Maxi and Jens (Chap) - Japan November 2024
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Looks great @Chap and makes me excited for my wife and my trip there in April. How are you finding getting around? Must be good to be with your son and his knowledge of the language?
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@Nik said in Maxi and Jens (Chap) - Japan November 2024:
Looks great @Chap and makes me excited for my wife and my trip there in April. How are you finding getting around? Must be good to be with your son and his knowledge of the language?
Thanks @Nik getting around in Japan is quite easy. Public transport is fantastic you can get almost everywhere.
First thing you need is mobile Internet, you can get routers from provider at the arrival airport. Then you can use Google maps everywhere which also works perfect to plan your trip by trains and buses. Regarding payment for public transport, easiest thing is a payment app on your phone (Suica for example for Tokyo-Kantō, Kyoto and East Japan Railway) but doesn't work for the Shinkansen lines. Shinkansen tickets can be bought at the station. If you carry a lot of luggage with you and travel around, luggage transport can be very easily arranged (by hotels or agencies at airports and train stations, Yamato for example ).
What plans do have? Where are you going to? -
Dinner in a Sushi restaurant in Tokyo. Those small (Omakase) restaurants can be found everywhere in Japan although they are sometimes quite hard to find (no signs, no menu) and difficult to book. They are very small, often only a couple of counter seats. You need to book them in advance often months before and also have to pay in advance. You can't just call them and ask for a reservation (at least as a non local). If you are in a hotel you can ask the concierge to book or use a booking platform. We had some very good experiences with booking via Pocket Concierge and Omakase.in. No disappointment so far. I love to sit at the counter and watch the awesome skills and precision of the sushi masters.
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@Chap Thanks that's helpful. Someone told me Shinkansen are the same price in advance or on the day, is that true? We will get Suica. In the second half of April we are spending a few days in Tokyo, then a ryokan in Hakone, then Osaka and Kyoto before returning to Tokyo for a few days.
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@Nik Sorry, we never prepaid/prebooked Shinkansen so I don't know. We always came to the station looked when the next one in our direction goes and bought tickets. There are Shinkansen between Tokyo and Kyoto/Osaka every 10 to 30 min and there are three lines. The fastest (and most expensive, although not that huge difference) is the Nozomi line it has only a few stops between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka. A little bit more than 2 hours as far as I remember. There are three different categories, regular, Green Car and Gran Class.
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@Giles said in Maxi and Jens (Chap) - Japan November 2024:
No discounts on Shinkansens, but do try and book in advance, they sometimes get fearfully full. If you have large luggage try and book a seat with luggage space (end of a carriage).
Good advice!
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Fwiw, we've always booked shinkansen tickets in advance using the smart ex app. You link the ticket to your ic card, tap in the gate, and it spits out your ticket. You can buy and link multiple tickets so only one person in the group needs to do it. We have found ticket prices do vary slightly but not enough to buy wildly in advance. Usually getting them a few days in advance is plenty to get a seat unless it's golden week or something. But basically, if you know youll need a ticket, get one when you can.
We also discovered chatting to a couple from the UK that this app wasn't available to them in their app store. Neither of us understood why.
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@Chap Really great photos, thanks for taking us along.
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@Chap what an incredible trip. You must be incredibly proud of your son for his initiative to explore and immerse himself into a new culture and learn a new language. I’m curious, how did his Japanese skills develop over his time there? Was he able to open doors in your travels that may not have been possible for a non Japanese speaker?
Also, what a handsome kid. He’s clearly developed some sense of style from his old man and his time in Japan. Can you give any insight into these boots!!? They look very striking!!
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@Mister_Brue said in Maxi and Jens (Chap) - Japan November 2024:
@Chap Natto; not my favourite component of a Japanese breakfast, but I struggled through it.
Shinkansen journeys on the other hand, were never long enough.
I gave Nattō a couple of tries and we also have it at home but I agree, we won’t become friends…
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@Mizmazzle yes definitely. His Japanese is amazing, he can do conversations with the locals and he is also pretty good with the way how to behave in Japan, those little but very important ways how to interact with the Japanese. Both helped a lot during our trip.
His shoes have a Japanese background too, split toe (Tabi) boots from Maison Margiela, I had to Google them too: Tabi Bianchetto Boots
…and he has snatched my Fine Creek jacket
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Our next stop was a Buddhist temple near Kanagawa. Took us a while and a couple of train changes to get there but it was worth it. It is a tiny temple with only one resident monk (the first picture). We stayed there for two days and slept on tatamis in the temple. We had meditations with the monk, evening and morning prayers, did sutra copying and learned a bit about Buddhism and the philosophy of Zen in Japan. The temple had no bath or shower so we went to a public onsen in the area. Amazing experience as well... sorry no pics
.Couple of pictures from the temple.
Breakfast
Sutra copying
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In Kyoto we had a Machiya house for about a week. We were located in the northern part of Kyoto which has lovely quiet neighborhoods and is a bit less tourisitc. Machiya houses are Japan's traditional wooden townhouses that can be seen all over Kyoto. Some of them are renovated and turned into holiday homes, shops, cafes. Ours was owned by a young couple that put lots of effort into the renovation to make it as authentic as possible. It has the typical entrance called 'Genkan' where you leave your shoes while the rest of the house has 'Tatami' floors.
The owners lived just around the corner and were very helpful. The house does come with its own bicycles and Shimo, the owner has even made a Kindle with many suggestions for bike tours around Kyotos North.
