2025/2026 new year trip

[kuro68000]

It's only May but we are starting to get those "save now for Xmas" ads that reminded me to start planning to avoid that period by once again visiting Japan.

 

Third time lucky getting up to Niigata? Hopefully the weather is better.

 

Main objectives are to visit new places and finally book a Shinkansen ticket all by myself without any screw ups. I mean eventually I have to manage it just by pure chance, right?

 

I've been looking at the passes available. The JR Pass might be worth it. At 50k yen for a week, if you use the Shinkansen more than 5 times it's saving you money.

 

There is also the JR East Tohoku Area pass. 30k yen for 5 days, or 48k for 10 days. That is starting to look like a good deal. There's also the Nagano/Niigata area pass which is 27k but max 5 days, so for 10 days the Tohoku one is cheaper.

 

They seem good, you can use the Shinkansen, although those ones seem to be a bit cheaper than the Tokaido one anyway.

 

That could be a hectic week though. And how do I do it, do I go back to base and avoid hotels for the night, or do I use hotels to extend my range even further? Getting up early really helps too, but those could be some long days.

 

Again the JR East passes are probably better in that respect, and easier to make them worth buying.

 

I'm probably over thinking it, I should just get one for a week and try it.

 

I'm also going to try harder not to get sick or have any near death experiences this time. I should have legged it when the kid started coughing, and I won't make that mistake twice! I might get the flu jab this year too, although I need to research if it's the same world wide or if they have different ones for different regions. Anyone know?

[Gunzel]

JR West passes are probably the best value these days for ones that include Shinkansen. The booking situation is a bit more painful though, their online portal is pretty bad and once you’ve activated the pass you have to use the midori no madaguchi. 
 

if you have a pass then you can do the crazy out and backs on the Shinkansen as the cost doesn’t matter. Leave at 7am you can be a long way away before HARD OFF opens at 10. The per day price of the Japan Rail Pass drops a fair bit if you jump to 14 or 21 days. 
 

In Australia our flu season is offset six months and a northern hemisphere vaccine is generally not possible to get my doctor has always advised to get a second southern hemisphere one a few weeks before heading north in winter, as it takes a couple of weeks to kick in and the one from the start of our winter will have mostly worn off. 

[Tony Galiani]

Great - no pressure but I am counting on trip reports and videos/pictures!

 

I am not sure there is a perfect flu vaccine but I always get every vaccine my doctor recommends including for the flu as well as pneumovax.  Seems to help - I do get the occasional bug but I never get too sick so that works for me.  I also take some immune support vitamins which are probably of minimal effectiveness but it makes me feel like I am doing something.

 

I am also looking forward to what you decide with regard to rail passes.  Still hoping to take a February 2026 trip to Tohoku and Hokkaido but early days for planning so have not really investigated travel options.

 

Cheers,

Tony

[kuro68000]

4 hours ago, Gunzel said:

JR West passes are probably the best value these days for ones that include Shinkansen. The booking situation is a bit more painful though, their online portal is pretty bad and once you’ve activated the pass you have to use the midori no madaguchi.

 

if you have a pass then you can do the crazy out and backs on the Shinkansen as the cost doesn’t matter. Leave at 7am you can be a long way away before HARD OFF opens at 10. The per day price of the Japan Rail Pass drops a fair bit if you jump to 14 or 21 days. 

 

In Australia our flu season is offset six months and a northern hemisphere vaccine is generally not possible to get my doctor has always advised to get a second southern hemisphere one a few weeks before heading north in winter, as it takes a couple of weeks to kick in and the one from the start of our winter will have mostly worn off. 

 

It looks like you can buy them from a machine now: https://www.jreast.co.jp/multi/en/pass/purchase.html

 

You need to find one with a passport reader. Speaking of which I had to renew my passport and the new one will be a crappy black one. Yes I'm still upset about that.

 

I also found that the Navitime app (the English one) does let you specify which passes you have, and then highlights routes that make use of them. I've been testing out a few trips and you are right, especially with the Shinkansen. It's an interesting app but some of the features you have to pay for.

 

One question that probably won't be answered until I'm there is if it is possible to book tickets online if you have the pass. Normally I can't book any train tickets online because it won't accept British credit cards, but if the cost is zero with the pass will it work? That would be very handy and a big bonus with the pass, because I've missed trains due to queues at the machines before.

 

Could be a game changer.

 

I was trying to work out how much I was spending on train travel with my Suica records, but I must be screwing it up somehow because my spreadsheet is coming out to only about ¥2000/day which is way too low. I forgot to scan the card every day so there is some missing data, but it seems like a large discrepancy. Of course it doesn't include express and Shinkansen tickets.

 

Or maybe it is right... I did use a lot of buses, as much as they annoy me.

 

 

4 hours ago, Tony Galiani said:

Great - no pressure but I am counting on trip reports and videos/pictures!

 

I am not sure there is a perfect flu vaccine but I always get every vaccine my doctor recommends including for the flu as well as pneumovax.

 

I will of course be taking lots of photos and videos. Speaking of which I need to finish the ones from last trip. I RTFM and think I understand the issue with colours in the videos now too, so hopefully I won't have to correct them so much next time.

 

Thanks to both of you about the flu stuff. I've never had one before and I don't think you get a choice if you have it in the UK. It would be ideal to get one here so that any side effects have worn off before I travel, but it looks like you can just pay for one in Japan. I found a couple of clinics charging ¥4000 with walk-in service.

 

I should be able to get a COVID booster in the UK that is good for world-wide. That reminds me, I found that 7-11 masks work for me, my glasses don't fog up. If anyone else finds they can't get a good fit, try those. I've been contemplating lens replacement surgery too, but it's not cheap and the current lenses seem to have some issues.

Edited April 27 by kuro68000

[Tony Galiani]

I wonder if your doctor in the UK can advise on the differences in the flu vaccine?  I always get some side effects from just about any vaccine I get.  Usually sore arm and achiness which is manageable but annoying.  If you can get a similar vaccine in the UK, that might let you get past any concerns before you travel.

Cheers,

Tony

[UnfinishedKit]

My understanding is the flu vaccine is generally the WHOs best guess at what the 4 most likely strains are going to be for the next year.  I got mine (southern hemisphere) earlier this month because it was the first opportunity I had to get this years cocktail although I’m not sure with wet it’s the one the northern hemisphere had back in their autumn or the one they are going to get next autumn; although I suspect the former. 
 

for the first time I was offered a choice between live vaccine and inert vaccine and there were different formulation for kids and the over 60s. I went for inert because it was cheaper, supposedly live promotes a faster immune response but I was getting a typhoid vaccine at the same time for a trip to Vietnam and felt I didn’t need everything going on all at once.  
 

never had a strong reaction to the covid vaccine but the ‘23 and ‘24 flu vaccines sent me to bed for the afternoon unable to concentrate on anything. Fine the next day. I didn’t notice anything this year. 
 

I've also been known to pick up a northern hemisphere dose on my travels. Walk into boots in the UK and they can sort you out. Also I recall getting one in Chicago O’Hare one time.  
 

I’ve verifiably had the flu only once and it was utterly horrendous, no other cold has come close. I picked it up on a work trip to Singapore just before Christmas one year, probably gave it to everyone on the plane on the way back (sorry) and spent the whole holiday on the sofa with a pounding headache. No wish to repeat that. 

[kuro68000]

Good idea Tony, I will ask the doctor nearer the time. I tend not to react well to most medication, except at low does, and vaccines are no exception. I've never had the flu one but the first COVID vaccine had a pretty severe effect on me. It was the British AstraZenica one and most people found it made them feel pretty bad for a week or two, but for me it was years of problems. Later I had mRNA boosters, the Pfizer and Moderna being fine after a few days of feeling run down.

 

I wish I could find some good FFP3 masks that fit properly, but I seem to have an unusual shape nose and back in 2020 I tried more than a dozen different types with little success. My nose seems to be an unusual shape that prevents them from making a good seal.

 

Back when I worked in an office I had a Plasmacluster air purifier on my desk, and was the only one who never got respiratory viruses. You can get wearable ones but I have no idea if they are effective. To be honest I don't know if the one on my desk was, or if I was just lucky. I worked at year at another location and didn't bring it, and got flu that year, and it was indeed horrendous.

[Gunzel]

The Japan Rail Pass allows online booking for all reservations. You are meant to pick up the reservations from a machine before travelling, but the times I haven’t had a chance it hasn’t been an issue. The thing you can’t do online is cancel a reservation for which you already have the reservations for, which you will need to do if you want to make a conflicting reservation. The system is ok, but there are a few annoyances that could be improved. You have to buy the pass online in order to use the online reservations. 
 

I’ve only helped a colleague use the JR East one. It seemed ok but not as polished as the Japan Rail Pass one, suffered especially from some poor translation.
 

The JR West online reservation system is pretty crap, there is a limit of I think six online reservations per pass (you can still do them in person) and once the pass is issued you can’t do any more reservations online. You also have to know the exact romanisation for the station you want in their system, which may or may not match your map or app. Once again you have to buy online to use reservations online. 
 

Navitime is great for the pass info, some of the paid features are available in the free JapanTransit app, but it doesn’t have an equivalent pass feature. I still miss the old Hyperdia. 

[kuro68000]

I miss Hyperdia too. Thanks for the information, especially that you need to buy online to do online reservations.

 

I tend to do reservations just before getting on the train, as it can be difficult to stick to a schedule. Some of the Shinkansen do get full up though. Are there any good source of information on how busy they are likely to be at given times?

[Gunzel]

I feel like something to look at upcoming seat availability was linked from here recently, but I can’t find it here or in my bookmarks. I did some web searching and found https://www.jr.cyberstation.ne.jp/index_en.html which looks useful, searching back here it hasn’t been linked to for a number of years. I’ve definitely bookmarked it now. 

[kuro68000]

Thanks Gunzel, I've been studying that website, it's got some useful hints.

 

I have also been looking at the various passes on offer. The JR Central ones seem a bit less good than JR East and JR West, but the JR East ones in particular are amazing.

 

I'd like to use the Tokaido Shinkansen, but only the JR Pass seems to offer that. It's about an extra hour to Odawara from Ueno/Tokyo on the conventional trains.

 

Maybe it's just me again, but I do find some of the information they give about these passes kinda confusing. Like it seem as if you could use the JR East pass to take the Azusa or Kaiji from Shinjuku (I wish it was Ueno) to Kofu, but it doesn't explicitly state that on the website. I had to check in Navitime app to confirm that it does.