Visiting Japan

Hi there fellow JDO members.

I was just wondering maybe there is someone here who already been to Japan or at least knows people who went there? I am kinda interested into travelling to Japan myself so I wanted to ask a few questions regarding this journey if there's someone who already experienced this trip ^^ Thanks in advance.

 

@Supernatural-Knight no worries. I didn't really expect a reply anyway but it doesn't hurt to try

Eh... so you do remember it. Thought I offended you somehow with my wall of texts

 

Wassup homie, ask away! I'd be happy to answer your questions!


PS, No I'm not lurking, Kiri told me about this thread so thank her XP

 

I know right... been telling you earlier how work can consume all your free time, especially if you study or like to go out as well. Anime, games, forums, etc. just become a past of your life. It's a struggle at first but later on it simply becomes a normal thing in your life, gotta accept reality that we aren't kids anymore Although good things come with age as well, at least for me. I do enjoy living on my own and having my own money. It feels good to buy things that you want, travel to some nice places because you worked hard and deserve some holidays. Man... I used to spend holidays at home playing games or watching anime... now holidays for me is to go somewhere to see things, you know visit other countries, see their culture and stuff. Of course, the fact that I live in the middle of Europe makes everything easier but the fact stands - being a grown up has a lot of more pros than cons imo. To be honest, I still hope one day we can meet up in RL ^^

God bless Kiri <3

Anyway, I'll be very straightforward. How did you arrange your journey? Like where did you stay in Japan? I heard hotels are very expensive and that it's better to find those Inns like in anime we see in some countryside. Apparently it's a great experience as well although rooms supposedly small. Did you go there with certain goals like seeing Japan as a country or just focused on seeing the famous anime places (akihabara and shit)? How long did you say and how many people went with you? Is it cheaper the more people go with you or it doesn't really make a difference? What are the daily expenses over there? I mean food costs, travelling and stuff? Also very important is language. Possible to communicate with them in English or you gotta know some basic Japanese? If you don't mind could you tell me approximately how much did you spend on your trip to Japan?

Got any useful websites to look at for more info? Thanks a bunch ^^

 

1. I can and I can't help with this one: I went with a tour group- EF tours. They organized all of the hotel stays in the second week of my two week stay. First week was homestay with another family. That was fun. Due to a crazy plane delay followed by missing our flight to Nagoya for homestay due to said deelay, we had to stay in a hotel in Tokyo. It was around 80 dollars for a two bed room there. Everyone had to pay 40. That hurt my budget T_T. So my only real recommendation would be to go with a tour group so you don't have to worry about booking rooms or facing expensive rooms. You may run into a little difficulty if trying to stay at an onsen. I HEAR some are not very approving of gaijin. MAy be false though. Do research. The onsen we stayed at for one night was the closest thing to an anime style room we stayed in. Every oher hotel was very Western. The rooms in the onsen were NOT small. LOL Quite roomy, Us being Westerners though, the prospect of adults bathing naked with othr adults was not a comfortable one for msot of us so we did not us the onsens LoL. They gave us a big dinner though, yum. Sleeping in futons was a great experience. I reccomend it or staying at an inn with similar style atleast one night..

2. I think my only goal was to experience it, to do as many anime things as I could LOL. TBH, you all will kill me for this but I had no idea Akihabara was such an anime hot spot. (BTW, GO TO ALL THE ANIME STORES THERE! THEY ARE MULTI LEVEL WITH ESCALATORS!) I got to go to temples and pray, I got to go to a high school (man these guys swooned over us so much there, you'll feel like a celeb if you get to do that, particularly in a smaller town like Toyota Japan, where we were. (In places like Tokyo foreigners are probably more common.) So yeah, I just wanted to enjoy whatever we were doing. Tour group did not give us a whole lot ofv freedom to do what we wanted, other than a fre day in Tokyo. Unfourtaneltly the group I got stuck with just wanted to run around Ikkebukuro all day so we did not get to go to Akihabara till pretty late.

3. 2 weeks with like, 13 other people? All from different periods of Japanese class at my high school. Anothert tour group joined us for a time but we mostly kept away from each other and apparently there was some tension between our groups. (I try to make peace, notwar so I had no idea why so much tension).

4.In my case, going with a group, it was no more cheaper because I went with a group. Everyone was charged the same 3,000+ dollars for the whole trip. However, I firmly believe you can keep your trip cost lower than this. Especially if you go with other people and split hotell/food/travel costs and any other costs you come across.

5. I'm not kidding when I say you'll be perfectly happy eating many meals from a convinience store there because their convinience store food is fresh and good. The only place I could find Onigiri honestly. You could get a meal for under 5 dollars potentially in aa konbini including drink. Not too sure about travel. Subways are your best bet. I BELIEVE, I could be wrong, one ride was 2oo yen or $2? We mostly rode around via tour bus. We went to Akihabara by subway and all had to pay for ticket one night. No idea about taxies. Food outside of convinience stores I don't remember being too expensive . . .crepes with filling in them were like $4 for a big crepe (Just estimate a dollar is 1 euro,. I know I'm probably off.) Still reccomend eating at a sushi conveyer belt place and a ramen shop once each while there. Also okonomiyaki place and a place that sells a dish called Katsudon- fried chicken cutlets over rice <3

6. TBH we did not even try sspeaking English most of the time. We wanted to practice our Japanese. I'd say take a phrase book and study it some before coming ovr because people's level of English can greatly vary. Japanese phrase book will definetly be your safety net.

7. 3200 something I think. TBH this was a bad deal because the first week was a homestay which we did not need to pay for unless they gave money to the school for hosting the homestay, which I doubt. also the second week, our lunches were not covered by them. They claimed they did not provide lunch so we could try out other things and experience the culture. to me it makes the price tag look even more unreasonably high.

So yeah, going with a tour group can help you avoid the hassle of booking hotels but they tend to charge a large amount and then not make it worth it in the end. ( I went with People to People to Europe and it was 6000 dollars for a lot of museum visits, most of them wre not supr interesting;bwe did get to go to the Louvre though (The museum with the origianal Mona Lisa along with other amazing things. You'll probably save alot by skipping tour groups, going with some friends to split the cost - you'll all still be paying alot but you can atleast solit hotel cost and maybe other things. Just do some research to help you book hotels. (Learn what to say and how, where to look, maybe find hotels in Tokyo or Kyoto where they have English spraking service staff).

If I misssed anything let m know.


If you or anyone else have more questions I'll happily answer.

 

Thanks a lot! Gotta consume all information first and look up for things myself. Also will check other places maybe someone else went there to compare things. You know gotta take the best out of everyone's experience