A quick run down of my trip to Japan – I tried to avoid going over repetitive stuff

Hey all

Just a quick report back of our trip to Japan.

We stayed through the middle of April, we spent some time in Tokyo and then some in Kyoto.

I have to say Tokyo was my personal favourite just due to a reduction in tourists – not sure if this is actually true but it definitely felt we were more amongst locals when visiting there, vs kyoto. It may be a result of where we stayed – stayz – in kyoto we were right near the inari shrine so every outing was a battle with other tourists not really knowing where to go.

Plenty of travel reports of the majority of touristy things so I figured I would report back on a few things less talked about.

Travel: Navigating the trains was easy as pie, google did all the leg work it was just a matter of marrying up both the number of the station with the price of the ticket you needed. (pro tip, if you don’t mind playing around with translate the Sucia app is super easy to set up, I downloaded it in Australia and when I hopped off the plane in japan it actually prompted me to load some yen onto the card, it made my train trips tap and go!). I ended up using tickets most of the time cause no one else in my family had organised it. The only headache is the app does not have any english options so you gotta hold a phone over your phone to translate all the options, but I didn’t even need to do that to load cash onto the card. I believe its also usable at some stores.

Driving: Actually easy as pie, drivers are super courteous aside from the workers, they can be a bit lead footish at times but I just stuck in my own lane and everything went super smoothly, both driving in the city areas and outside. The biggest headache was tolls – ensure you have a passenger with cash at the ready – I took about 20,000 yen with me and there wasn’t *that* much left over after all the trips. It wasn’t nearly as scary as most make it out to be, although Australia drives on the RHS too so it was really just getting used to the very similar road signs, the only trip up is the stop sign is the same shape as the give way sign here.

Shopping: Electronics are super expensive unless you are buying used, the used market is fantastic over there – I got a pair of refurbed airpods pro for $150AU, but as an example I looked at CPUs – a 5800x3d was about $300 more expensive than if I were to buy it in Australia, and I thought we have horribly expensive electronics so that was a big surprise. Clothing was stupidly cheap – I was able to compare a Uniqlo from Australia to the Japanese version – Mens clothing was true to australian sizing so I had no issues finding stuff, after I figured out the sizing was the same I didn’t bother trying anything on. Womens were a different story, they had to size up most things and even then it would fit in some spots but not others, like waist would be fine but thighs were a no go etc. So women you are in for a bit of trouble, but average men it sounds like you’d be fine(although I dunno if American sizing is any different. I only have one American bought shirt in a medium and it fits like an XL on me.

Food and drinks: Dirty cheap, about 2 bucks australian for a beer, even less at the supermarket. Cocktails were about $5. Food was even a no brainer unless you were in a touristy area – we got reamed in Kyoto being so close to a shrine everyone capitalised on it.

Crowds were overall quite good, everyone knew where they were going which made life very easy, the worst points were always around tourists, which is fair. My best suggestion is learn the basics of the language so you can be polite. Most are understanding and will move around you but its always nice to apologise for being a bit of a snorelax in the middle of the pathway lol.

Overall we had an incredible time, we didn’t do much touristy stuff, moreso just lived and explored life in Japan.

Feel free to ask any questions you may have Ill try to answer them the best I can. I hope my little type out helps answer some questions!