24 Things You Need to Know Before Traveling to Japan 2024 🇯🇵

so you want to go to Japan and maybe you're going this year next year or you hope to go someday here are 24 things you need to know as a first-time traveler to Japan as someone who's gone twice this year and in April it was my first time going and there were so many things I was blown away by number one there are two Japanese Airlines there's Japan air and Anna air I have gone on both and their service is amazing and you will have Japanese food on your flight I am from Los Angeles and there are domestic airlines that will fly to Japan but the airplanes are a lot smaller so it's up to you on what kind of experience you want to have getting to Japan if you want to be on a bigger plane you want to opt for the Asian airlines but I definitely recommend going on Japan air or Anna air number two from La it's actually a 12-hour flight to Japan and then a 10-hour flight on the way back so I always opt for a more comfortable experience on the way there but then on the way back I don't know if it's because of the Winds but you always cut so much time the Asian air Airlines do give you headphones for free to plug into the screen but I always like to have my airpods around so I was trying to look for options of how can I make this work and you need this so this is from me audio but basically how it works is you plug it into the headphone jack of the inflite entertainment screen and then through Bluetooth it's going to connect to your airpods or whatever earphones you have but the beauty of it is that you can actually pair two so my husband and I can be listening to the same exact movie Bluetooth Toth operated and it just goes straight into the entertainment system literally on any flight doesn't even have to be a long flight so I'll leave a link below if you want to check that out too number three Hana and Narita are the two major airports in Tokyo which a lot of people fly into internationally but in terms of which one if you can I highly recommend flying into Hana instead of Narita because Narita is literally so far away and I found that when I was comparing airline ticket prices a lot of them are comparable so if you can fly into Han definitely do so let's talk about Transportation cards so I have a sua card but they also have pmo cards in Japan right now if you don't already have a physical sua card you can't get one because there is a chip shortage and they're not sure when they'll be able to bring these back but never fear you can actually download a digital sua card and I've seen a lot of locals using that and a lot of tourists are now moving towards just downloading it on their phone phone and then you can reload using Apple pay my friend did it in like 5 seconds but there is a catch you cannot use Visa for reloading the cards you must use a Mastercard or American Express I'm not sure what it is about Japan and Visa but a lot of the times Visa does not work on the public transportation cards or ticketing machine there was one time where we were trying to buy a train ticket and I was using my Visa card it was not working and I didn't know that it has to be Mastercard or American Express so we ended up using cash so I I like to always have emergency cash on hand in case there's a situation where it does not take card but again Master Card American Express or cash number five let's talk about location and one of the most important questions people ask is where should I stay in Japan if you like these tips so far please hit the Subscribe button and join the family of course it depends what you plan on doing but I always like to pin all the things that I want to do and wherever I have a huge cluster that's where I like to stay because that's just going to save me more time but in terms of the districts or the regions in Japan if you want to stay in the hustle and bustle of course it's Tokyo and I like to stay in Ginza Shinjuku or Shibuya now shabuya I would equate that to Time Square in New York it is crazy there are so many people it's very congested but if you want that Vibe of feeling like you're in Tokyo and just the hustle and bustle of it all that's the place to be Shinjuku is probably like a middle tier of that and they also have really good food in the area I like to say in Ginza it is a little more pricey Disney is near by and the toyosu and sui outer Market are all really close but in terms of safety literally everywhere in Japan is safe number six find a hotel that is near the train station I guarantee when you are lugging your luggage around literally a 5minute walk versus a 10-minute walk makes a huge difference try to get a hotel that is near a train station and if you look at my previous Vlogs I always mention what hotels I stayed at and all the hotels I've been to I would stay again because I care about a CLE able bed and that it's clean Japan has multiple train lines and I know some people who like to get very specific of I only want to stay near this specific train line because that's the one I like to take the most but for me I literally would just go on the ones that require the least amount of walking number seven the Jr pass this is only for Taurus both times I've been to Japan I actually did not get the Jr pass because it did not make economical scents because I was not going to use my money's worth on it but if you plan to go to Tokyo to Osaka or kyotto and then back to Tokyo it is totally worth it to get the Jr pass but for me I was only going to go once and then I was going to fly to Korea from there but there is a Jr pass calculator so that you can determine all the rots that you want to take and see if you're going to get your money's worth number eight trains are always on time and Google Maps works perfectly in Japan which makes a tourist life really easy there were also a lot of English signs and Korean signs all throughout the train line so you'll be able able to know exactly what you're supposed to do and when in doubt when you're not sure what train you're supposed to go on I always look at the time because that is how punctual they are number nine let's talk about the culture of Japan Japan is so clean so so clean and as tourists I think we really need to take responsibility them keep it that way so there are no trash cans anywhere and yet they keep everything so clean so be prepared to hold your trash there's this one story where my friends and I we got ice cream it was a huge ice cream and we couldn't finish it so in the restaurant it says that you can dispose the cone and the wrapper but there's no place to put the ice cream so I was like that's okay I'll just I'll just take it with me and as my ice cream is literally melting all over my hands I was like okay we have to throw this away somewhere but I don't know where so we're literally running around the streets looking for a trash can no trash cans so finally we walked into some other restaurant and they had just a regular where you could put everything in their type of trash can but we tried really hard to make sure that we are just cooligans and just tossing it wherever number 10 that goes to my next point where you can't eat in public you should not be walking and eating it is considered rude there and a good indicator is that if a place has a trash can then they're okay with you eating there cuz you have to toss it you also want to be mindful of body language and if someone's looking at you and they're kind of like don't do that then don't do it cuz I walked into a 7-Eleven I opened my own giri in the store and the worker told me like can't eat here so I was like oh sorry number 11 talk quietly when you are in public transportation or anytime you're in public in a group or a room in Japan everybody's really big on not being a public disturbance so I was at the airport and everyone was so quiet and I called my husband and I was whispering really quietly and he was like aren't you at the airport and I was like yeah no one really talks so I have to be quiet number 12 finish all your food it's actually considered rude to not finish the food because then they think you didn't like it I know in tourist areas are probably a lot more used to it but this is why Japanese food tends to be in smaller portions because the expectation is that you'll finish it number 13 you do not tip on anything they do not have a tipping culture so you do not have to tip and you don't have to feel bad about not tipping number 14 anytime you are giving a card or your phone to the taxi driver anything like that you want to place it on the tray and then they'll take it from the tray don't hand it to them although in a lot of the touristy areas I have noticed that the workers are now accepting it in their hands but in a lot of the rural areas they still expect you to put it on the tray and then they'll pick it up from the tray number 15 hotels hotels in Japan are small unless you want to ball out but on a budget you're going to find that they are all super clean but they are tiny so if you are bringing you know four luggages it's going to be very hard to open all of them in your room number 16 to help with that you can actually literally ship anything anywhere in Japan so my friend she had a huge check-in luggage in a small carry-on and she decided to just take a few of her clothes put it in her carry-on and she shipped her chicken luggage from one hotel to another hotel and it was literally there the next day but even if you go to a store and you're buying a bunch of stuff they have options for you to ship it to your hotel I only saw this in a couple of hotels in first Japan trip but some of the pillows have beads or beans in them so it's not cotton but they're made out of like a ton of beans so don't be alarmed if your hotel has that they do have an option though for a fluffy down pillow number 18 in Japan they have bedday everywhere like pretty much every hotel is a bedet and my friend told me a few years ago they used to have a lot of squatty potties and they just quickly revamped and changed all the toilets so quickly and you will not find seat covers in Japan but you'll find toilet paper and they have a sanitizer where you can sanitize the seat 19 shopping you can actually get tax exempt right away now at stores so carry your passport around when you are shopping I walked into uni I literally picked out my clothes and they asked me do you have a passport and I said yes and they already took off the tax right away so you don't have to go to the airport and claim it at Customs number 20 so Japan has been notorious for having people wait in long lines people are just very much okay with waiting or they have a ticketing system where you have to go a little bit earlier before they open grab a ticket and then you wait for your ticket to be called nowadays there are more restaurants taking reservations and I always like to look on Google to see if they have reservation system these are some of the websites that I use to make reservations at a restaurant it just makes your life so much easier because then you know I don't have to wait hungry when looking at food reviews anything that's above three stars is considered good in Japan because I heard that the Japanese food scene is just so competitive and people give no mercy number 21 there's actually not a lot of vegetables in a lot of the meals that I ate the only time I had a plethora of vegetables was when I had shabo Shabu which makes sense but pretty much any other vegetable is going to be pickled or fried like tempura keep that in mind if you love your greens number 22 a lot of the restaurants will close in the middle of the day so make sure you always check to see their hours some of them are only open for dinner some of them will open in the morning close all day and open again for dinner so you want to make sure that you're not disappointed when you get there so check ahead number 23 whenever you go indoors other than restaurants you are going to have to take off your shoes even at the airport when they have us take off our shoes they had slippers on the side so that you don't have to walk Barefoot but in a hotel the expectation is that you're taking off your shoes and that you're wearing the house slippers instead number 24 don't put your backpack or your luggage in another seat when you're on public transportation because then you're taking up a potential spot for someone else to be able to sit down and if you're in a really crowded train the expectation is that everybody moves to the inside and they keep the outsides open for the next person to sit so in Japan everybody is just very consy Ines of other people if you're walking this way you go on this side and if you're walking this way you go on this side everybody just follows a system and you want to be respectful of that and not stick out like a sore thumb so if it is your first time going to Japan I hope you have the best time or if one day you hope to go there I definitely think it's worth it I love Korea but Japan has come up real fast and I really love Japan too if you like what you see please like And subscribe and I'll see you later [Music] bye

Channel: Maya Lee

Views: 163,265

Keywords: maya lee, japan, tokyo, travel guide, japan travel tips, japan travel guide, japan travel, what to do in japan, travel japan, narita airport, luggage delivery, japan travel update, first time in japan, japan travel guide for first time traveller, japan travel tips save, japan travel tips save time and money, tokyo beginner guide, japan 2024, JR pass 2024

Id: x2VAsdGtTYc

Length: 12min 11sec (731 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2023