So a few weeks ago I posted and asked for some advice on food for my honeymoon in Japan. We currently have some time to kill on a train from Kyoto to Hakone so I thought I'd put together a little trip report so far.
First is transportation. The wife and I are both into credit card churning and have been planning/savings points for this trip. We were able to nab enough points through chase cards to fly first class round trip on Korean air for surcharges only. This came out to roughly $162/person. One of our cards also gives us a $300 travel credit so our round trip flights from NYC to Tokyo ran us a tidy $24. A week before we left I tried to buy the tickets just to see. Below is what the tickets would have cost us.
I’ll spare everyone the pics and commentary of the flight itself unless people are interested, but needless to say it was incredible. Everything was top notch, from the food to the service to the seats that recline into beds. I travel a ton for work and this was a completely different animal. I don’t know if i’ll be able to look at long distance air travel the same way again.
As far as transport in japan, there are a bunch of different methods. Taxis are all over Tokyo, like most major cities, but are INSANELY expensive. We did take a few, but it was for short trips. Something like a taxi from the airport to our hotel in Shinjuku would have run about $250. The taxis we did take were all super clean and all of the drivers were incredibly friendly and helpful. They seemed to be a bit more affordable in Kyoto, but that city doesn’t have the public transit infrastructure of Tokyo.
Instead, our main mode of transportation was subway. We opted to purchase JR passes which are essentially subway tickets with unlimited usability for the duration you purchase them for. They’re only available BEFORE you get to Japan though. JR has local subway type lines as well as Amtrak (although not as ****ty) type lines that go long distances via bullet trains. JR doesn’t operate all the trains, but they seemed to operate enough in Tokyo to get us anywhere we needed to go. I’ll be honest, as someone who lived in NYC for 3 years and used their subway and train system everyday, the Japanese blow that **** out of the water.
The first thing that stuck out at both of us is just the crazy order and politeness on all of these trains. Everyone waits for people to exit trains before hopping on, nobody pushes, there’s no loud music and everyone is quiet and respectful. No one asking for money or sleeping in the cars. Side note: I learned the hard way that there are women only cars on the train during certain hours. Nobody made a fuss or anything, but we realized this was the case after like 10 minutes of me being the only guy in the car. Here’s what literally every subway car in Tokyo looked like.
You’ll notice everything is ****ing SPOTLESS too. That was a recurring theme. The Japanese don’t seem to **** around when it comes to cleanliness or personal appearances. We saw very little if any graffiti in Tokyo and no litter. Which is crazy because they also don’t seem to have trash cans anywhere in public. People gave up seats for elderly and someone even saw my wife sitting and just got up and walked away so I could sit next to her no questions asked. No big deal, just got up and walked away. Didn’t even acknowledge me. The subway and JR maps are slightly intimidating, as you can see:
One cool thing we liked about the long distance trains is how all the stations sell these little bento lunch box meals for the trips. They range from sushi to noodles, to tonkatsu. Here’s a pic of one Mrs. Gorg enjoyed on the way from Tokyo to Kyoto.
We also took the bus one day from Tokyo to Tokyo Disney Sea. I wish I had some cool exciting stuff to share with you about that but it was pretty unremarkable. Clean and quiet, like everything else. We also bought unlimited day bus passes when we went to Nara. That ran us like $5 each and was easily worth it. They have a special line that seemed to be set up just for tourists that hits all the major spots.
Anyway, that’s what we’ve got so far for transportation. We had sushi breakfast in the fish market, spent a day at Tokyo Disney Sea, ate some incredible ramen and gyoza, visited and owl cafe where i got **** on, fed tame deer in Nara and even had a dinner at Jiro’s in Roppongi. We have a few quiet days at a traditional japanese ryokan and a baseball game in Tokyo still on the docket. I’ll be happy to keep updating or answer questions if there’s any interest. Thanks again for everyone’s help and recommendations.
Gorg.
Last edited by Gorgalosk; 05-18-2017 at 01:13 AM.
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