Japan

As a travel destination, Japan was not at the top of my ‘to visit’ list.  My mantra was always to visit the less developed countries first, before moving onto the developed nations.  However, ever since my little cousin was born, I knew I had to make a visit.  So, along with my trusty travel buddy K, we embarked on a scarcely planned 2.5 week trip to Japan.  I’d say about a month of serious planning went into this trip, from generating an itinerary to researching possible accommodations.  

We planned this trip to maximize family time, and explore a mix of touristy and off the beaten path destinations.  From my previous trip to Taipei, I knew that I absolutely wanted to avoid crowds if possible.  I know you’re thinking, Japan is super populated, how are you going to avoid crowds?  It’s very doable!  Tokyo was an exception, but everywhere else was not too crowded.  

Our itinerary was: family time, Kanazawa, Matsumoto, hiking the Nakasendo from Tsumago to Magome, Tokyo, family time, Hiroshima, Onomichi, biking the Shimanami Kaido, and back to Tokyo.

Transportation

From top left: cherry blossoms by the river in Kanazawa, Matsumoto Castle, the famous scramble crossing in Shibuya, sunset at Sunset Beach in Setoda

We opted to buy the 14 day JR Rail pass.  Using Hyperdia.com, we were able to calculate what each leg of rail travel would cost, and compare that to the cost of the JR Rail pass.  Our estimates showed that we would be spending double without the rail pass.  I haven’t tallied up the total cost of rail, but we ended up taking the train even more than initially projected.  The JR Rail pass also gave us the flexibility to walk in and out of JR stations as much as we needed to.  This proved to be SO HELPFUL as we often went out the wrong exit and needed to cross back through the station to get to the right exit.  Most of the time we reserved seats as we found it easier to sit together this way.  

While I didn’t have data access, my travel buddy did.  She has an unlocked phone and bought a 1 month sim card for data only at Narita airport.  This also proved to be extremely useful (but also a distraction – hard to unplug when there’s internet access in the palm of your hand!).  Using a mixture of a Japan Rail app (can’t recall the name), and Google Maps, we were able to easily plan out each rail journey.  Japan trains are ALWAYS on time (except for that one train which you will hear about later...), so it was easy to figure out when we needed to get off the train by looking at the schedule via the apps.  Train’s supposed to be in Kanazawa at 12:15pm?  Okay, we should get off the train then.  

There were two types of train travel that we did – long distance shinkasen and local trains, and the commuter trains in Tokyo.  Shinkasen travel is super easy as there are only a few shinkasen tracks at each station.  Local trains have a few more options (maybe max. 4 tracks?).  But in Tokyo, the commuter trains have SO MANY OPTIONS for tracks and lines.  Navigating Tokyo’s JR rail system was probably the most confusing part of the trip.  The good thing with Tokyo’s commuter trains is that they run every 2-5 minutes, so if you miss one, another one is always nearby.  We didn’t even touch the subway/metro system as we wanted to make use of our JR passes.  We did take the new waterfront transit to Odaiba, but that was super straightforward as there is only one line.  

Map of the Greater Tokyo-Yokohama JR network.  So easy to travel pretty far in a short time distance!

Tokyo Subway map!