accommodations. I have some replies and also a couple of new questions that I'll tack onto the bottom of this post.
 

  

On 1/30/2024 at 3:37 AM, MeTheSwede said:

...

 

If you want to check out past weather for different places, there are of course websites for that, for example this place: https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/japan/tokyo/historic?month=5&year=2023 . Umbrellas are good for stopping water, but also good for stopping the sun on those sunny 30C days.

 

If you're going to visit the Odaiba area of Tokyo which is home to various touristy places, coming from central Tokyo means going with the Yurikamome line. I wasn't aware of the driverless nature of the line as I took it the first time, but accidently ended up on the "driver's seat". You'll get some great views from there, both ahead and towards the side across Tokyo Bay. That's the only time I've shot a "cab view video".

That's a great resource! Will definitely be checking that out to get an idea of what kind of weather we might be in store for. And thank you for the heads up about the Yurikamome line! I hadn't heard of that before but now we'll have to try to fit that into our schedule for sure. That would definitely be an awesome way to get a cab view video without worrying too much about bothering others. 
 

On 1/30/2024 at 4:02 AM, Gunzel said:

First trip to Japan, exciting! I'm sure you will have a great time. I had about five words of Japanese on my first trip, I don't think you'll have any issues getting around, and Google Translate is amazing these days. 

 

...

 

I've heard about how umbrellas are treated in Japan - it's a bit weird but will definitely be careful with where we leave ours. But yeah, worst comes to worst, we'll just have to buy one there. 

1. Thanks for the heads up about the tripod. I'm definitely looking to get a compact suction cup mount of some sort. I'm thinking any videos we take would be more in your limited express style trains or just ones where we're able to get a seat right at the front, basically, and don't have to worry too much about being in people's way.

2. Thank you! We've been looking at those sorts of passes so those are great links for us to check out. I appreciate it very much! I actually have had Navitime for a while just to experiment with looking things up. Is that the best app for this sort of thing? 

3. We were thinking of doing potentially a mix of Airbnb's and hotels but that's not fully set in stone yet, of course. We're hoping we'll mainly just like three or four places, at most, that we'll use as our "base of operations" so hopefully transitioning between them won't be too much of an issue. Especially if we actually keep our shopping down to a minimum until the end of the trip. But yeah, we'll certainly aim to just get an extra luggage or two at the end to stuff everything into. I'm afraid if there might be something random we might buy that would be better off just shipping and not knowing the process, so maybe we'll look into that just in case. 

4. Definitely going to go ahead with the little gift to give out to people then! 

 

On 1/30/2024 at 8:10 AM, mojo said:

Lots of great advice. I can't comment on US customs, but in the UK I've never had my baggage checked upon return. Most of the time there is nobody manning the gates. If the allowance is $800 you should be fine.

 

...

I'm kind of afraid of easily accruing over $800 what with how expensive some N-scale sets can be along with anything else we might buy. Even if it was bought used, I'm wondering how they might perceive the value of these sorts of things, though I suppose they might just think they are toys and not worry about it. We've never really bought a lot of stuff while traveling before, so dealing with customs on that end will be a new experience for us. 

Thank you for the suggestions on other places to get suitcases at a reasonable price. The cheaper everything else is, the more trains I can buy, haha!

Shinkansen aren't specifically my favorite kind of Japanese train, but I recently learned about Linear so that museum would be something I'd love to check out now. Will add that to our points of interest. 

We actually were inspired by your map and have one of our own for putting down some places we'd like to check out. Had no idea that you could do something like that with Google Maps until we saw that. I haven't looked at it in a while though so will definitely check it again and see if there's anything from there to add. Thank you for the recommendations!

Any experience with just getting a wifi hotspot? My girlfriend was looking at that as we also have Google Voice which can make calls over wifi. It seemed like it might be cheaper overall and we wouldn't have to worry about whether the SIM would work with our phone or having to buy an extra device. I was thinking a SIM card would be more versatile, but keeping it simpler would be nice, if possible.

 

On 1/30/2024 at 8:13 AM, mojo said:

 

On that subject, what is the best way to go about doing that? I feel like I don't want to bother the driver while he is working.
 

...

 

On 1/30/2024 at 12:56 PM, Kingmeow said:

 

 

Interesting question but I don't have an answer, only some experience when we were there in September 2023 for 15 days.

 

...

Thanks for sharing your experiences Kingmeow! Those are some interesting and cool encounters! As mojo said, I do wonder how it might be to bother the driver about this sort of thing on lines where that's probably the only person you can really ask depending on where you get on. But yeah, maybe I'll just have to try my luck in those situations. 

Alright now for a couple of new questions! I'll add them to the original post as well so I'll number them as if they were continued from there.

5. We have a friend who may be in Hokkaido during our trip. Hokkaido is - without having been there, of course - probably one of my absolute favorite places in Japan in terms of trains as well as scenery. We're debating whether it would be worth it to put aside a few days for a short detour up there - or maybe even just use one of our weeks in Japan to be there for a decent portion of our trip. Does anyone have any thoughts on doing something like this? With the Shinkansen it might not be too bad but it would be very far from everywhere else we'd be visiting. 

6. I got into learning guitar recently so I would love to get some guitar gear in Japan. Most likely pedals, since they are small and easy to bring back, but I'll be lying if I said I haven't looked at Japan-exclusive guitars. If it's the latter, I have zero clue how we'd bring that back so that's probably not going to be a top priority by any means. I've seen there are some good deals on used guitar items in places like Ochanomizu Meidai Dori (a.k.a. "Guitar Street") in Tokyo or Hard-off stores. I know this is a Japanese train site but if any of you have any recommendations for buying guitar gear in Japan, I'd gladly hear them!

Thank you again for everyone's responses so far!

[Tony Galiani]

1 hour ago, arkh said:

5. We have a friend who may be in Hokkaido during our trip. Hokkaido is - without having been there, of course - probably one of my absolute favorite places in Japan in terms of trains as well as scenery. We're debating whether it would be worth it to put aside a few days for a short detour up there - or maybe even just use one of our weeks in Japan to be there for a decent portion of our trip. Does anyone have any thoughts on doing something like this? With the Shinkansen it might not be too bad but it would be very far from everywhere else we'd be visiting. 

We just spent a few days up there on our recent trip.  Well worth it in my opinion.  It is a bit time consuming to go via Shinkansen - it was four hours for us from Tokyo Station to Shin-Hakodate then another 20 minutes or so to Hakodate.  Flying might be worthwhile depending on where you want to go in Hokkaido - pricing is competitive with the trains.  While flight times (from Tokyo) are not too bad - roughly an hour and a half - you do have the extra time that needs to be factored in:  travel time to/from the airport, required time to be at the airport before departure as well as baggage fees and so on.  No food service on the Shinkansen to Hokkaido so you might want to consider a bento depending on when you travel.  There is a beverage cart service.

 

Anyway, we liked it enough to want to go again on a future trip.

 

Ciao,

Tony

[cteno4]

Us customs has never asked me to pull out receipts, but with trains it could be easy to run past that. I’ve had a duffle bag full of windup and kinetic toys (I use to collect them) that was right at the customs limit along with a couple of other nice gifts and luckily it totally distracted the agent from value seeing all the toys (and most think toys are cheap). But if you are way over think of shipping a box home.

 

one trick I do for bringing stuff home is I have a very tough but light weight medium sized duffle bag that packs pretty small. I pack that in my main piece of luggage that is usually of tougher ilk. Then if I collect stuff I can carry it in the duffle on the trip for a bit more protection than plastic bags (and add some padding with bubble wrap and such—I usually find most hotel front desks keep a big box of it from stuff coming in for guests to use. The  on the flight home I either carry the duffle on board if easy to or pack the presents in the center of my tougher luggage with clothing around as padding and fill the duffle with clothes to check that can be slammed around.

 

jeff

[Gunzel]

JapanTravel by Navitime is the best app I have found since the sad demise of Hyperdia. I also use JapanTransit by Jorudan, it can give a list of departures from a station for a day, and will also show all the intermediate stops for a train without having to pay for the app. 
 

i understand why wifi hotspots are attractive travelling as a couple, just consider what you do if you want to do different things, how you might communicate if necessary in that instance, or if you both might need access to maps etc. That said there  is a fair bit of free public wifi in Japan. 
 

I always love going to Hokkaido and have done it on a few trips as a side thing. It is a fair way though and getting there and back will eat at least half a day each time. Lots of wonderful stuff in Tohoku too, perhaps you can do something on the way. I’d probably fly one way to/from Sapporo or somewhere regional like Kushiro, Obihiro, or Asahikawa travel in Hookaido and end up in Hakodate and take the Shinkansen the other (and this is from someone who has taken the train from Sapporo to Kurume in Kyushu). Then you get the Seikan tunnel and JR East’s 320km/hr racetrack and save yourself a full day on the train which is Sapporo-Tokyo. 
 

I’m not into playing music but I have noticed many specialised stores selling instruments and equipment all around Japan.  And then there is HARD OFF, I’ve visited many of these and I think almost all have had a fairly impressive selection of music gear. I was looking for a photo I took last year to send my brother in law but I can’t find it, I’m on the plane to Japan now (the wifi is free) so no doubt I will visit a HARD OFF in the next few days and I’ll take a few pictures of the musical instruments. I would try to get to HARD OFFs other than Akihabara, the outer suburban or regional cities ones have been much more impressive. I imagine you just need to buy a road case for it and check it as a bag, pretty sure I’ve seen these at HARD OFF too. 

[Gunzel]

We’ve been staying in Shin-Kamagaya, and two stations up the Tobu Urban Park line at Takayanagi there is a HARD OFF right next to the station.

Flickr on the iPhone isn’t giving me easily embeddable image links and the RAW photos on the iPhone don’t play well with the forums uploader so you will have to dig through the album here:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/35237091718@N01/0d04Uc1gC3

There’s some model railway stuff in there as well as a few other things I found interesting. Flickr has also mucked up the order a fair bit as well so things are spread all over the place. 
 

 

[cteno4]

@Gunzel try using the options in the photo select screen and choose medium or large and they should upload fine.

 

enjoy your trip!

 

jeff

[ED75-775]

Sounds like fun! I'll chime in and add the following observations from my own travels:

1. Filming on train. I agree that if you want to do this properly, if you're in doubt then it's best to clear it with the train crew. Personally, I have tried filming on the Moka Railway last year and it worked fine, as there's windows at either end of the diesel railcars and provided you are well behaved, the train crew don't seem to be too fussed. At least, my driver wasn't. This is probably best done on older trains where there is room to stand alongside the driver's cab more than anything else, at least they can see what you're up to and if they have any issues or you have any questions they can talk with you directly.
2. Japan Rail Pass. It really depends on how much travelling you'll do. The Japan Rail Pass has gotten more expensive, it's true, but for flexibility it can't be beaten. I guess the deciding factor will be how much train travel you plan to do. Calculate how much you would spend on individual fares, then compare the final total with the cost of the rail pass that most closely matches your stay. If the individual fares work out cheaper, then don't bother with the rail pass.
3. Buying stuff. You could do the second suitcase thing, but you may find yourself running out of space to carry things - no, seriously, there's lots of awesome little bits and pieces to get hooked on, especially the trains. Postage is your friend if you don't want to lug everything around and travel a little lighter; it doesn't remove the possibility of customs duties although so long as you know what the duty limit is (at what point it starts to apply) you can get around that to a degree. I've done this on both of my trips overseas, and don't regret it even if two of my parcels made my eyes water at around 5kg each (!).

If you are worried about the cost of trains, try to buy fewer new items and more second-hand ones. There's a magnificent thread on train shops in Akihabara, Yokohama and Osaka courtesy our resident store hunter @paolo, and if you wind up in Nagoya I did a similar one during my stay there. Secondhand prices can range from 'what the hell, this is cheap!' to 'what the HELL, can I even afford this?' depending on what item and where.

 

The SCMaglev & Railway Park is, as @mojo suggests pretty good; whereas Omiya has lots of little spots to learn about stuff along the way at Nagoya it's all about the trains and the additional displays are pared back so as not to compete. Kyoto is I think the best, but then they do a bit of everything plus they have the massive steam locomotive collection which in my biased opinion is incredible.

 

I'm actually starting to formulate another trip for May-June 2024 which will involve much train shopping, and riding. Best of luck with your trip!

 

Alastair

[Tony Galiani]

@ED75-775 - I am clearly in the minor leagues when it comes to train shopping in Japan!  I am not sure my purchases on my last trip hit the 1Kg mark!  If we are in Japan at the same time again we are going to have to connect so I can learn train shopping from the expert!

Cheers,

Tony

[arkh]

On 2/20/2024 at 12:20 PM, Tony Galiani said:

We just spent a few days up there on our recent trip.  Well worth it in my opinion.  It is a bit time consuming to go via Shinkansen - it was four hours for us from Tokyo Station to Shin-Hakodate then another 20 minutes or so to Hakodate.  

...

 

Thank you for your thoughts on this. I've been checking out your thread about your recent trip but I'll have to give it a more thorough read. I think you basically highlighted our main concern though which is the travel time. Will definitely have to work out the timing if we do end up going to Hokkaido as that's going to be so much time spent just moving to and from there depending on where we are coming from. 

 

On 2/20/2024 at 2:15 PM, cteno4 said:

Us customs has never asked me to pull out receipts, but with trains it could be easy to run past that. I’ve had a duffle bag full of windup and kinetic toys (I use to collect them) that was right at the customs limit along with a couple of other nice gifts and luckily it totally distracted the agent from value seeing all the toys (and most think toys are cheap). But if you are way over think of shipping a box home.

 

...

 

Good to know that it might not be a big deal getting through customs. Shipping some stuff home is starting to sound like more and more of a possibility but I guess as long as we're careful we might not have to worry too much. I don't really have any specific big ticket items I'm looking to get, but I am certain I will be susceptible to at least one or two or twenty impulse purchases are we make our way through Japan. So might be hard to keep it down depending on what we end up buying.  

The trick with the duffle back is actually really smart. We used to bring a duffle bag when travelling all the time for similar reasons, but we haven't done any serious travelling in a while so had completely forgotten about it. Will definitely be doing that.

 

On 2/20/2024 at 9:39 PM, Gunzel said:

JapanTravel by Navitime is the best app I have found since the sad demise of Hyperdia. I also use JapanTransit by Jorudan, it can give a list of departures from a station for a day, and will also show all the intermediate stops for a train without having to pay for the app. 
 

i understand why wifi hotspots are attractive travelling as a couple, just consider what you do if you want to do different things, how you might communicate if necessary in that instance, or if you both might need access to maps etc. That said there  is a fair bit of free public wifi in Japan. 
 

I always love going to Hokkaido and have done it on a few trips as a side thing. It is a fair way though and getting there and back will eat at least half a day each time.

...

I haven't seen the JapanTransit app before. I'll give that a go, thanks for the heads-up. 

That's a good point about communication if we end up separated at any point. I think we pretty much will always be together but would definitely be possible for us to be looking at different things in a store or having one check something out before the other goes. In that case it might be inconvenient if only one of us has the wifi hotspot instead of both of us with a hotspot or with sim cards. We'll have to take that into consideration.

Yeah, throwing Hokkaido into the trip seems like it would be better if we planned something to do along the way so that a lot of our time isn't just wasted on purely traveling there. That might change some plans we have in mind though so will have to see what we can do. There's a lot about going to Hokkaido that would be awesome though - the Seikan Tunnel certainly being one of them and there are so many trains I'd love to see that are based in Hokkaido. When we had talked about Hokkaido previously, it was as a trip all by itself, but finding time for it on this trip would definitely be appealing.


 

16 hours ago, Gunzel said:

We’ve been staying in Shin-Kamagaya, and two stations up the Tobu Urban Park line at Takayanagi there is a HARD OFF right next to the station.

Flickr on the iPhone isn’t giving me easily embeddable image links and the RAW photos on the iPhone don’t play well with the forums uploader so you will have to dig through the album here:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/35237091718@N01/0d04Uc1gC3

...
 

 

Thank you so much for the wonderful pictures showing what they have in the store! Not just the guitar gear but everything else as well. Funny thing, I actually have those Harman Kardon speakers (the clear ones with the round subwoofer that looks like a jellyfish or something). I still use them as my main speakers for my computer. I definitely have to drop by a couple of Hard-Off stores and see what they have. I feel like it'd be easy to blow all of my souvenir budget in there, haha.
 

10 hours ago, ED75-775 said:

Sounds like fun! I'll chime in and add the following observations from my own travels:
 

...

Thanks for your comments. It's good hearing more perspectives on these things. It helps a lot with giving us a more solid idea of what we should do. 

1. I'll for sure be mindful of how I approach filming on trains. I think I was a bit nervous at first of there being some unwritten rules about this sort of thing, but it's sounding  like I just have to be courteous and ask if there's any doubts. 
2. We've been looking at a lot of the specific passes for the areas we're going to be in and it's definitely seeming like it'd be pretty competitive at least. Of course, we need to map out our exact route to really know, which we don't have yet, so we'll keep considering both until we do. It also seems like some have cheaper prices if we buy before we get to Japan, which is interesting, so will have to look out for those as well. 
3. We're hoping most of our shopping will be towards the end of the trip when we won't be moving around as much but I don't have good self-control so I can see myself grabbing things before then especially if it's a good deal, haha. So we'll investigate what we'd need for mailing stuff back home just in case it comes to the point where we're carrying too much with us. Do you find the mailing process is pretty easy and did you just go through JapanPost or something else? 

Nagoya is probably going to be one of our first stops almost as soon as we've landed so thanks for the thread! I'll check that out. And yeah, I think I mostly plan to buy anything that seems to be a really good deal, which will mostly likely be used. We buy stuff from Japan online already so I'm hoping I'll have good judgement on whether I really need to get a new item right at that moment during the trip or not, haha. In fairness, with the way the yen is, a lot of stuff would be cheaper to just buy while there also so that may tip the scales. 

That's awesome about your next trip to Japan! I hope it goes well also!!! 

[mojo]

I remember a few years ago being stopped and asked by someone who seemed like a student if I'd be interested in a service where they pack your bags for you, and if so how much I'd be willing to pay for it. Maybe research for a business idea or just a university assignment.

 

Anyway, if the Post Office had a packing service where you can just lug your shopping bags into a branch and they magically turn up at your home a couple of months later, I'd probably pay more than a few yen for that.

 

Actually, some shops will help you with that. It depends on the shop, and the smaller ones are often better for it, but if you ask nicely if they have any boxes going spare they may well oblige you, and doing the packing too. Others have an area where you can do your own packing, with free packing materials.

[ED75-775]

@arkh the Japan Post system is actually pretty easy to use. I'd also recommend taking a look at mojo's thread on the Yu-Pri label printing service, so you know what to expect before you start planning to send anything. Or you could just rock on up to the central post office at any major city you visit and they should have an English-language explanation somewhere on hand. My experiences with postal staff were that they're pretty helpful, even when dealing with not-always-clued-up foreigners

 

@Tony Galiani if we are ever over there together again, I'd be glad to go around Akihabara or Osaka Denden Town with you - although, I have a confession to make: the two largest parcels I had actually had more than just trains in them, they also had at least two Starbucks mugs in each of them. They're something of a weakness of mine.

 

Alastair

[arkh]

Thanks for the answers about mailing things back through Japan Post. I've also been looking into couriers like Sagawa or Yamato if anyone has experience with those! They seem like a good alternative that is also easy and friendly to use potentially.

An update on our itinerary: We've been trying to get all of our planning locked in and I think we've settled on kind of doing a reverse route of what we originally intended. There's a sumo tournament in Tokyo that we will be going to when we land since we're big sumo fans, but right after that, we'll probably head straight to Osaka as one of our relatives will be in the area there at that point. Then we're probably going to work our way back through Kyoto, Nagoya, Nagano and back to Tokyo. We're trying to plan it so we have a lot of time to freely go off to random towns on day trips but we do have a few specific things we want to hit that will only work on specific days or dates. This leads me to my newest question (which I'll also add to the top post)!

7. Does anyone know of cool tourist trains that run on weekdays? Particularly in the regions in or near Kyoto, Nagoya, or Nagano. We've found a couple but a lot seem to be mostly on the weekends. Since we probably will only get two weekends that we're for sure going to have time to do a tourist train, that doesn't leave much room for doing more than a couple during our stay! We're particularly looking forward to trying tourist trains with a meal service and those that seem to really support the local areas (i.e., not just feeding back into the JR system). 

A lot of tourist train sites only let you book a month or so in advance so now that we're near that window, we're trying to get our reservations for those trains in. 

[Gunzel]

I don’t have a good line on meal service trains but here are some good experiences I’ve had in the areas you mentioned. 
 

The Sagano Scenic Railway is in Kyoto and is very much a tourist train. Also in Kyoto prefecture is the Kyoto Tango Railway, we just did normal trains using the Kansai WIDE Area Pass but they have a restaurant train that runs on Fridays as well as weekends. 
 

There is the venerable Oigawa Railway near Nagoya, they sell a special ekiben. 
 

The Iga Railway is fun and we enjoyed a lovely meal near Iga-Ueno station. This is included on the still pretty cheap Kintetsu 5 Day Pass. 
 

In Wakayama south of Osaka you can travel on the second shortest railway in Japan, the Kishu Railway. 
 

I’ve never been but the Shinano Railway restaurant train seems to operate most days. 

[katoftw]

Japan's JR joyful trains aren't what they used to be.   And the better ones that are left are in more rural non city locations. You aint near them.  Better off chasing some unique railways and trains on certain lines instead.  Maybe wooden trams in Osaka, or the 700s in Otsu etc etc.  Or hit up private railways like Kintetsu for there limited express runners.

Regards JRP - Dunno if it has been said. I aint reading all the previous responses. But they rarely pay off now after the October price increase.  For example, the 7 day pass doesn't even pay of going from Tokyo, to Hiroshima, and return.  That would be a very fast trip to fit Kyoto, Osaka and Hiroshima into a quick 7 days.  14 days, Kagoshima and back.

If you wanna branch away from the city in Kyoto, try Uji, Kurama and the Shigu prefecture (Otsu, Omi-hachiman, Hikone and Nagahama).  Last one have a little rail museum.