Trains and Railway Systems We Used in Japan - Japan 2015 2/7

One of the most complicated researches I've had to do was on the transportation we needed in Japan. I've always known that Japan has one of the most robust public transportation systems, but wanted to know more specifics so I know what I'm getting myself into.

As there are too many questions and too many possible options to list out, I will approach this post by writing about our experience somewhat chronologically.

Osaka Station

JR (Japan Rail) Pass
Foreigner visitors travelling to Japan may qualify to purchase these unlimited JR (mostly for Shinkansen) train ride passes, but note that you must purchase this outside of Japan as it is not available in Japan. Also, there are limitations, and this pass does not work on every single JR line. More details can be found here.

We purchased the 7 day pass for ¥29,110 each. To put that in perspective, a one way ticket from Shin Osaka to Shin Fuji is ¥11,860. Which means, we made 82% of our money back with that one trip alone. In the end, even after canceling our trip to Tokyo, we still took ¥56,950 worth of train/ferry rides.

You receive a voucher in the mail, which you'll need to activate and exchange for the actual JR Pass after arriving in Japan. Passports are required to activate the pass.

JR Pass

You can activate the JR Pass at various JR Pass activation offices, we activated ours at Osaka Station. To ride unreserved trains, simply show your JR Pass to the station staff when passing through the gates and they will let you in. To make a seat reservation, go to any JR ticket office and they will make the reservation for you at no charge.

We find it easier to find our desired train on Hyperdia first, then simply show them the train info when making the seat reservation. On Hyperdia, there is a search criteria where you can unselect Nozomi and Mizuho trains as JR Pass holders don't qualify for them.

Shinkansen

Nankai Airport Limited Express Rapi:t
There are various options to travel from Kansai airport to Osaka. As far as I know, the 2 main companies that provides railway services to and from Kansai airport are JR and Nankai.

Nankai Airport Limited Express Rapi:t

We were not planning on activating our JR Pass right away, and the Nankai options seemed really popular, so we went with that instead. The price varies depending on:

1. The types of trains you take: Local, Express, Super Express, Limited Express, Limited Express Rapi:t...etc.,
2. The direction you're headed to: Kobe, Kyoto, Nara, or Osaka...etc.,
3. The station you're headed to: For instance, for the Osaka direction there are Namba, Izumisano, Sakai...etc.
4. And if you combine it with any other tickets (such as the Osaka municipal subway day pass).

It's really a handful to digest. More information here.

Osaka Shuccho Kippu Ticket

We eventually decided on the Rapi:t ticket in combination with the Osaka municipal subway day pass for the following day (you have the choice to use the day pass for the day of or the next day). If you buy this type of ticket outside of Japan, it's called the "Yokoso" ticket. However, we were able to buy the equivalent at the Kansai airport called the "Osaka Shuccho Kippu" ticket. These tickets are ¥1,500 and can be purchased at the Nankai ticket office at Kansai airport.

Osaka Municipal Subway
The Osaka municipal subway contains 9 lines, certain stations also connects to private railways, JR lines or even Shikansen. Trains from other companies also run on these subway lines such as Hankyu, Keihan, Kintetsu, and the previously mentioned Nankai. There are also trams and monorails that connects to the Osaka railway network. This being said, I was concerned that I would need to buy separate tickets for the different companies. Luckily, that wasn't the case.

Sakaisuji Hommanchi Subway Station

Single tickets, round trip tickets, day passes, commuting passes, and all sort of other types of combination tickets can be purchased for the Osaka subway as well as railway systems in the other cities we visited. The easiest and fastest way, however, is to simply purchase an IC Card. According to japan-guide.com, the "10 major IC cards have become compatible with each other since Mar. 23, 2013". We purchased the Icoca card at the JR ticket office at Kansai airport, which is right next door to the Nankai ticket office.

The Icoca card is ¥2,000 with a ¥500 deposit (available balance is then ¥1,500). But since all of the trains/subways/buses that we took in all the cities we've been accepts these IC cards, and many convenient/grocery stores accept these IC cards for payment as well, we loaded them up with ¥10,000 right off the bat.

ICOCA Card

This may not have saved us any money, but it was extremely convenient and stress free. If we were to purchase Osaka subway day passes, they are ¥800 on weekdays and ¥600 on weekends. Single subway fares for us were usually ¥180 one way, and they range up to ¥370 depending on the distance.

Kyoto Subway & City Buses
There are only 2 subway lines in Kyoto, the Karasuma and Tozai line. However there are many other private railway lines as well as JR and Shinkansen that further supports the city. In our 5 occasions in Kyoto, we used a combination of the subway, JR, and city buses.

Kyoto has many buses and it was a lot easier to navigate than I thought. There are real time bus locations/times at most of the bus stops as well as all of their route maps including a full schedule. There are 3 express touring bus routes that goes to major tourist attractions (#100, 101, and 102), which we used to visit Kiomizu-dera and Kinkaku-ji. Multiple methods of payments are accepted, including cash, IC cards, and passes. The fare is ¥230 per trip, which is paid when you exit the bus. Day passes are ¥500 and can be purchase at stations or on the bus. We bought ours through our hotel.

Kyoto City Bus Day Pass

We also used our Icoca cards for subways, the fare ranges from ¥210 to ¥350 depending on the distance.

My personal preference between the bus and subway is the bus. The subway system, for some reason, really confused me, and doesn't get close enough to the location I want to get to. Whereas the buses are easy to find and gets us to our destination without needing to transfer.

For the days we had our JR Passes though, we used our JR Passes to get around via JR lines. We purposely chose Arashiyama and Fushimi Inari for these days as they are easily accessible via JR trains. It is used the same way as the Shinkansen, but because these are local unreserved trains, you simply show up at the gates and flash your JR Pass to go through.

Fuji Local Bus
We went to Fuji specifically for the Shibazakura Festival, which runs for about a month each year during May. During these times, a special express bus called the Shibazakura Liner is set up to run in addition to the local buses during weekends and holidays. This bus runs to the festival site (from Shin Fuji station) 3 times in the morning, and back to the station 3 times in the afternoon.

We wanted to take this liner bus but our first and foremost consideration was the weather. Apparently you need a very sunny day in order to see Mount Fuji, and the weather forecast, during the time we went shows a limited amount of sunny days. We ended up going on a Friday, and thus taking the regular local bus instead.

Fuji Local Bus

According to the online schedule, the local bus gets to the festival site just as fast (about 1 hour and 15 minutes) as the liner. At Shin Fuji station's bus terminal gate number 6, there's a ticket stand that sells a combo ticket of round trip bus rides plus Shibazakura Festival entrance ticket for ¥2,320. We took the 11:45 am bus there, and came back at 5:00 pm.

Hiroshima Streetcars (Hiroden) & the Miyajima Ferry
At first, just by looking at google map, I thought Hiroshima had a subway system. After arriving at Hiroshima though, I was having a hard to finding the entrance to the "subway", and that was because, they use streetcars instead. I have never really rode in streetcars before so it was super fun for me. These little 2 car trains run in the middle of the road, they are super cute and quite convenient. We used our Icoca card for it but many people used cash, and from what I've seen, the cash system seems to be a bit more complicated. The fare ranges from ¥160 to ¥260 depending on the distance. If using an IC card, tap once when you get on the train and again when you exit.

Hiroshima Streetcar (Hiroden)

Lines 2 and 6 will take you from Hiroshima station to the Atomic Bomb Dome, and line 2 will take you to Miyajima Guchi station. We took the streetcar to the Dome and Miyajima Guchi station, but took the JR train back from Miyajima Guchi station to Hiroshima station.

Our JR Pass covers the Miyajima Ferry, so we just used that to and from Miyajima. There are 2 ferry companies though, so make sure you go to the JR one. Both ferries are, however, the same price (¥180 one way), comes at the same frequency (every 15 minutes) and takes the same amount of time (10 minutes).

Kaiyu Ticket
There's an aquarium in Osaka, and according to Wikipedia it is one of the largest public aquariums in the world. They sell a ¥2,550 ticket that includes the entrance ticket to the aquarium and an Osaka subway day pass. These tickets can be purchased at any Osaka municipal subway station.

Kaiyu Ticket

To be continued...

Our Digs in Japan - Airbnb & More - Japan 2015 1/7

Plane tickets and accommodations are usually the 2 major expenses when travelling abroad. For us, there are few variations in plane ticket prices as we usually go for the cheapest while more direct routes, but when it comes to accommodations, there is an entire spectrum of options, each with its own pros and cons.

I usually evaluate our accommodation by balancing the following criteria:

1. Location
Definitely one of the most important considerations when choosing a place to stay. We were going to a foreign country, somewhere we've never been before. Without knowing how things worked, we wanted to stay somewhere close to either train stations or amenities. Also, we usually prefer inner city locations compared to the burbs (unless we have drivers like in Seminyak, Bali).

2. Price Range
We were no longer poor students, but we also don't like spending too much money on accommodations as we'll be out and about most of the time. So we always look for cheap(er) places ($50-100), at least for a portion of our trip. For our Indonesia trip, we stayed at a $60 place for 1 night, a $45 place for 3, an $85 place for 5, and a $150 place for 3 nights.

3. Fanciness a.k.a. Cleanliness & Comfort
We needed somewhere we could feel comfortable, somewhere that we could feel at home. The amount of space wasn't as important as having a kitchen or, ideally, a washer/dryer (or cheap laundromats near by). The accommodation has to be clean though, definitely no mold or stinky smells. We usually judge  by looking at the pictures and following our gut feeling. I sometimes even feel like I can sense how comfortable the bed is by just looking at it.

4. Novelty or Extraordinary Purpose
I usually try to book at least a couple nights at a fancier or "special" accommodation. For our Indonesia trip, it was the fancy villa in Seminyak, for our Japan trip, I looked for opportunities to stay at a traditional Japanese hotel/house.

5. Reviews / the Host
Reviews are particularly important when it comes to aspects that pictures and numbers can't convey. Nuances that you may not have thought of, or service levels that may make or break your experience can be determined by tirelessly reading other people's reviews. I'm also an avid reviewer online as I believe that by providing honest reviews, people will be able to make better choices and set more accurate expectations.

To be able to make the right selection with the perfect balance of the above criteria, you need to understand "the market" as well. This is the background you need to know in order to understand your options and thus choose the optimal balance from the above criteria.

The Market for our Japan 2015 Trip:

A. The Destination - Japan
After researching accommodations in Japan, I quickly sensed that the price range for this country is drastically different than of Indonesia. In Indonesia, there is an extremely wide price range of accommodations, and there is an abundance of extremely cheap (but still fancy) hotels. I've once stayed at a "hostel" for $48/night. It was just as nice as any other hotels I've ever stayed in. I had my own 200 sq. ft. room, a queen size bed, an outdoor shower, and the hostel had a pool and free breakfast. The shared dorm room (with 6 people) there was only $12/night.

In Japan, however, I'm noticing that what I deem to be "comfortable" is usually more than $150/night. Hotels in Japan are also often suited with single beds and have barely any walking space. Even hostels or capsule hotels, where you literally only get the entirety of one bed, are more than $40/night. This adjusted my expectations immensely.

Also, I understood quickly that size is a relative concept. Space is extremely limited and to get an apartment that's around 300 sq. ft. would probably be as "big" as we could afford.

B. Timing - The Golden Week
We booked our ticket not knowing that it overlapped with one of Japan's longest holidays. It is called "the Golden Week" as there are 3 national holidays scheduled back to back and often makes for an entire week long vacation. We arrived the first of the 5 day holiday, and that means many of the accommodations were sold out (even when I looked 4 months in advance). Our options were quickly limited and at one point, we even considered staying separately at hostels, at capsule hotels, at manga cafes, or simply being homeless.


After some very tedious research and endless browsing, the following were the places we ended up staying at during our trip. We had a total of 16 nights, 15 of them were booked through Airbnb for an apartment in Osaka, and the 16th, our first night, were booked through booking.com. We also booked an extra night in Kyoto to stay in a traditional "Ryokan" (Japanese style hotel) so we could experience what it's like sleeping in traditional futons on the tatami.

Our Osaka Apartment - through Airbnb (15 nights; $64/night)

After getting the picture of how expensive hotels can be, we looked at Airbnb for alternative accommodations. We've used Airbnb many times and it's always been pleasant for us. They are cheaper alternatives, and also have apartment options, which are better suited for longer duration stays. One day in November, a week after we booked out flight, we found what seemed to be an unbelievably good deal in Osaka and soon decided to book it for the entire duration of our stay. The advantage of doing this is that you get a "home base", and not have to worry about packing/unpacking too many times. Even if you decide to book other accommodations on top of this one, you always have a place to store the majority of your things.

This Osaka apartment was 5 minute walk from the nearest train station, 2 stops away from the entertainment central of Osaka, and 15 minute walk from Osaka Castle. It had 2 double beds, a table, portable wifi, air conditioning / heating, a kitchen, fridge, microwave, toaster oven, full bath, a washer/dryer, and even 2 free bikes we were allowed to use. It looked newly renovated and really well kept. The host was communicative and works for a larger vacation rental company. We booked this within 1 day of finding it.

With this exceptionally amazing price we got, we were open to booking other accommodations on top of this if needed. This Osaka apartment was also only available for 15 out of the 16 nights we were there, and meant that we had to look for another accommodation for our first night in town.

City Plaza Osaka - Hotel through booking.com (1 night; $280)

May 2nd was the night we didn't have a place to stay. I found this hotel right across the street from our apartment and it looked really nice. The price was a bit high but if it was only for one night, convenience might outweigh the price.

Our flight, at one point, changed and we were going to arrive at 9pm. We had actually decided to stay overnight at the airport but wanted to keep out reservation until our last allowed cancellation date. That turned out to be a life saver. During the time we decided to stay overnight at the airport, we looked at alternative options. This is when I dug into capsule hotels, hostels, and other "crappier" options. We thought that since we weren't going to be able to enjoy our hotel much, and would only be using a place to crash for the night, we would try to save some money. But being the Golden Week and a Saturday night, I literally could not find any other viable options. 4 days before I was going to cancel our hotel reservation, our flight changed back to arriving at 3pm, so we just went ahead with our original plan.

City Plaza was amazing!

In Japan, you are able to book single beds, double beds, or 2 single/double beds (called twin). To be honest each hotel seemed to call things differently, and it was a bit difficult to tell just how big the room or the bed was. City Plaza had these twin rooms that were slightly more expensive than the double, and the rooms looked a lot bigger, so I booked that. When we arrived, it took us less than 5 minutes to check in. We had requested a higher floor, and got the 11th (out of 14) floor. I actually think we got the top floor because the very top few floors were amenities like restaurants, gym, pool, and spas anyway. Our room was approximately 300 sq. ft., it had a small living area with couches and a coffee table, a desk, a change room where the sink is and a full bath. It had 2 very comfortable double beds and the water pressure was blissful. We were really glad we kept our reservation.

Kyoto Ryokan "Sanjojuku" - through Airbnb (1 night; $169)

Keith had never stayed in a tatami room, whereas I've always had a tatami in my bedroom growing up. I remember the fresh straw smell and how great it felt, and really wanted Keith to experience what it's like sleeping on a tatami. I also thought it would be cool for us to experience a traditional Japanese ryokan (hotel) so I booked us a place in Kyoto for one night.

I booked it on Airbnb when I first saw it and realized it was one of the best deals I've seen. I paid in full, only to later discover that it was listed a lot cheaper on Expedia.ca. In addition, the host on Airbnb omitted to mention that there are 2 sister hotels and gave us the wrong address. This caused some extra walking at the end of a very tiring day, and the amazing bath tub and garden was not at the hotel we were assigned to. The hotel staff was ok though, and the room was fairly accurately represented. The place is a century old hotel with only 3 guest rooms, there were 3 shared bathrooms downstairs and one shower room.

In the end, all the accommodations we picked out treated us very well. We loved the experience of staying at a traditional Japanese house, the luxury and comfort of a fancy hotel, and definitely, most memorably, the warmth and hospitality of our home away from home in Osaka.

To be continued...