Just a random list of thoughts that I would have found helpful or interesting before heading out!
1. Suica (or other IC card) on the Apple Wallet is a godsend. I preloaded with 2000 yen while I was in the US to make sure that my credit card would work with it.
2. Coins and a coin pouch were good but not as necessary as I thought. There were some places that they were much more useful in, such as during our day trip to Mashiko to buy street food.
3. Japan is not as strict as people make it seem. Locals at night are rowdy on the train and people have low conversations even during quieter times of day. I got the sense beforehand that if you make a peep you’ll draw the ire of every person on the train, but that was never the case.
4. Bringing your own water bottle does not make sense. The mymizu app is available but the water is so spread out that it felt much easier to just buy the plastic bottles at the vending machines everywhere. A lot of the machines even take IC card, so you can keep your coins for other things.
5. Eating vegetarian is very challenging. My wife generally eats vegetarian and gets grossed out a little by fishy tastes, so we tried to use Happy Cow, but even that was hard. A lot of dishes that seems vegetarian aren’t. Tamago sometimes has shrimp paste and inari is sometimes filled with squid. Google Lens only gets so far when the ingredient labels are obscured. Onigiri was our best option, but there’s only so much rice one can have, so she branched out to pizza by the end. That being said, a few of the restaurants on Happy Cow were EXCELLENT. Vegan Gyoza Yu in Tokyo and Tofu Sorano Minami Senba in Osaka were highlights of our trip.
6. Walking is the absolute worst. No one consistently walks on one side of the sidewalk or the other, even in smaller towns where there are less tourists. Bikers also ride on the sidewalk and never use bells, so don’t swerve while walking or you could be trampled.
7. Do the random stuff that might not be on the main itineraries. We skipped kinkaku-ji due to being templed-out in Kyoto, instead riding the Sagano Romantic Train and taking the Hozugawa River Boat experience. We went out of our way to go to Naoshima Art Island, which was well worth the detour! We went to a pottery fair in Mashiko which was 3 hours of trains one-way, and that was awesome.
8. Every hotel provided amenities, so if you want to save space, you can avoid bringing toothbrush/hair products/pajamas.
9. Restaurants generally opened later in the morning, even coffee shops (other than the chains), so if you’re a breakfast person it’s a little harder to get going early if you like to start your day with breakfast and good coffee. Japanese breakfast is a whole other thing and for reasons above we did not opt to eat them haha.
10. Using the Airalo app and buying data worked perfectly. With my unlocked Verizon iPhone, I turned off roaming data on my primary sim and was able to use iMessage and WhatsApp to communicate with everyone I needed to.
11. Navigating the metro can be difficult. Some stations not only have tens to hundreds of exits, but there are also different types of lines. For example, there might be JR lines and local lines in the same station, and there might be a local platform 2 and a JR platform 2, which is something to watch out for. The Google Maps directions often say which exit to go for, so you can try and spot that quickly when getting off the train. It also says which car is quickest for transferring, which could be helpful for a quick transfer.
That’s it I think! Happy to answer any more detailed questions.
by Grantisgrant
