The last post was supposed to be tips and tricks but it developed into my moaning about school children again, so here’s a list, in no particular order:

1. Use baggage forwarding (“Takkyubin”), if you can. I used it from Kyoto to Osaka and took a smaller bag with me to Hiroshima. If you plan on spending a short amount of time somewhere and can get by with a smaller bag, it’s a cheap indispensable service that most hotels can hook you up with. If I was doing this same trip again, I would have done Osaka – Kyoto – Hiroshima – Tokyo, so that I could send baggage from Narita airport directly to Kyoto and then Kyoto directly to Tokyo. Sending back to Narita is also an option, I noticed that the baggage desks in departures were right beside where you check in for British Airways flights, so if they’re your carrier of choice, that might be handy. Lugging baggage up and down escalators (or worse, stairs) as you will do at most train stations gets real old, real fast.

2. Get a rail timetable. I noted the general times of trains I wanted to take but that fell pretty quickly by the wayside, so this proved pretty useful. If you’ve got a Rail pass (see next tip), and you’re reserving seats, the ticket guy will always put you on the next train out unless you have a preference, but it’s still handy to know whether you can spend another 20mins looking at this particular shrine or whether you need to move your ass.

3. Get a JR Pass (I used Access Japan, ymmv). All the forums state that if you do a return trip Tokyo – Kyoto – Tokyo within a set period, then a JR Pass for that period will pay itself off. You can get a 7-, 14- or 21- day pass. So if you go from Tokyo to Kyoto on the shinkansen and then return within 7 days, even if you do no other travel, a 7-day pass will pay off. Always reserve seats when you have a JR Pass, it makes no sense not to, even if there’s a large queue. I encountered only 1 queue that made me miss a scheduled train while I was over there, and the trains run so regularly, it just gave me an extra 20mins to bum around the basement food hall.

4. I listed out all the train reservations, by date and time, as part of my AnalFest 09 (which sounds a lot ruder than I intended), but the nice lady at the JR ticket office in Narita where I got my JR Pass, took one look at it and said ‘no’. There wasn’t much of a queue behind me so I’m not sure if she just didn’t feel like doing it or what (as the first Japanese person I met, it was a bit of a shock, but things got a lot better after that). So I wouldn’t call this necessary, but have an idea of what trains you can take and when, especially if you’ve got the JR Pass as you’re limited to non-Nozomi shinkansen which can add time and train changes to your schedule.

5. Take guided tours. I only took 2 and while I much preferred my own company and timetable, these proved invaluable in seeing parts of Japan I never would have seen on my own. If you can get a knowledgeable tour guide aswell, you’re quids in. I’d probably use Japan Grey Line next time for a Tokyo tour, and I’m sure there are equally good companies in all the major cities (I remember a kiosk advertising tourist busses just outside Kyoto station, but never investigated further). A bit of research may be required and I’m not sure I could do a full day tour, but I think it would prove useful and most of all interesting.

6. Japan doesn’t require a deposit or a tip. I still can’t believe that all of my hotel bookings were honoured, I had suspicions that at least one would suddenly get a large tour booking and dump my reservation. This was because I hadn’t guaranteed any of the rooms with a credit card like I normally do. In fact, 2 of the bookings were made over email to all intents and purposes and so I couldn’t even be sure I’d gone into their system. As for tipping, get into the mindset as quickly as possible, the Japanese people I encountered seem to enjoy their actual job, rather than doing it for the tips etc.

7. Go to the Tokyo Tourist Information in the Tocho buildings in Shinjuku, as soon as you land in Tokyo. Do not pass go, do not collect 200, go directly there. It has a wealth of information on each area of Tokyo broken down by cultural experience (museums, etc). For me, doing this on day 1 would have been a bit dodgy as I need to have every day pretty well planned out, but there was quite a few leaflets here for places I hadn’t been to and would have been fairly interested in, so I missed out somewhat there.

8. Plan out each day, particularly if it’s a day trip. I spent a lot of time on trains and because of the whole rush hour thing, my days were fairly concentrated in the 10am to 5pm period. Put a 2 hour train ride there and again back into the mix, and you have a limited amount of time at any destination. This also goes for days when you’re just messing around, shops open at 11, shrines and museums close at 5 (for the most part). If you know ahead of time where to go, and how long you’re going to need, it will give you a pretty good chance of catching all the big hitters in terms of sights.

9. Don’t be like me and forget that it’s not just the walking to the museum you have to take into account, but also the walking AROUND the museum. Some museums have lockers for your bags and some have an abundance of seating for the clincially lazy like me (the Tokyo National Museum had actual rooms full of chairs and comfy looking couches, there were 3 or 4 of them dotted around the main exhibit hall, such that you passed them as you moved through the gallery.)

10. Yamanote line trains and certainly the shinkansen I took have bi-lingual station announcements. Other trains don’t, although all have a map showing the stations, etc. If you know the Kanji for the station you’re heading for, you can’t get lost. And if you do get lost, just hop off and get on a train going in the opposite direction like what I did. Twice.

11. The audio guides available in museums and suchlike are essential. Always ask if there’s one, it may be fairly crap (as in the Edo-Tokyo museum) or it may be brilliant (the Osaka Museum of History), but it never hurts to ask.

12. See Miyajima, specifically the Itsukushima Torii, at something approximating high tide. Climb to the town of Misen mountain, but don’t bother climbing back down again, unless you really like rocky steps and perspiring.

13. Hiroshima is awesome, stay there.

14. Buy an umbrella. Nearly every convenience store I went into (Lawson’s, Family Mart, etc) had cheap umbrellas by the door, so don’t spend more than about 500 yen for one. It may not last the day if you go during typhoon season, but it’s only 500 yen, you cheap sob.

15. Wear shoes that you can slip on or off quite easily. My multi-holed boots were a curse, particularly on that 1 day in Kyoto when I was taking them off, putting them on, every few minutes. You will need to take off your shoes in most temples and certainly in ones classed as Cultural Treasures or whatever. Also, clean socks, as you’ll spend a lot of time walking around in them.

16. Unless you know Japanese pretty well, don’t bother trying to learn key phrases, as once you start with the lingo, the Japanese will assume that you are fluent and reel off a long and unintelligible (to my ears) response to your question. Keep it simple, directions and times are the easiest, stuff that be pointed at or gestured.

17. Bring cash. I brought enough cash (just about) to last me the 3 weeks and so I didn’t even notice the proliferation of ATMs. I know there was one directly outside my Shinagawa hotel as there was a large queue there every morning (it was 50% foreigners aswell, so obviously a gaijin-friendly ATM). However, if you can swing it, bringing all your cash with you will work out cheaper in the long run. I also noticed that I had to ask in most stores if they took credit cards, rather than the usual Irish case of assuming they do. Most places did, the larger the store, the better the chance of them accepting it.

18. On the cash front, 1-yen and 5-yen coins are useless, get rid of them as you get them. 10-yen coins are vital, most vending machine drinks cost between 110 yen and 150 yen, so having a load of 10-yen coins will make things easier. They do give out change though. Note that no vending machine I came across accepted any coin less than 10-yen.

19. Get a Kansai Surutto card for Kyoto and Osaka, and a Suica card for Tokyo. They don’t save you any money, but will save you plenty of time. The Surutto card goes into the automatic gates and your balance is printed out on the card as you complete each journey. The Suica card is ‘shown’ to the gate and it displays the balance as you go through. On top of that, I took one journey in Tokyo (on the Tocho tour) where I had a standard ticket (bought and paid for by the tour guide) and naturally managed to lose it somewhere between the gate and the platform. So if you’re a careless cretin like me, a card that slides neatly into your wallet is much harder to lose.

20. Bring your passport everywhere. You need it when you’re using your Rail Pass, but only one guy looked at the actual passport in the 2 weeks I was using the pass. You need it when you’re out and about in case you’re stopped by the police and asked for identification, but this didn’t happen to me at all. And you need it when getting duty free shopping, but bear in mind that you have a strict limit of how many duty free products you can bring back (based on value), and claiming the duty back automatically puts you ‘on the grid’ so to speak. I always find it easier to forgo the duty free and not raise any flags. So don’t bring your passport everywhere. Or do, I don’t care.

21. Department stores were a disappointment for me. They were all filled with brand labels and stuff I can get in my local “mall” for less money. Of course, depato’s are not for tourists, they’re for the Japanese, so this is all understandable, but if you’re looking for Japanese clothing, don’t bother with the department stores.

22. Bring maps. Lots and lots of maps. And not just of Japan. Actually, my maps were kept in my bag most of the time, as I always managed to find a noticeboard that showed me “you are here” and nearby attractions. If you get truly lost, then having a small map on hand to try and get someone to tell you exactly where you are could prove helpful.

23. Trains run on time, to the second. I found that a lot of shinkansen arrive at the platform a few minutes before their scheduled departure time but will leave on time. Metros and subways simply arrive, chuck people off, let people on, and go. Local trains are a bit more random.

24. Bring an adapter for your electronic goods, but unless you’re bringing some heavy duty electronics, a convertor is probably unnecessary. My camera, ipod and netbook all coped equally well with the different voltage.

25. Train departure boards are usually bi-lingual but it helps to know the final destination of your train, if it’s not the place you’re headed for.

26. Train station platforms all show where to queue – if it’s a shinkansen platform, it will also usually tell you where to stand so that your car stops directly in front of you. At some stations, for example, Shin-Kobe the amount of information on the platform can be confusing, as it deals with so many shinkansen, but if I can figure it out, anyone can.

27. Build some rest days into your itinerary. You will be doing a lot of walking in Japan, so unless you’re super-fit, a day of just kicking around the local area would be handy. I used 2 days as rest days, one when going from Kyoto to Hiroshima and one when going from Osaka to Tokyo. On both these days, all I really did was get up, pack, check out, travel, check in… and relax.

28. You cannot avoid the school child, so the sooner you get used to them, the better.

29. Try the fish. I didn’t, I can’t stand sushi, but I’m picky like that. Basically, eat as much local grub as you can, and forget about McDonalds. (Although I did find out from my tour guide that the Japanese call it ‘mah cuh doh nah ruh doh’, which is quite possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever seen associated with McDonald’s. Except perhaps Mayor McCheese.)

30. Enjoy it. Japan is a great country with an interesting and varied past and a cultured history. It is by far the most interesting country I’ve ever been to and I will go back some day.

Looking at my packing list there are some things that I could not have done without and some that were just extra baggage on my trip. Here are some tips and pointers that are probably on every other travel blog you’ve ever read, so it’s really just for me, so I know where to find it.

1. I never used my nice windproof waterproof jacket. Oh, I took it everywhere, rolled up and attached to my rucksack (see below) but taking pictures meant the camera would get soaked, so it was a lot easier just to buy a 500 yen umbrella that would keep everything dry. That umbrella was deposited in the umbrella bins outside the Shinagawa Prince if anybody wants a free one.

2. My shoulder bag was a roaring failure, I had to shell out for a rucksack within a week of getting there – I had used the bag on “practice walks” around about before taking off, but I guess that they weren’t long enough – the rucksack was ideal and actually carried more than the shoulder bag. I thought I’d blend in more with the shoulder bag, being all cool and hipstery, but it turns out that no matter what I do, I will never blend in, in Japan.

3. My wash every night clothing was some good, some bad. The two zippy ones took several days to dry each time, and even the socks weren’t fully dry the morning after laundry night. Everything else worked perfectly well, and still smelled fairly fresh after 3 weeks of covering my sweaty body.

4. The walking shoes did give me a small blister (it’s gone now, thanks for asking), but I stopped tying them so tightly after that day, and the problem ceased. I had also brought a pair of runners, but they just took up room in my suitcase going and coming back.

5. I brought a 4 way plug splitter and while there was occasions when I wanted to plug in my iPod and my laptop, it never really became that important. I could have done without this, basically, but it depends on your needs. The adapter was vital. It’s the one thing I tripled checked before leaving the house at the beginning.

6. The travel pillow went unused. All the hotels were top notch with an abundance of warm fluffy pillows. I tried breaking it out on the plane ride out, but with the seat pitch at about 4 degrees, I just ended up falling forward each time. It came in handy when I needed padding for breakable souvenirs coming back though.

7. My itinerary was absolutely vital. While I didn’t do everything on the list (on any day), it did give me options. It also meant that I could see things in a doable order rather than finding myself 6 miles in the wrong direction from my next must-see sight.
Using hyperdia to look up train times, prices and when available, platform information and making a note of all that beforehand on my itinerary was also a smart decision. Go me.

8. I never once used my compass – wait, I lie, I used it once when I landed in Osaka Minami and couldn’t work out which direction I was facing – I knew which direction I wanted to go in, but that was no good. My compass told me north was in 2 distinct directions depending on how I held it, so I gave up and asked a local policeman.

9. My noise cancelling headphones came in handy for the airplane and once I’d gotten more familiar with the subways, but I did end up buying a cheap pair in Bic Camera in Kyoto which are as good as anything I’ve ever used before – they cost like a tenner and sound brilliant.

10. The travel towel was indispensable. Let’s just say that walking a lot + sunshine + drinking several litres of water = ?

11. My iPod. Oh my. I didn’t think it was possible, but I’m more in love with this thing than ever. I loaded up 4 series of a certain American sitcom on it before leaving, and would watch a couple of eps each night back at my hotel. Add to that some classic rock, a surfeit of podcasts and some rinky dink games, and you have the greatest gadget I own. Whenever I was feeling a little overwhelmed with the whole thing, I just broke it out, and was able to relax.

So what did I learn? I learned that I like to plan sh*t, and can relax and enjoy myself when I know what I’m doing or where I’m headed. I learned that I dislike crowds, raw fish and airports. I learned that cyclists, school children and people with umbrellas annoy me. I learned that it’s easier to mime a train than to work out how to say ‘excuse me, my good fellow, from which platform does the 0807 to Shinagawa depart?’ I learned that I really like Japan, but need to get out of the cities to experience it more. I learned that I really love to travel, and I really need to see more of this world. Before it implodes.

I woke up this morning and quickly realised I was no longer in Japan. I’m that sharp. It took me a few moments, but the lack of hotel corners on my bed combined with the feeling that I was only on the second floor of a building soon led me to understand I was home in my own bed.

I miss Japan.

Actually, to be perfectly honest, I miss travel. Now that I’ve seen a bit of the world, I want to see it all. I have a few more trips planned over the next few years and at some point, I will return to Japan. I want to experience life outside of the big cities, I want to get lost in a weird place where nobody speaks even vaguely passable English and find my way to where I need to go.

I brought back copious amounts of text books for 4 year olds, and I also bought a Japanese-English translator (her name is Wing, say hi) and I’m going to make a concerted effort to learn the language so that next time, I won’t be stuck trying to mime a cow to a nonplussed barman (I was asking from what animal the meat I was eating came. Sheep are notoriously difficult to mime. I never did find out what the meat was, but I suspect horse).

I never felt totally at ease in Japan, though having the solid 6 month in the making plan was a weight off my mind – I’ve always felt more at ease when I speak a little of the lingo. It was the first place I’ve ever been to where reading a sign, I literally had no idea what it was saying. Any European country I’ve been to, I could make a vague translation of it based on my knowledge of French, German and English, but those crazy Japanese have their own alphabet and everything. It’s so cute. Even if I could read it, I still wouldn’t know what it meant. “li something something n?”

So I’m going to learn to read and speak Japanese and then I’m going to go back and do all the stuff that the locals do, like read a newspaper on the subway and stay in a ryokan in the middle of nowhere and dip my naked ass into an onsen halfway up a mountain and rent a car without GPS and bargain with toothless old crones for rice and noodles on the side of a deserted expressway. I’m going to revisit Hiroshima and the general area. I’m going to go to Nagasaki and Takayama and Nagoya. I’m going to hop over to Okinawa and Hokkaido (the southernmost island and the northernmost island). I’m going to see the cherry blossoms and/or the autumn colours. I’m going to see Fuji, I might even climb it. I’m not going to eat octopus balls again.