Added: Pics on Page 2 - So i'm going to Japan...in 2 weeks

[Bertuzzied]

how much money did you spend on accomdations? what was the most you spent on the trip for a hostel/hotel?

OH and how much was the rail pass? was it really $450?

[worth]

Hostels usually ran about $25-$35 per night.
Ryokan ran about $40-$55, but this is based off of one person. If you have 2 or 4 people, you need to multiply it out.

I probably spent no more than $500 for sleeping the whole trip.

JR Pass for unlimited travel for 14 days was $523 or something like that, yes. And it is totally worth every penny. It was awesome.

[starseed]

Great pics! Sounds like you had a blast. I will certainly do something like this in a couple years.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by 4X4

LOL! No upper deckers....

Ha ha... thats funny but true. Five years ago I used to work for a company that had a lot of Vietnamese working for them in the fab shop. The toilet seats, in the washroom, would get busted all the time because they were standing on them while trying to have a dump.

I first learned about this when I saw signs in the Men's Washroom saying : Please Do Not Stand on the Toilet Seats.

I had to ask why this was a problem? It was explained to me.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by worth

Ok i'm finally off my lazy butt to bring you pictures from my trip to Japan. (Which was awesome by the way and i'm glad I went)

Typical dorm style room in the hostels in Japan. This was in Tokyo.

Just curious.... how long is the typical bed in Tokyo? Can someone 6ft tall sleep comfortably in one without having to curl up?

[Ozy_Flame]

Wow only $500 for two weeks? Mine was like $760 for three weeks...It was defintiely worth it though as it IS the Japanese train system after all. No human should ever die without cross the country of Japan on a bullet train. EVER.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by Rerun

Just curious.... how long is the typical bed in Tokyo? Can someone 6ft tall sleep comfortably in one without having to curl up?

NO!! I had this very problem when I was in Japan. No hostel bed is ever long enough to sleep comfortably.

Any taller than six feet, and you best stretch out on the floor. I'm dead serious.

[WesternCanadaKing]

Hahahaha, this made me laugh pretty hard, because I saw the same thing in a Hong Kong vending machine a couple months ago and took a picture of it too. What a ridiculous name for water.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by worth

Every toilet has about 20 buttons, and it took me a while to figure out what most of them do.
Features include:
Seat warmer
Bidet with multiple pressure modes
Air purifyer and deoderizer
15 CFM Fan for dispensing deoderizer
and much much more!

Are you sure that's not Nintendo's hot new accessory - the Wii$h1t?

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by WesternCanadaKing

Hahahaha, this made me laugh pretty hard, because I saw the same thing in a Hong Kong vending machine a couple months ago and took a picture of it too. What a ridiculous name for water.

It's not water though. It's asian gatorade.

[Rerun]

Originally Posted by WesternCanadaKing

Hahahaha, this made me laugh pretty hard, because I saw the same thing in a Hong Kong vending machine a couple months ago and took a picture of it too. What a ridiculous name for water.

What's a Pocari?

Obviously its something that produces an enormous amount of sweat if they are able to bottle and sell it. Do you drink it or just rub it all over yourself?... like some kind of aphrodesiac?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by fotze

Why is a train awesome, the speed part, the efficiency?

I think I want to go to Japan just for the food and people, never been interestied in castles and landmarks so much.

There's pretty much two types of food you'll find in Japan... the fancy stuff (which IMHO isn't very nice) and stuff that is pretty much the same as any Japanese restaurant in Calgary. The food we have here is pretty authentic.

The JR pass is awesome because it's an efficient way to see a lot of the country in a short period of time, and because it pretty much pays for itself with one round trip on a bullet train per week.

[worth]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

NO!! I had this very problem when I was in Japan. No hostel bed is ever long enough to sleep comfortably.

Any taller than six feet, and you best stretch out on the floor. I'm dead serious.

Yeah, taller than 6 foot and you might have a prob. I'm 5'8" so I was ok.

On pocari sweat:

The reference to the bodily fluid resulting from perspiration in the name of the beverage tends to have a certain offputting or humorous connotation for native English speakers. However, the name was chosen by the manufacturers originally for the purpose of marketing the product as a sports drink in Japan, where people generally do not mentally translate names appearing in English and are therefore not bothered by the connotation. It was largely derived from the notion of what it is intended to supply to the drinker: all of the nutrients and electrolytes lost when sweating.
The first part of the name, Pocari, is from the word ぽっかり [pokkari], which is a mimetic -と adverb glossed as 'lightly' (e.g. 雲が空にぽっかりと浮かんでいた, "a cloud floated across the sky"). [2]

Aquarius in Japan was pretty good too.

The trains are awesome basically because you can show up at any time of the day, say I need to go here and have a train show up to take you there in less than 20 minutes usually and you'll get there within a few hours.

They're efficient, always on time and there are plenty of them that if you miss one, the next one isn't that far away, even the shinkansens, which I did once in Osaka, they're clean, they're fast, they're just plain awesome.

[Jing]

Hey guys, hoping you can help me out with the transit part.

I will be in Tokyo for 7 nights and Osaka for 6 nights. I will be taking the train from Tokyo to Osaka (but not the other way around as I have a connecting flight from Osaka to Tokyo back to Canada). Would it be worth it to buy a JR pass? I plan on doing some day trips, such as Kyoto, maybe Hiroshima, and probably one of Nikko or Hakone.

Any other travel advice would be greatly appreciated!

[BaldyAuldy]

Originally Posted by Jing

Hey guys, hoping you can help me out with the transit part.

I will be in Tokyo for 7 nights and Osaka for 6 nights. I will be taking the train from Tokyo to Osaka (but not the other way around as I have a connecting flight from Osaka to Tokyo back to Canada). Would it be worth it to buy a JR pass? I plan on doing some day trips, such as Kyoto, maybe Hiroshima, and probably one of Nikko or Hakone.

Any other travel advice would be greatly appreciated!

For the week you are in Tokyo, don't get it.
All those day trips you mentioned you will do from Osaka so once you go to leave Tokyo, redeem your 1 week pass and then go nuts.
Hiroshima was sweet by the way.
Any more questions, pm me.
I just got back from a 3 week vacay there

[TylerSVT]

MMMM Pocari Sweat. Reminds me of after-soju drinking in Korea.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by worth

JR Pass for unlimited travel for 14 days was $523 or something like that, yes.

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Wow only $500 for two weeks? Mine was like $760 for three weeks...It was defintiely worth it though as it IS the Japanese train system after all. No human should ever die without cross the country of Japan on a bullet train. EVER.

May want to bone up on your math there, Ozy.

523/2 = $261.50/week

261.50 x 3 = $784.50

[Jing]

Any other suggestions for places to go to for good food?

Can you only get fresh sushi/sashima at the Tsukiji fish market early in the morning? Or can you go later?

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by Jing

Any other suggestions for places to go to for good food?

Can you only get fresh sushi/sashima at the Tsukiji fish market early in the morning? Or can you go later?

Nope. you can go later at nite too. We didn't get there until 7-8pm. There are alot of restaurants around there.

[Muta]

Originally Posted by Jing

Any other suggestions for places to go to for good food?

Can you only get fresh sushi/sashima at the Tsukiji fish market early in the morning? Or can you go later?

Try and go in the morning (like, REALLY early), as most places at Tsukiji use fish caught only hours before they end up in the restaurants. Still, as Bertuzzied said, you can go later at night as well, and really... it's still ridiculously fresh.

Gawd... I miss that market. Now I want to go back again. You're one lucky dude to be doing that trip.