Went to Japan for 10 days in '07. Got the mid-level rail pass (there are 3 speed levels....middle is best bang for your buck) Hotels are a rip off and many of them have a curfew....if you are out past the curfew then you will be locked out for the night. We stayed in Media Cafes. There is a huge one called Popeyes in every city that will rent you a little cubicle with a padded floor and a couch and tv. 12 hrs is like 30 bucks and the place is technically a massive library so everyone is deadly silent. These media cafes have little snack shops and a shower that you can rent for an hour. We found one in every city...Fukoka, Hiroshima, Osaka, Kobe, Tokyo and Kyoto. I highly recommend stopping in Kobe for an authentic Kobe steak.....we stopped twice. Don't worry too much about the language barrier...everyone is pretty nice and like to help out a person who is lost....avoid Tokyo at all costs if you can....the place is a maze and nothing really too special...good for people watching tho. Kyoto, Kobe and Osaka were our favs. The hardest part to deal with is ordering food.....many menus are just a bunch of Japanese writing with no pics so we stuck to the street-side izakaya's and just ordered what other people were having. Hope this helps...PM me if you have any more questions.
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