Been there. TBH though, they are good, but with all the great ramen you can find throughout Japan, it's hard to justify to make the trip just to be there. If you are nearby anyway, it might make sense to go. But otherwise, it's like getting a 9/10 ramen normally vs. a 9.5/10 ramen.

Such is the case for pretty much everything mentioned by Michelin.

All it means when they get a 1 star or a magazine mention, is that it won't be shitty food. Unfortunately what it also means is that people will flock there like flies on shit, making it impossible to get a table LUL

once you get to the kansai region you' re most likely getting around by train anyways
much like in Europe with dirt cheap flights, train makes more sense because it brings you from city center to city center so you don't have to go out of your way and through security, wait and worry about possible delays as you know trains in east asia are 99% on a clock-work

Somehow I paid less for a YVR-HND-KIX trip than I did for just Tokyo. 905 down from 960. It was only a few dollars, but still, the 905 includes connecting flights to and from Osaka.

i paid 1600 just last week.
Van to osaka (+ 4 nights hotel) to tokyo to Hong Kong then tokyo and back to Vancouver. tax in.

Going to tokyo for a solo trip December 5-18, has anyone been to hakone? Specifically the hotel green plaza? They have an outdoor onsen overlooking mt.fuji.

Also, i have a full sleeve tattoo and some of my friends said that some onsens don't allow people with tattoos, is that true?

Regarding the onsens, ive only been to two onsens and they both didnt allow tattoos. Granted they were the bigger onsens in the city but i think generally they dont allow it. Try googling for tattoo friendly onsens.

^damn, yeah i found the actual Japanese website and they do not allow tattooed people in the public onsem area, they do have rooms with a private outdoor bath but thats 450 a night!

Holy cow 450 a night. Personally i thought it was a cool experience seeing the scale of these mega spas and it was good for rewinding but i dont think id go again. I dont think youd be missing out on much because theres just so many other things to see. Then again im not much of a hot tub guy. Cant stand the heat.

just cover up your tattoos

wtf, i'm goin at the same time, my gf booked a 1 day at hakone too ahahhaha.

Hahaha nice!! Im probably not going to hakone, there's a website specifically for locating tatto friendly ryokos, onsens and public bathhouses so ill probably go a bit further out, but at least I'll get a natural outdoor hot springs experience, which is important for me.

Where you staying at?? I ended up getting a place in Shinjuku

At R1CED, covering up the tattoo wont help at that location, they have a zero policy for any tattoo period. Some places do allow tattoo's but with restrictions, such as covering it up with a skin colored band which they provide. It's just a shame cause i really wanted to go to that ryoko specifically for the public outdoor onsen they have that overlooks mt. Fuji

Has anyone tried sushi wifi? 4600¥ for two weeks of use, supposed to be unlimited 4g lte speeds, is that worth it? Cause my Roger's roam like home is $10 a day


Also, what do you guys do for money? Do you just bring cash and convert there? Or just use credit? Or use the atm to take out cash whenever?

why bring cash (presuming CAD) and convert there? you'll get fleeced by the FX shop. just order JPY from your bank.

when i went, i ordered 175k JPY, was only there for like... 5 days? came back with 75k still, even after lending my friend 10k.

atm's are plentiful, check with your bank to make sure your card will work.

the only place you'll probably be able to use CC is at chains, or department stores/ convenience stores, and your hotel. a lot of the smaller stuff is cash only i think.

you could use it to get money from an atm but then you're paying your cash advance fee, plus conversion, plus your card's FX fee.

My friend gave me his pasmo card, he isn't sure about the balance, he said anywhere between $50-$100cad worth. Sonce I'll be going for two weeks and doing round trip day travel to 3 different cities back to Tokyo each time, would it be more economical to do the jr pass for 7 days and then just use the pasmo card for the rest of the trip?

Note that the JR Pass is 7 consecutive days, unlike the Euro Rail style where it only counts days you travel.

Without information about which cities you plan on staying in and what your itinerary is regarding how many days at each place, it's hard to answer your question.

^sorry

Im staying in Shinjuku Tokyo, its my own solo trip. I plan to go to kyoto, osaka, yokohama just for the day and come back that same night, i also plan to fly to Okinawa for a day and come back that same night (only $150 round trip and im just going there for the aquarium lol), im also going to a ryokan in kashinawa which is just outside of Tokyo, they have a round trip shuttle bus service for 2200 yen.

Osaka and kyoto are only about 2.5-3 hours away from tokyo by bullet train so i can go early and have the whole day im each city before taking an evening train back

I got a good deal for flight and hotel at the granbell Shinjuku so thats my hotel for 13 nights

Might also go to nagano and nagoya for the castles

If i do the 7 day pass, i plan to do all the traveling first and then spend the rest of the trip exploring all the districts of tokyo

Just a return trip from Tokyo to Osaka/Kyoto will just about cover the 7 day pass price. If you are truly doing separate return trips from Tokyo to Osaka/Kyoto, I think the 14 day pass is already paid off too.

14 day pass is 46,390 JPY

it's 13.7k one way to kyoto, so a little more for osaka.
14.2k to osaka from tokyo.
yokohama is a local train, google says it's 550JPY

total return for those three locations is roughly 57,000 JPY

so definitely worth the cost of the 14 day, and it also gives you unlimited use of JR branded local trains and busses. so you only need suica/pasmo for the other companies.

this is the site i used if you're looking for a place to get it from.

https://www.jrpass.com/

so you're killing at least 6 hours a day, many times in 13 days

just stay in Osaka/Kyoto when you're in Kansai

and leave Okinawa for a separate trip

Japan is one of those places worth making multiple return trips and it's only a flight away from YVR

^ this is worth considering. even if you just get a hotel in kyoto, do a day there, check out in the morning and hit up osaka early and head back to tokyo that evening. that's better than 6hrs of trains a day lol.

In osaka, I'm staying right at Hearton Hotel Shinsaibashi, right at the core. jtanner_ hooked me up with his last trip and stuff so that really helped.

I'm going to spend one day at the green tea capital, Uji, and just chilling there for a day. Can't go wrong with Uji: Nakamura Tokichi 中村藤吉's Green tea dessert & food

https://s3-ap-northeast-1.amazonaws....iXMqcfJWG.jpeg

This. Make Osaka your home base and with a JR Pass you can hop onto a bullet train to Kyoto in less than 10 minutes. From there you can explore Himeji/Nara/Uji etc...

you also have to remember Shinjuku is the busiest hub in the world with 5 stations on different ticketing systems

it'll take you like 20 minute just walking through it

and you will get lost a few times on your first visit

it's why I can't stay in Tokyo for more than 48 hours at a time, not that it's a clusterfuck because everything is actually quite orderly, but it's just overwhelmingly busy

If you're flying with Cathay or stopping by Hong Kong, I got one of these wifi device from a company called PokeFi that works really well.

PokeFi

The device works in 60 countries, cheap data - pay $15 USD for 5gb of data that expires in 2 years, 4g speeds (especially in asia). I've tried it in parts of the US, Canada, Japan, HK, Vietnam, and the Philippines and it works like a charm so far. The battery also lasts for a good 8-12 hours too.