a few helpful hints for traveling to and in japan

First.  Never exchange your money in the US, especially at the airport kiosks, unless you can get a good deal at your bank.

The rate of exchange at SFO averaged 106jpy:$1

The lowest rate of exchange at the bank kiosks at NRT was 116jpy:$1…you get a higher rate if you are exchanging travelers checks, but you usually also take a small percentage hit when you buy travelers checks, so i.m.o. it’s not worth picking up TC’s unless they make you feel more secure (this time around the bank in the North Terminal International Arrival lobby had the best rate (117jpy for cash).  The actual exchange rate was 118.xx and the next day it went to 119.xx.

If you exchange your rail pass at NRT and have a pretty good feel for your schedule, the English-speaking staff can make your reservations for you for your whole trip, not just the immediate day of travel, so long as you are starting your pass on that day.

Make sure to pick up a current English language metro map and JR line map, especially if you are going to spend much time in Tokyo.

If you can, live the Japanese way and:

1.  Try not to travel with big luggage

or

2. If you have it, send your luggage ahead to your main destination.  You’ll need the address of where you’ll be staying, preferably written out in Kanji, but that’s not entirely necessary.  It costs about $14-25 and delivery takes 1-2 days.  You’ll generally only ever see tourists trying to lug around big suitcases anywhere outside of a major city.

If you do you are much less likely to be subject to great amounts of ridicule and physical strain (if you happen to end up at a train station with a billion steps between you and the next platform or exit).

Know that Tokyo is getting more and more user friendly all the time and that most local trains and subway trains announce their stops in Japanese and English, but out in the country…fuhgeddaboutit!

Try and amass a decent number of hyakuendama – 100yen coins.  They are very, very useful.  If you don’t have any you can often buy a drink from one of the billions of conveniently located drink machines, but if you’re not careful you may end up with more drinks than you might actually want to have enough to stash stuff in a coin locker for the afternoon (also a very common thing to do).

Most phones take telephone cards, available through vending machines; often near banks of pay phones).  The cards feed directly into the phone (not the KDD world cards for international calls, those are scratch-off).  Otherwise you pay for calls in 10yen increments (if you want to be constantly feeding the phone) or hundred yen increments (if you don’t mind not getting change back).  Not all phones take 10yen coins, and a lot don’t take coins.  Phone cards come in a number of fun, seasonal designs and make life a lot simpler.

If you absolutely have to have a suitcase with you as you are traveling, try to make it a small rolling bag (larger bags often don’t fit through some wickets and even on some escalators).  There are a whole lot more escalators and elevators popping up everywhere as the population ages here, but there are still a lot of places where there can be up to 5-6 flights of a lot of stairs.

There’s no baggage check service on most trains.  The best place to stash a bag is in the rear of the car you’re in behind the last row of seats.  Make sure the height of your bag does not interfere with the recline of the chair.  Bags can usually also be left between cars if you place it flush against the wall away from the doors, but it’s not necessarily so advisable and if there’s already another bag there, you basically have to find another car…plus it seems more and more there are ‘no luggage’ signs popping up in those spaces.

Remember that not all public restrooms have toilet paper supplied (you sometimes have to buy it from a dispenser), and most don’t have paper towels (a lot more have hand dryers these days).  It’s also handy to carry around a small handkerchief or hand towel…and they’re available just about everywhere because most people do.

Otherwise…the bathrooms at the Sado Kisen ferry terminal in Niigata have been renovated and are in really decent condition.  The Sakura have peaked most everywhere else but they’re just hitting full bloom here in Kasuga.  It’s darn cold here, but good to be back.

I spent about $50 on not so many groceries for the next few days.  Life is good, though.  Life is good.