#my english suckssss argghhh

[lost-cheshire-cat]

Could you share how you organized yourself to go to Japan? To move around, communicate, where you slept and how you decided of the places you wanted to visit ? (I was supposed to go this summer but... haha). Btw I like your pictures, they are pretty aesthetic! Have a nice day

Hi anon !

First of all, I’m so sorry for the late reply !

I’ll be happy to share my experience with you, but I’m not an organized person so sorry if it’s a bit messy (an also sorry for my very bad english, it might be difficult to read or understand this post >.<).

First, you probably have to know that this trip in Japan wasn’t intended. I was in New Zealand at that moment with a Working Holiday Visa and I'd been working for severals months when autumn arrived and I thought it might be the good time to visit Asia since I always wanted to go there, I think we can say that it was an impulse decision that I made one night, next day I've booked my flight for Hô-Chi-Minh-Ville, no turning back this way ^^  . My Asia trip was : Vietnam, Thailand and Japan.

To organize myself, well it’s a big word, but let’s say that for Japan I decided to focus on 3 cities : Tokyo-Kyoto-Osaka, one of my dream is to be able to do a Working Holiday Visa there, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it tho. So at that moment I thought it will be good to start with these « big cities » with enough time to visit them than going all around Japan with very short time for each places. I wanted to give myself enough time to visit those cities even if it meant at that moment I’ll not be able to see the countryside x’)

To decide which places I wanted to see I looked a lot of blogs but also some vlogs (not too much because I didn't want to spoil the surprise). I think the best thing to do is to write down all the places you really want to visit and then looks on a map which places are near from each other. For that I used googles map a lot with it's option "directions".  It's a nice tool and what I like the most about it, is that you can choose travel modes with that you can see which bus or subway you need to catch for your next destination, so useful !! This way you can do a lot of things in your day, choose to focus on near neighbourhoods, so you can save times and money ;). In Tokyo you’ll have to take the subway many time and it’s expensive this why I really suggest you to take a look on which places are near to others.

- For subway you can choose Tokyo open day ticket, there are different tickets I suggest you to take a look at this website : https://www.tokyometro.jp/en/ticket/1day/index.html

- you can also have prepaid e-money card , like the Suica or Pasmo card. You can have these cards at the airport, it costs you around 2.000¥ (include 500¥ deposit).  Depending on what you want to do and how you want to live your trip in Tokyo it can be a good option, it’s probably more easier too but not necessary the less expensive so be careful :). Just remember that the price for the subway is calculated based on the distance.

Useful links for cards :

Pasmo : https://www.pasmo.co.jp/visitors/en/normalpasmo/

Suica : https://www.jreast.co.jp/e/pass/suica.html

For Kyoto I traveled by bike it was really the best way for me (even if it was so warm that I nearly died 10 times per day) you also have the subway/bus but I didn’t used it a lot. If you use a bike you can really see a lot of things, streets are wide as well. It’s really nice and another way to live your trip far from the bustle of the subway ^^

For Osaka, I used subway too but not as much as in Tokyo, the thing is : you’ll walked a lot !! Be prepare haha

Communication ;

Oh god, that’s a big topic here ! As you can see my english is terrible but it’s nothing compared to japanese x’). They don’t speak english very well (but no judgment here, mine is terrible as well!). Excepted in your hostel where staff speaks pretty well, but they’re so open mind that you succeed to understand the most important. That being said some people speaks well (I mean for me it was, let’s say we’d the same level^^), I met japanese with whom I spent some time and it was really fun ! If you're open mind and want to met people you'll met people, I guarantee you :). Also there are so many foreigners too, you probably can find someone to help you if you’re in need. In my case some japanese people helped me, they walked with me up to the place I was looking for and an old man saved me in Kyoto when the chain come off my bike without me asking for anything 😭❤️

Where I slept :

I used Booking to booked all my places. I don’t know if it’s the best app or anything but it made the job and for me it was the most easiest way to do it, since I used it for all my trips in Asia. I’m not organized at all and a day per day person, so what I did is that I've started to booked a place for 4 nights in Tokyo and then just booked my others places at the last moment. It was an adventure and I didn't know how many days I wanted to stay per cities so I improvised. No money saved tho x')

Here are the places where I stayed if you are interested :

Tokyo : Hotel Owl Tokyo Nippori

Kyoto : couldn’t find it, but it was a very small guesthouse with dorm

Osaka : Bon Hostel Osaka

Since I've booked at the last moment I didn’t have much choices, but I really recommend you Backpacker Hostels you'll meet a lot of people from all around the world and it’s probably one of the less expensive accomodation. But it’s once again, just my opinion it depends on how you want to live your trip ;)

Other things :

- If you’re going to Kyoto you can visit Nara, it’s a really nice city. For that you can take a train (30 min) I really recommend you to take a day or even an half day to visit that city

- If you’re in Tokyo and your next destination is Kyoto then you can take a night bus, it’s the less expensive way to go there (unless you have a car)

- If you're in Tokyo and you want an observation decks then go to The Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, it's free and great ! If you take the Tokyo Skytree or even Tokyo tower you'll have to wait a lot and pay for that, which is too bad when you can have the same thing for free ^^. Also I suggest you to go there in the late afternoon then you can enjoy a day and a night view of Tokyo :) (you'll have to wait a bit but definetly worth it !)

- The black ice coffee in konbini is delicious ! (yes it deserves a special note 😂)

- I’ve used the app Maps.me a lot because my phone was dying and using google maps killed my battery too fast. With this app you download the map and then you can use it without any wifi, it's good when you're lost you, with no wifi and you have a shitty phone like mine x'). It saved me many time

Well I'll stop here, there is probably a lot more to say, if you have more questions you can ask me, I’m not the best on the subject but I'd be happy to answer ^^.

Reminder that there is no good or bad way to live your life and discovering new countries :). I lived my trip like a big adventure, probably missed some spots but at the end of the day I'd a lot of fun and it's all matter. I really hope you’ll be able to go there someday and I’m very sorry to know you can't go this summer, I know the feeling. Better luck next time? 🙏 

Take care of you and thank you for the ask !!