Tony - Japan 2025 Planning - Take One

[Gunzel]

Did you buy JAL Japan Explorer Pass tickets? These can be quite good value for foreign visitors, Y11000 in this case. You don’t need to fly to Japan on JAL. 

[Tony Galiani]

Oops - I was not aware of it.  Though I just checked and Y11000 is the lowest price and it varies by route.  Checking on my flight, the very early flight would have been cheaper (though not that low) but no advantage to me for the late flight we have to take.  Pricing on that turns out to be the same.  I am relieved!

Cheers,

Tony

[N-Osoi]

11 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

If you come across a gray haired guy mispronouncing Japanese, it will likely be me!

 

Same for me... just with an Australian lilt to my efforts 😄

[Tony Galiani]

Just came across this and wanted to share:  https://www.japan.travel/en/plan/list-of-volunteer-guides/

 

Free volunteer guide services around Japan.  Japanese who want to meet and interact with foreigners and practice/maintain their English skills.  Found it in a thread on the Rick Steves travel forum.  I plan to do some research on the group and may try it out on my upcoming trip.

 

Back in the day, I was a USAID volunteer and would host visitors for an evening at my home.  Typically, I would pick them up at their hotel, show them around my town and provide dinner and conversation.  It was a great way to meet people from all over - I can't remember all the various countries I hosted visitors from but do remember some - Turkey, Bosnia, China, Germany and Lithuania.  Would do it again but don't think the program is still going nowadays.  But I can understand why people would do this and it might be fun to be the visitor rather than the host.

 

Ciao,

Tony

[cteno4]

My grandfather use to do the same thing for Rotary visitors from all over the world on business travel and vacation. They lived near Gettysburg and he was a big civil war buff so if they had time he would take them there for a day to fight the battle. Amazing little gifts would sent to him from all over for offering some basic hospitality and friendship. Something we need more of these days.

 

jeff

[Gunzel]

3 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

Oops - I was not aware of it.  Though I just checked and Y11000 is the lowest price and it varies by route.  Checking on my flight, the very early flight would have been cheaper (though not that low) but no advantage to me for the late flight we have to take.  Pricing on that turns out to be the same.  I am relieved!

Sorry, it sounded like you still had the chance to cancel and rebook so I thought it was worth mentioning in case you could save some money. Availability can be an issue, but I’ve found it’s always worth checking.

 

ANA has something similar but it’s been a lot worse after COVID, prices up and availability down. 

[Tony Galiani]

@Gunzel - I appreciate the info and have saved it for future reference.  I could / would have changed it had the pricing worked out.  Slightly frustrating as the early JAL flight had lower pricing but it just would not work out for us.  I have no problem with early departures but my wife was not at all keen on it.  Since we are taking a very early flight for our departure from the US I figured I would not push my luck and do that again on the trip!

Cheers,

Tony

[RS18U]

2 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

Free volunteer guide services around Japan

We have used these services a few times, the last at Kumamoto Castle last March.  They did not have any English speaking guides but this fellow offered to take us around so he could practice his English.  And with my wife's decent Japanese (at least understanding) it worked out very well.  Highly recommended.  And @Tony Galiani thanks for that link!

 

Will

 

 

[Tony Galiani]

@RS18U - great to see.  Thanks for posting that info.  I have been checking out the possibility of doing this in Kochi.  They do this for free though the Kochi group asks that visitors pick up transportation expense (if you go on the tram tour) or food expense if you go to a market or restaurant.  This seems perfectly reasonable to me.  The original post I saw the link on suggested offering a small gift which also seems reasonable to me.  When I was hosting visitors they would often bring a small gift from their country which was a nice touch.

Cheers,

Tony

[Kingmeow]

I think a small bag that Mira makes would make a WONDERFUL gift especially since it's hand made.  Maybe a smaller version of what you showed us in Tokyo to reduce cost/size for transport.

[Tony Galiani]

@Kingmeow - Great idea!  And if she does that, she would use up some of her fabric supply - which means she will need to restock in Nippori Fabric Town - which means I get more train time!

Thanks,

Tony

[cteno4]

Yes this is always great. Ive done this forever in traveling. When younger and poorer i would just find some little dollar or two trinket that had some interesting representation of where i was from. Then also in developing world i always traveled with bundles of pencils and pens for kids. Always appreciated. Maybe a thought for adults, any interesting Duke pens? Small eand east to transport and always useful thing. At one point the Monterey bay aquarium gift shop would have little employee sales of odd stuff or stuff that didnt sell at big discounts. One was little 3”x3” post it notes with their nice logo ghosted onto them. They looked nice and were ultra cheap so i bought a big pile and handed those out and they were very popular. Something hand made would be an extra treat.

 

my first trip to japan I was to meetup in japan with the parents of one of the post docs in our lab. I asked him what would they like for a gift and the first response was scotch! So i got a good one with duty free flying over. Unfortunately they had to be out of town the few days i was in their area so did not get to give it to them. But i stayed at a little ryokan in kyoto, the three sisters. It turns out they were three twin sisters [fratenral] that ran it and looked very similar and i did not realize this until halfway thru the four weeks or so i was in and out of there until the very end as only one around at any one time! But they were so sweet holding my big bag while i traveled all over and just being complete dolls in taking care of me. At the end of the trip i realized i had this bottle of nice scotch in my bag and was wondering what to do with it. Wasn’t sure if these ladies [maybe in their 50s] were drinkers and if it might be culturally wrong to offer up liquor like this but they were very straight forward with me all along so i humbly asked if they could use it or someone else they know might. And they all had big eyes and said YES! They had a glass together every night but usually not good stuff! They were so very happy with the gift and that i presented it, one of those very touching moments.

 

jeff

[cteno4]

8 minutes ago, Tony Galiani said:

@Kingmeow - Great idea!  And if she does that, she would use up some of her fabric supply - which means she will need to restock in Nippori Fabric Town - which means I get more train time!

Thanks,

Tony

Work those angles tony! 

 

Jeff

[Kingmeow]

4 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

@Kingmeow - Great idea!  And if she does that, she would use up some of her fabric supply - which means she will need to restock in Nippori Fabric Town - which means I get more train time!

Thanks,

Tony

 

4 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Work those angles tony! 

 

Jeff

 

Yeah, work it baby!  Creative thinking at its best!  🤣

[Little-Kinder]

If you buy or have trains with you in tokyo
Definetely go there

 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZdxiVfiZSvYFVm4BA

 

You will not find a better place to run your trains (n scale) in japan.

 

 

I also recommend to check this cat cafe/shelter with trains in the background and cat fighting them 

 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/idNTLtcHVweRNSct8

 

[UnfinishedKit]

The Romance Car museum in Ebina is definitely worth a visit. The romance cars are fantastically preserved and they have massive layout of the odakyu railway. There may be some limited availability stuff in the shop. 
 

what may be kanagawa’s best sake brewery, Izumibashi, is a short and pleasant stroll away. 

[Kingmeow]

6 hours ago, Little-Kinder said:

If you buy or have trains with you in tokyo
Definetely go there

 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZdxiVfiZSvYFVm4BA

 

You will not find a better place to run your trains (n scale) in japan.

 

Interesting!  But are there any pictures of the layout(s)?  Their website shows the routes that you can run on but no pictures anywhere of what the scenery looks like.  I think if they show some running pictures they would attract more customers.

[Tony Galiani]

Interesting - I will add these to my list of possibilities for this visit.

I have a small train shopping list for this trip - there are a few items I would like but my focus for the near term is trying to get my next layout project going.  I do need/want a few more Kokis but my main hope is to find some of the Tomytec container trucks as I missed all the collections when they were issued.  Sometimes I see individual trucks repacked for sale so hoping to run into some of those are even a full collection set (if not absurdly priced).

Also, would like to find a couple of tank containers to add some variety to my small container collection.

I did notice that the dollar is slipping against the yen and hoping it doesn't change too much.  I have paid for my airfares but have not prepaid the hotels so they are now a bit more expensive than when I booked them.

Tony

[Kingmeow]

Tony, TamTam in Akihabara Tokyo has a lot of Koki related items.  (Same for TamTam Kobe if you happen to be there on this trip.)  Of all the stores in Tokyo that I've visited they have the most, including container trucks, etc.

Edited 13 hours ago by Kingmeow

[UnfinishedKit]

4 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

Interesting - I will add these to my list of possibilities for this visit.

I have a small train shopping list for this trip - there are a few items I would like but my focus for the near term is trying to get my next layout project going.  I do need/want a few more Kokis but my main hope is to find some of the Tomytec container trucks as I missed all the collections when they were issued.  Sometimes I see individual trucks repacked for sale so hoping to run into some of those are even a full collection set (if not absurdly priced).

Also, would like to find a couple of tank containers to add some variety to my small container collection.

I did notice that the dollar is slipping against the yen and hoping it doesn't change too much.  I have paid for my airfares but have not prepaid the hotels so they are now a bit more expensive than when I booked them.

Tony

Bookoff/Hardoff might be helpful there but they can be a pain to search through the stores and what’s online isn’t necessarily in any store.  If they have what you want online get it delivered to your hotel. 
 

The basement of Akihabara Popondetta is their second hand department and I found some good stuff there last time I was there. 
 

Did you look and see if there were any shows of club meets on when you are there? 
 

probably should ask this as a general question because I’m interested, but have you ever done time on a rental layout?

akihabara popondetta has a nice little N gauge one but I really want to go and see who’s running what on Imon’s HO1067 and Oj ones. 

[Tony Galiani]

@UnfinishedKit - no experience with rental layouts I am afraid.  I usually get some time for train shopping while my wife does fabric shopping but never have had any trains with me to run.  I do have a vague recollection that some Forum members have gone to rental layouts but can't pinpoint the details I am afraid.

Wasn't aware of the IMON layouts.  Depending on how things go, I might try and stop by to take a look.  My wife is considering a few pottery classes and, as everyone would expect, I am encouraging to take as much time as she would like!

Tony

[UnfinishedKit]

 

This is IMON’s list

 

the Oi one has N and Oj and they will rent you an N train as well if you don’t have your own, however this video is just screaming buy a 16 car Max Toki

 

 

I can’t find and recent or long videos of the Oj layout but it seems to be up by the ceiling  

The 16番、J and HO1067 layout in Shibuya is a bit bare bones. 

Edited 18 hours ago by UnfinishedKit