Tokyo Japan - Detailed TIPS For First Time Travelers

we watched a ton of YouTube videos on how to prepare for Japan and read up on a lot of Articles however we wish that someone would have told us the information I'm about to share with you in this video I'm going to share with you all these tips to help save you some time some money and some headache when you're in Japan so you can just enjoy your time eating sushi and ramen and doing all the fun things I'll be covering a lot of topics such as paperwork luggage Wi-Fi JR Rail Pass squeaker cards all the good things that you need to know I'll also be covering some bullet train Logistics and I'll leave some timestamps below if you need to come back to a certain section later before you close out this video to start working on your game plan be sure to watch this video all the way through because you might be able to save some money okay let's talk about what documents to prepare you're going to want to go to the visit Japan website this website gives you the most updated information on covid-19 Immigration and Customs I'll be sure to link this website below when you get to the website just create an account and you're going to put in all the details of your trip like your hotel your passport number like how long you're going to be staying all the family members in your party you're also going to upload your vaccine card information or look at the new protocols on if you're not vaccinated when you arrive at the airport there's going to be lots of signs in English directing you on where to go and also there's some English-speaking people to help you but they're basically looking to see if you filled out everything from that visit Japan website for us we arrived in Narita which is right outside of Tokyo the first thing that you're going to do is show that quarantine Fast Track information and if you don't know what to do the people will come over to you and they're going to click on your phone for you so they'll find everything you need then you're going to stand in line for immigration and that's where you're going to show them another QR code and your passport after you finish with immigration you're going to go to baggage claim grab your bags then go over to customs ours was a machine and it was super easy because you just put your passport there and then you just click the QR code and then you're done if you didn't have any time to finish your documents before coming to Japan which I highly recommend you do the there is Wi-Fi in the airport and it was actually pretty good Wi-Fi but there's places to sit down and you can fill out all the information but why be stressed just do it beforehand we saw a lot of very stressed and very tired Travelers and we were so happy we did this before be sure to bring your vaccination card as well as your passport and then I also recommend bringing a battery pack because you don't want your phone to die and the lines are pretty long okay now for luggage delivery now the last thing you want to do when you're in Tokyo is have to like bring all your big suitcases through the trains and especially if you haven't even traveled there before everything's in a different language you don't know what you're doing you're tired from traveling and you're confused what you could do to decrease stress is go to the baggage delivery service and that's going to be in every airport for us we arrived at the airport pretty late so when we got there she said we wouldn't get our luggage until the day after tomorrow and I didn't want to repack my bags so we said you know what that's okay we're just going to keep our bags with us and I'm going to tell you the next step that we did before coming to Tokyo we actually did some research on some of the bus and for me I don't like taking all my luggage I'm bringing them into the trains and I wasn't familiar with any of the train stations or like where to go and like bringing everything within it being so crowded so what we did was we decided to take the bus and the bus actually let us bring all of our luggage for free if you've never traveled to Tokyo before and you're not familiar with how the rail systems work then I highly suggest that you just pay for the bus it's not very expensive there's Subways and rail systems are amazing when you don't have a lot of bags so I highly suggest you take the bus do not take a taxi for us to get to Narito to Tokyo it would have been over 160 no thank you our bus tickets were around 24 each and it was so worth it because we didn't have to pay for extra baggage delivery to our hotel you can also call your hotel in advance and see if they have any baggage delivery services and see if they have any same day Services I know that they have them because people do it all the time but it just depends on how much money you want to spend if you are someone that travels really well and you know how to use the rail systems in Tokyo and you only have a backpack and maybe a carry-on bag then totally just go for it but for us having all these bags we don't speak Japanese we are tired you know after flying for so many hours we were so happy we took the bus and one thousand percent would do it again for the bus tickets what you do is walk up to the bus ticket lines the people are really nice and they speak English and what they're going to do is give you a ticket to the nearest train station by your hotel from there you're going to go stand in line by the bus and the nice people are going to give you a little little strap voucher thing and they're going to give it to you so you know which luggage is yours so you can store all your luggage underneath the bus while we waited for the bus we found some food and it was so good after traveling also every information booth in Japan is so helpful and the people there are so nice for us we are staying in Shinjuku so once our bus dropped us off at the Shinjuku station we just took all of our luggage and walked to our hotel also around the train stations you're going to see that there's people walking to their hotel all the time with their luggage so don't be nervous if you're walking in the street with all these large bags a big question is how to get Wi-Fi when you're in Japan I'll cover the Jr pass in a little bit but you can actually get a discount on your pocket Wi-Fi if you buy the pocket Wi-Fi at the same time as your Jr pass you can pick up your pocket Wi-Fi at the airport or you can have it mailed to your hotel however I would highly suggest not mailing it to the hotel because the address systems in Japan are completely different than the address systems in the states in America we normally do Street number then your Street then your city state then ZIP code right well in Japan it's a completely different order so when you're trying to fill out the information online when you're buying your Jr pass and your pocket Wi-Fi it is confusing so if you do do that you'll see what I mean if possible just pick up everything at the airport or what you can also do right by baggage delivery is go right next door and normally there's like the SIM cards that you can buy or you can get a pocket Wi-Fi there but just know that if you buy it with the Jr pass which I'll cover in a little bit you can get it at a discount we got a pocket Wi-Fi and we love it but if you do get a pocket Wi-Fi make sure that you get a battery pack because those little guys they suck up a lot of energy and you want to make sure you stay Plugged In All Around Tokyo you can also buy an international travel plan through your phone service provider however some providers don't work very well so if you want to know which one doesn't then message me privately on Instagram but some of them work really well good job at T okay now for the Japan Rail Pass if you are traveling to Japan you have probably heard about the Jr pass now don't click out of this video once I say this make sure you watch this section all the way through because you might not need to buy it but make sure you buy your Jr pass at least a couple weeks before you come to Tokyo at least I'll cover this in a little bit but let me explain what the Jr pass is if you're not familiar with what it is basically the Japan Rail Pass is a gnarly good deal for non-citizens of Japan to get all around Japan up down far east west for a really good deal you can buy this pass for Seven Days 14 days or 21 days and what it does is it covers certain lines as well as the bullet trains so if you're taking a bullet train one or two times or three times it is already worth it for you but let me tell you something a lot of the YouTube videos they'll say oh yes you're gonna get a voucher well what we think is yeah you buy it and then you're gonna print it out right no the reason why you need to buy your pass a couple weeks in advance at least is because it is going to be snail mail to you via probably FedEx or something they're going to snail mail you your voucher it is printed on really nice official paper that is what you need to bring to Japan so you have to make sure that arrives at your home before going to Japan now if you are within a couple weeks and cutting it close your package may be delivered to your house however if you feel like it may not be able to make it you can actually ship it to your hotel but remember the address system is pretty confusing worst case scenario you just miss out on a really good deal and have to pay individual prices but I'll be talking about the suica card soon for the Japan Rail Pass depending on how many days you got it seven days 14 days or 21 days you can use it unlimited times within that time frame we also heard that you can't buy the Japan Rail Pass in Japan anymore so you have to make sure you're out of the country in order to buy it so just buy it in your home country we bought RJR pass from the official website because it looked the most reputable the Jr pass is also linked to your passport so make sure you have your passport with you at all times in Japan it's okay to carry your passport everywhere you go and I'll actually cover passports more towards the end of the video okay once you have your Jr pass voucher it's going to come with some information on where you can activate it if you have it prior to your trip I recommend just activating it at the airport right there now let's say you get there on a Monday but you only want to use it for seven days and you're gonna stay till the following Tuesday or Wednesday Wednesday right then what you could do is stand in line on Monday at the airport tell them I want to activate it from Wednesday for seven days okay and then that is okay you don't just because you're activating it on a Monday doesn't mean that that's the day it starts you tell them I want to activate it starting this day they're also going to have a little calendar with you just to confirm these are the seven days the 14 days and the 21 days also remember Wednesday to Wednesday is not seven days that's eight days so make sure you count your days properly for us we actually activated it at one of the major train stations the Shinjuku stations and it's called jres Travel Service Center and there are multiple centers like that all throughout Tokyo make sure when you're activating your voucher you have your passport and I highly recommend you start reading all the laminated posters around you because there's some really good information when it comes to using your Jr pass once you exchange your voucher your Jr pass is going to look like this make sure you don't lose your Jr pass because it will not be refunded or replaced and that is a lot of money you can only use your Jr pass on the bullet trains and certain lines basically any place where it says Jr in order to see if something was covered by the Jr lines we just use Google Maps Apple Maps as well as the Japan transit app now if you want to travel far in Japan like Osaka Kyoto or go like all the way up North to Hokkaido or to joetso miyoko where we went snowboarding you're going to want to get a bullet train now you can reserve your ticket for a bullet train like at the ticket kiosk or online however I highly recommend if you don't know what you're doing just go to the Travel Center again and just have them Reserve everything for you because most likely if you're traveling really far you might want some luggage with you and you might want to reserve a space for your luggage here is a picture of the luggage information that I found at the Jr East Travel Center and this might be helpful for you depending on where your bullet train is going you might not even need to reserve any luggage for us we went West to joette sumiyoko and we actually didn't have to reserve anything we just reserved our seats for the bullet trains that's actually really roomy and you can recline back you can actually have space to fit the carry-on right in front of you or just like your backpack or both there is plenty of space for me you can also put your carry-on luggage overhead but if you have the really big check-in luggage that's where there's designated spaces for them also in the bullet chain there's a little wall socket for you to plug in your battery pack or your phone or your computer if you're only staying in Tokyo do not get the Jr pass that is a lot of unnecessary spending of money where you can just get a suica card which I'm going to cover in a little bit if you are traveling really far in Japan multiple times and for sure the Jr pass is worth it because you can also use it for the local trains but if you are not traveling really far or let's say you're only going to go far once you might want to do a ticket calculator online just to see if it's worth it for you to get the Jr pass I want to show you how to use the Jr pass so what you're going to do is you're going to walk up to the gate and wherever there's arrows that means you can go through what you're going to do is take your pass you're going to slip it into the ticket slot it's going to go down and up like a dolphin mermaid then make sure you grab it on the other side so it goes like this scans take it out and it's really quick don't forget to grab your ticket because that's a lot of money if you don't grab that ticket I'm gonna show a picture here and you might want to screenshot this because this is what the Jr pass will cover locally I'm also going to show a picture of some of the other local lines that may not be covered from the Jr pass and you can see that basically the normal Metro just has more stops where the Jr pass has less you can still get around with the Jr pass you might just be walking more if you like what you see so far and like the various tips and attention to detail here at build your Moxie I'm actually a finance Channel where I take harder topics and break them down into simple ideas imagine having Financial freedom and being able to take multiple trips to Japan without having to worry about the stresses of money that's basically what I cover in build your Moxie if you are wanting to create a life where you can do a lot of things that you enjoy then click that subscribe button I would love to have you be part of the family okay let's talk about the suica card no matter where you are staying in Tokyo or in Japan just get a suica card the suica card is basically e-money so you can have this on your phone or you can have a physical card like this one and what you can use this for is at different restaurants convenience stores you can use them on all the local lines really this is like a catch-all if you don't have cash with you or your Jr pass is not covering this specific line in Tokyo you will see that every local person has a suica card on their phone if you're on a train and your Jr pass isn't going through it's going to look like this the gate's gonna stop you so at this time just take out your suica card and tap it instead and the gate will open for the suica cards you can buy these at the ticket machines and the suica card that lasts 10 years is the one that we recommend getting at the Travel Centers they do have an option for you to buy the temporary suica card which lasts for like a month however the lady said she didn't recommend this one because it's hard to get your money back but if you get the long one the 10-year one first of all it makes a really good souvenir second you can get your money refunded back to you so just load up we put maybe 10 000 Yen on it right 500 of the Yen was used towards the deposit so we had nine thousand five hundred left and basically yeah we put about 75 on it and we've just been using it throughout the last two weeks we were told to keep your suica card purchase receipt with you so basically the four things you should have are your suica card swing a card receipt your passport and your Jr pass just keep all that together in case there's any problems at any of the gates this is the symbol for suica now Japan is still very much a cash based place however there are some restaurants where they're gonna go cashless okay I just wanted to do some general tips and we're going to do this pretty rapid fire okay let's talk about money before we got to Japan about a month prior we went to our bank and we had them convert a lot of our USD into Japanese Yen this was the best conversion rate you can also go to an ATM in Japan or also convert at your airport however using the bank for us was the best conversion rate it's been recommended to carry about thirty thousand to fifty thousand Japanese Yen with you every day now I know what some of you are thinking I don't think I want to carry that much cash with me because that's a lot of money and I don't want to be targeted but don't worry everyone's carrying that same amount so you're gonna be just fine but also even though Japan is really safe just always use your common sense another tip for you to remember about Japan is that there's no tipping at restaurants even though you had the most amazing food with the most amazing service and you're wanting to give them extra instead just say arigato gosemas which means thank you so much also the more slurping and the more smiling you do and the more excited you are when your food comes out the better I mean like the food is amazing you guys just trust me when you get to Japan and you're eating at the most delicious ramen places you'll see that there's a long line don't worry you're supposed to stand in all the lines especially if they're long that means it's good once you get to the front of the line you may notice that you have to pay for your food right then so there's going to be this little machine with buttons look at the menu click it clip put your money in and now it's going to come out with a ticket and you just paid for your food then from there you're going to wait for the people to serve you give them your ticket and then you say arigato gosemas which means thank you so much sit down enjoy your most delicious food and then when you're done and then leave basically that long line it actually moves so fast they're so efficient there another thing that we saw in Japan is when there's a tray usually you want to put your money on that so you're not really handing them your money you're putting it on the tray then they'll take the money from that tray then they'll return to you your change on that tray this is if you're not using a machine to get your change let's say say you're shopping or you have some of your luggage with you and you just want to go around and explore what you can also do around the train stations the airports or even sometimes along the shopping mall areas there's going to be a lot of coin lockers so it's just like a few hundred Yen for the day but it's actually really safe and we see a lot of people using them coin lockers I'm going to show you some pictures right here coin Locker coin Locker coin Locker coin Locker coin Locker for the coin lockers you can use coins and then sometimes you can also use your suica card I just love the suica card okay so for clothing we are here in the springtime and everyone here just dresses so nice and so pretty and so fashionable so if you're like kind of wanting to fit in bring your slacks if you're a girl like you know those high-waisted trousers bring some really nice neutral colors trench coats trench coats are a big deal I'll also bring an umbrella but yeah everyone dresses really cute here also if you're someone that likes to wear a lot of leggings like me yeah no one wears leggings here so cover your butt save yourself some spacing in your luggage and just don't bring them convenience stores okay convenience stores are the best there is so much delicious food there and I'm like oh man I wish our 7-Eleven was this wonderful but yes we hear that 7-Eleven is the best so that is where we went like nearly every day they have smoothies you can microwave food there they have all these different kind of sushi snacks and delicious chips here in Japan convenience stores are also known as conveni we're here in Japan in the spring and it tends to rain a lot so we're really happy we brought a couple umbrellas but you can also buy these at the convenience okay let's talk about manners in Japan now when you are in the public transportation areas you want to make sure you're really quiet like quiet I am being really loud right now people are usually resting reading or on their phone after a long day of work we've been here now for about two weeks and like there was this one couple that was really loud and they definitely weren't from Japan and it was so obvious like how much they are disturbing everyone else so remember we are going into their culture it's really important for us to respect them especially if we want to be invited back also we heard that it's not okay to say huh you know like in America we go huh what instead go a or hi and that is okay we heard that going huh is actually really rude and it can actually start some confrontation so try not to go huh I'm really good at saying huh but don't say it in Japan people drive on the left side of the street which means they're usually walking on the left side of the street so try to not like walk through everyone just move to where everyone's walking kind of like in Finding Nemo where they're trying to like get to Australia and you're like in the fish just go with the flow go with the flow also when you're on the escalators make sure you're to the left or at least least whatever side that they're on go to one side so people that are in a rush they can go right past you and get to where they need to be if you're wanting to buy something from a window what you could do is take a picture of it and then show the Lady or the man and say like one or two or three you know and then from there they can serve you and you don't have to say anything in Japanese if you don't know any Japanese one of the biggest culture shocks for us when we came to Japan was there are literally no trash cans anywhere no trash cans anywhere so make sure you carry with yourself a couple plastic baggies to hold your trash the one thing that's so beautiful about Japan is that there's not a lot of litter anywhere so be respectful pick up trash if you see it and take your trash home when you go to the convenience you can actually buy a plastic bag for about three to five Yen each when you're getting all your stuff so that's normally what we did we got our snacks got a plastic baggie then we just use that for the trash and just kept it in our backpacks what you'll also notice is that there's going to be a little box where the receipts come so if you don't want to keep your receipt you can just put it right there in the Box instead of carrying that with you another thing that I noticed is in some of the train station bathrooms there's actually no soap like it's not like they ran out of soap there's just no soap so it brings some hand sanitizer if you would like for passports make sure you bring this with you everywhere you go because if you're going shopping you can actually go to the tax refund service center and get some money back you have to show them the receipt as well as your passport and then you also need your passport when you're traveling through the metro and the rail systems this is in case there's any problem with your Jr pass or your suica card so then the people at the little window can help you if you are going to an Onsen they might not let you in if you have tattoos so make sure you research the Onsen beforehand or go to a tattoo friendly Onsen another thing you should bring from home is deodorant deodorant is really hard to find here in Japan because they don't normally use deodorant so don't be that smelling person on the train bring your deodorant also be sure to check which medications are banned in Japan because you don't want to get arrested or get in trouble I'll be sure to link the import information from this video below I wanted to show you the app that was really helpful for us it's called Papago change your language to Japanese take a picture of what you want to translate and voila it is translated here are a few of my favorite travel tips and this has just been really helpful for us but number one getting Apple Air tags we had a really bad experience where my luggage got shipped all the way across the world back to Korea and I didn't have my luggage for a long time and I didn't trust the airline to bring it back to me and having Apple Air tags now for this trip has made such a huge difference for me I don't like any static stress to be in the back of my head so if I know where my luggage is and I can see it on my phone and I can track where it is and yes it's been on the plane and now it's landed yes in Japan I just feel so much better so Apple Air tags they're about 25 each we got four of them put them in our most important bags and I have just had so much less stress knowing where my bags are I also like printing out our hotel information especially if you're going to a country where you don't know the language you can always just point and then everyone here is really helpful I also keep a screenshot of it on my phone and then save the emails in a folder another thing we do is always tell our bank that we're going to be out of the country just so they don't freeze our accounts another thing that we are really happy to have was our portable white noise machine so I'll be sure to link this one below also in Japan for their wall sockets they have those two vertical lines the ones that look like this but if you have a cable that looks like this with the three holes then make sure you bring yourself a travel charger I'll be sure to link this one below but this one's one of my favorite ones also if you have never worn compression socks before these are the best compression socks and I'll be sure to link them below but you know like when your legs get all tired on the airplane these make a huge difference also for long car rides even though Japan is really clean I still don't like my bag on the floor so this is one of my favorite bag hangers called the Clipper bag hanger and I've actually had this one for about five years now since 2018 and it can hold up to like 33 pounds or something like that but yes super good quality if you're looking for a good bag hanger this is the one I hope these tips were helpful for you these were the tips that I wish someone would have told us I'm also going to link a couple of videos right here so if you're looking to save more money so you can go on more trips like this then go ahead and click that subscribe button give me a like and I'll see you in the comment section below bye

Channel: Build Your Moxie

Views: 649,630

Keywords: japan travel tips, japan travel guide, japan travel, what to do in japan, travel japan, narita airport, luggage delivery, shinkansen tickets, japan travel update, japan 2023, first time in japan, japan travel 2023, japan travel requirements 2023, japan travel guide for first time traveller, japan travel tips save, japan travel tips save time and money, japan travel tips watch this video first before, tokyo, Detailed TIPS For First Time Travelers 2023, tokyo beginner guide

Id: xyJYmZauE68

Length: 24min 6sec (1446 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 13 2023