Pre-Trip Konnichiwa, y'all! We're going to Japan

In less than 48 hours my husband and I are heading on a 12-day adventure to the Land of the Rising Sun. Our trip will take us on a tour of the cities of Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and of course, Tokyo Disney Resort!

Now on to the details of the trip! (Well, before I get to the details of the trip let me say that I am well aware that I am posting this under WDW Trip Reports and that this thread has nothing to do with WDW Trip Reports. However, the method to the madness is that these forums have a lot more volume than trip reports that are posted in other forums. My hope is that this trip will be so wonderful that all of you will be inspired to go. So please, please don't move this one.)

Off the soapbox and now really on to the details:

Who

Jordan, husband, 30, works as a College/Young Adult Pastor

Me, Rachel, 27, high school teacher, and dresser as Rogue on Halloween

What

12-day trip to Japan and three of its major cities.

When

May 26 - June 6

Where

Tokyo Disneyland, Tokyo DisneySea, Mount Fuji, Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo - I have 7 pages of shrines, temples, museums, buildings, gardens, pathways, and restaurants to try. Only a few of those are "we are traveling to Japan and absolutely have to do these" things, the others are simply "if we have time and can find them" things.

Some of our must-dos include:
Tsukiji Fish Market
Akihabara Electronics District
Yasukuni-jinja Shrine
Hachiko Statue
Mount Fuji
Fushimi Inari Shrine
Arashiyama Monkey Park

Basically, we aren't planning on getting much sleep over those 12 days.

Why

Just a few days ago Jordan and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary.

Awww...

We are nearing the end of our 5-year plan, which means we need to go out and explore more places while we still can. So, last summer during our fabulous trip out to California (report is linked in my signature) that we were going to try and go to Japan during the summer of 2014. Well, as time went on we kept making more and more plans. Now there's definitely no turning back even though it all seems really surreal. The purpose of our trip is two-fold: 1) sight-see and eat lots of sushi and 2) meet local missionaries. Now, I know that religion can make many people uncomfortable to discuss, but that is a major reason of our trip. I mentioned that my husband works in ministry. One of his seminary assignments was to write a paper on a country with a low presence of Christianity, discussing the history of Christianity in the nation, why it hasn't caught hold, and what can be done. So, he chose Japan. Our plan is to meet up with local home groups throughout Tokyo while we are there. It will be a really neat experience, but don't worry, I'm going to use this report to focus on the tourist aspect of our trip.

 

[Nemo14]

Rachel - I'm so excited for you - sounds like an awesome adventure!

 

[harveyt0206]

This is me....Tracy...following along....TOTALLY jealous and what not...Japan is a bucket list trip for me and hubby. Can't wait to read your report when you return. Have a lovely and exciting 12 days. Anzen'na ryoko (safe travels!)

 

[popsicletrees]

I mentioned that Jordan and I decided last summer to head out to Japan. That means I've spent nearly a full year planning for this trip. This has been an incredibly intimidating process. I've never done anything like this before. This is completely out of my comfort zone. In fact, Jordan and I haven't taken many trips of just the two of us. We've traveled a lot with my family though, and my mom (@Disneybird) is quite the planner. However, this one I was totally on my own. Fortunately there are a lot of helpful resources out there.

After we had our dates down and flight reservations made (we are flying Delta), it was time to book our hotels. Tripadvisor has been an incredibly useful resource in choosing both hotels and activities. When we arrive in Tokyo we are staying at the Palm & Fountain Terrace Hotel. This hotel is part of the Tokyo Disney Resort Partner Hotels. This means that we can purchase tickets (passports) to the Tokyo Disney Resort parks, and the hotel offers a free shuttle to and from the parks. The rooms are larger than most hotel rooms that are found throughout Japan. Although the rooms aren't nearly as grand and impressive as say the Disney Ambassador Hotel or Hotel MiraCosta, we are getting the room at 1/3 of the cost. Besides, I have no intentions of spending much time in the room at all.

From TDR, we are heading to Kyoto. This will be our most expensive stay. We are staying at Hotel Villa Fontaine Village Kyoto. This is described as a hotel with modern-Japanese style accommodations. We will receive a bento box to our room in the morning and will sleep on Japanese futons. The photos of the hotel look absolutely beautiful.

Once we return to Tokyo we are going to stay at Hotel MyStays Kamata. Hotel MyStays is a chain that is found throughout many parts of Japan. These rooms are going to be tiny, very tiny. In fact, most Japanese hotel rooms are. This hotel offers free laundry though, and that's the main reason why I chose this place.

As I was doing research for our trip I kept reading how expensive Japan is, and well, I'm sure that if we tried to live there it would be incredibly expensive. However, I found many hotels listed under $100 per night, which I think is very reasonable for the city. I read lots of reviews and rarely found anything negative being posted about hotels (even cheap ones) in Japan. The rooms are small but clean. A clean bed and towels is all I need. We are only using the room to sleep.

Transportation was the next issue to tackle. I found early on that in Japan there is a special rail line for tourists. It is called the JR Line (Japan Rail). Japanese citizens cannot use this line unless given very special permission. This line travels throughout the major areas of Japan and has multiple stops throughout the major cities. You have to buy a voucher for the JR pass before you get to Japan. Once you arrive in Japan you exchange this voucher for your tickets. Our pass is only good for a 7 day period, so we will not be exchanging our voucher until we leave Tokyo and head for Kyoto. As long as we travel on the JR line we will not have to pay any extra (unless it is a special line on the outskirts of the country, which we are not going to). A round-trip train ticket between Tokyo and Kyoto is just as much, so even though we paid over $500 for these passes, the cost is completely worth it to have free transportation. Here is the link to where we purchased our pass: http://www.japan-rail-pass.com/

Here are our vouchers:

To get from Narita airport to the Palm & Fountain Terrace Hotel we are going to take the Airport Limousine. This is a large passenger bus that goes to several different hotels throughout Tokyo. Narita is about an hour outside of Tokyo. The Airport Limousine doesn't offer transportation 24/7. I believe the last bus to TDR leaves the airport at 6:00 PM (our flight arrives at 4:35). I knew there wouldn't be nearly enough time to get through customs and gather our luggage in that amount of time. Fortunately, a separate bus goes directly to our resort and the last one departs at 8:00. The cost will be $25 per person, which is a lot cheaper and faster than taking the train system to our resort. Link to Airport Limousine: http://www.limousinebus.co.jp/en/

 

[popsicletrees]

We are going to spend our first two full days at the TDR. Unfortunately we can only visit one park per day. They do not offer park-hopper passes when your stay is less than three days. They do offer passes for after 6:00 PM, so depending on what time we get to the hotel and checked in, I may try and talk my husband into checking out one of the parks. I've checked many crowd calendar projections for our stay, and if all is accurate, we shouldn't see the worst of crowds that Tokyo has to offer. We are heading to Tokyo Disneyland on Wednesday, May 28. I've seen 25/100 and 63/100 for crowd numbers on this day. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for 25/100. On Thursday, May 29, we are heading to Tokyo DisneySea. I wanted to visit this park last because I've heard nothing but how amazing it is, so why not save the best for last? The projections that I've seen are 13/100 and 51/100. Tokyo Disneyland is premiering a new castle show on the 29th. While it would be cool to go see the premiere of this show, I'm going to take a wild guess that Tokyo Disneyland is going to be significantly more crowded as a result. Since we are limited on time I'm going to choose hopes for a smaller crowd over a new show.

May is supposed to be a good time to visit these parks. The first week of May is known as Golden Week. It seems to be Spring Break for the entire country of Japan. DO NOT go to TDR during this week. Summer break is during the months of July and August, so with the exception of weekends and the first week in May, we seem to be choosing a really good time to visit.

This book has been very helpful in our planning for TDR:

While we are there we have rented a pocket wifi device. This device will be delivered to our first resort and will allow us to have wifi access during our entire stay. The price was very reasonable. We do not plan on renting a cell phone while we are there, so this will allow us to use our smartphones to keep up with emails to family, as well as access to directions to places we want to go. The Google Maps app has been great for looking up spots to visit in Japan and includes what trains we need to take to get there. Our wifi device can connect up to 10 devices at a time and has a battery that is supposed to last 12 hours. For as technologically advanced as Japan is wifi is very hard to come by, especially free wifi. Our hotels offer internet access, but you must be connected to it with a wire or it is only in the lobby. Here is where we ordered the wifi from: http://www.globaladvancedcomm.com/index.html

Another major hurdle that we are trying to overcome is the language barrier. Back in December we ordered Rosetta Stone for Japanese. I have gone through about 1/3 of the program. Japanese is an incredibly difficult language to learn not to mention their alphabet! Rosetta Stone has done a great job at giving us a foundation for the language, but it doesn't offer any explanations for the grammatical nuances. Some of the reasons for the differences are easy to pick up one with the use of photographs, others are just impossible to try and figure out. So in many ways we are prepared to feel like Bill Murray trying to shoot a commercial in Lost in Translation. That's okay though because Bill Murray is just really cool.

I captioned that photo on Instagram with "Here goes nothing." That's exactly how I feel about this trip, too.

In addition to the websites I've already listed I've gotten a lot of help on planning for this trip from other places. Tom Bricker (@WDWFigment) has great advice on his Disney Tourist Blog and Travel Caffeine Blog. He's done a great job going into the planning process of his trips on his blog. We have also ordered a lot of books from Amazon. Notably DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Japan and Lonely Planet Discover Japan are great books to check out for planning a trip.

Before I wrap up these plans I wanted to post a link to a video on youtube. Jordan and I are incredibly curious about Japanese culture. We are prepared for and excited about seeing some of the craziest things that we could possibly see. Some of our research led us to youtube to check out Japanese game show clips, which should be done anyways. One video of clips had a very interesting one, which took us to more youtube searches. The video I am going to link is from a video series on teaching English to the Japanese. From what I can tell this is done from the perspective of someone traveling to the U.S. and needing to communicate. Here it is and you are welcome:

Finally, because we will have wifi access and because I love the app, I will be posting to Instagram throughout the trip. You can find and follow me by searching my username: rametzger. Shameless plug, but I will be putting up a lot of pictures.

That was just a tidbit of everything I've done to get prepared for this trip. I am so excited about this adventure, and I feel like it will be one. I can't wait to come back and share it with all of you!

 

[popsicletrees]

Rachel - I'm so excited for you - sounds like an awesome adventure!

Thanks, fishy! I can't wait!

This is me....Tracy...following along....TOTALLY jealous and what not...Japan is a bucket list trip for me and hubby. Can't wait to read your report when you return. Have a lovely and exciting 12 days. Anzen'na ryoko (safe travels!)

Hi, Tracy! Hopefully my trip will inspire you and your husband to go! I'm trying to fit so much in on this trip, but my husband reminded me that this doesn't have to be our last trip. This has been on his bucket list for a long time. I always thought it would be a really neat place to go and visit, but I'm so excited based on everything I've read. Domo arrigatoo (and it will be really hard not to add Mr. Roboto to that)!

 

[popsicletrees]

One thing that I forgot to mention is that in Tokyo tipping is not customary. In fact, it is looked down on. However, in Japan gift giving is the cultural norm, especially if you are going to someone's home. Since tipping is in our culture the easiest way to show gratitude to someone, I did want to show gratitude to people who are going to take care of us throughout our trip. I read an article about what items are preferable to bring as gifts. The #2 most acceptable gift was alcohol. We live in Tennessee, and well, getting airplane sized bottles of Jack Daniels did cross our minds to give. However, we are going to be encountering many different kinds of people while we are there, so we nixed that idea. The #1 most acceptable gift was candy. Interestingly the Japanese do not have Reese's. Let me say this again: there is no candy in Japan that combines chocolate and peanut butter! Now here in the states we know that the combination of chocolate and peanut butter is a gift that has been bestowed upon humanity. However, there are two reasons I didn't go with it: 1) I wanted to give a gift that was not only local to the states but local to the region where I live and 2) the Reese's would never make it to anyone that I intended to give it to because I would eat them all. I know my strengths and weaknesses, y'all. So, I decided on Moon Pies instead. They've been around since 1917 and are labeled as "The Original Marshmallow Sandwich". If you've never had one, mmmm, you are missing out. They are made in Chattanooga, and we live just outside of Chattanooga. I think these will be the perfect gift to give, and I can't wait to share a bit of home so far away.

 

[Tiggerfanatic]

I will definitely be following along. My daughter currently lives in Shizouka, Japan (she can see Mt. Fuji from her apartment). I will be traveling over to see her in May 2015 and my first stop will be Tokyo Disney! Unfortunately I will be there during Golden Week as that is when her break is - she teaches English. Fortunately, I won't have any of the headaches of planning anything -that will be her department! I just have to get on the plane!

Planning on stopping off at Disneyland on my way home from Japan - sort of killing two birds with one stone.

 

[popsicletrees]

I will definitely be following along. My daughter currently lives in Shizouka, Japan (she can see Mt. Fuji from her apartment). I will be traveling over to see her in May 2015 and my first stop will be Tokyo Disney! Unfortunately I will be there during Golden Week as that is when her break is - she teaches English. Fortunately, I won't have any of the headaches of planning anything -that will be her department! I just have to get on the plane!

Planning on stopping off at Disneyland on my way home from Japan - sort of killing two birds with one stone.

One thing that I keep reading is that even if you go to Tokyo Disney and it is crowded, it is still an enjoyable experience. That is really cool that your daughter can see Mt. Fuji from her apartment. How does she enjoy teaching English there? If my husband and I decided to go back to stay for a longer amount of time I told him that I would want to teach English. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have students that actually want to learn! Disney has a program in China for people to teach English to children. If they moved that program just a little farther East I would absolutely go for it!

Disneyland is a lot of fun! Fortunately it shouldn't be too crowded at that time of the year. So two birds with one stone will have a pay off!

Enjoy your trip and thank you for following along!

 

[coachwnh]

This is so cool. I hope you have a fantastic trip!

 

[sweetpee_1993]

I'm all over this! Love hearing about your planning! I've done a little digging for Tokyo here and there. So much of it is in Japanese which is where I typically switch gears and go look at other non-Tokyo stuff. I can't wait to hear all about your adventure. This is so awesome. Keep it coming. Tell us MORE!

 

[jlsHouston]

Wow I am totally excited for you. Sounds like you have done a great job planning and researching. TDL and DLP are my bucket lists.
I always remember my ex husbands aunt saying "Japan is so beautiful"( she was born there )
I think moon pies are a great thank you gift!!

 

[popsicletrees]

This is so cool. I hope you have a fantastic trip!

Thank you very much!

I'm all over this! Love hearing about your planning! I've done a little digging for Tokyo here and there. So much of it is in Japanese which is where I typically switch gears and go look at other non-Tokyo stuff. I can't wait to hear all about your adventure. This is so awesome. Keep it coming. Tell us MORE!

Japanese is incredibly intimidating. Honestly, there is nothing easy about it. However, there are a lot of great resources that are available. A lot of the resorts around TDR have access to their websites in English and are used to us foreigners. I know that there is so, so much more that we've done to prepare for this trip. I'm trying to rack my brain with more but all I can think about now is packing, packing, and more packing! Once I get to the airport tomorrow and have a 5-hour layover I'll be sure to include more, and I'll try to keep coming back to post little updates. It's been a lot of fun preparing for but now the nerves are setting in.

Wow I am totally excited for you. Sounds like you have done a great job planning and researching. TDL and DLP are my bucket lists.
I always remember my ex husbands aunt saying "Japan is so beautiful"( she was born there )
I think moon pies are a great thank you gift!!

Thank you! I'm really hoping that this won't be my last trip to TDL. I don't know what I would have done to research for this trip if it wasn't for the internet. Fortunately, there is so much information out there to help Americans traveling to Japan. I can't wait to go experience the scenery and culture. There are so many parks in Tokyo alone that will be fun to explore.

 

[jlsHouston]

 

[FlaggNL]

Hej, WOW you are going to Disney Tokyo! Hope and know you will have a more than wonderful, magical and Disneyful trip! Keep us informed!! Enjoy the trip!!

 

[mrdrift]

Now this sound very exciting, I will really be watching for your report and pictures from Disney Tokyo Parks.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Eek! I'm obsessively watching Instagram for Rachel's posts! I'm tempted to screen shot her Grams & put them here for others to get that "live" effect.

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

Rachel! I knew you were going to Tokyo from your Instagram pics and now you're there!! Wooooo!! I am definitely living vicariously through your pics!! I think @sweetpee_1993 must be, too! Hope you're having a blast!

 

[smk]

So excited to read an update as soon as you post! I hope your trip was everything you wanted it to be and more!

 

[dancingtodisney]

I visited Disneyland Tokyo last year and it was brilliant!!!!!! Tokyo itself is amazing also, I could not believe the crowd volume there though. It's CRAZY! And even showing up 45mins before park opening like we did there was already a 3hr queue for Toy Story Mania when we got inside...!

I hope you had fun!