Japan Tourism for independent travellers

[karen blancfield]

We’ve just had our flights on PR changed so instead of sleeping at Haneda after a midnight arrival, we need to overnight in Manila with an early trip back to the airport. I’ve read the Manila Stopover thread from 2019 but hoped someone may recommend the closest hotel to rest in near Manila airport later this month. Fortunately we could cancel the Royal Park at Haneda.

 

[karen blancfield]

Ubigi has worked 100% for these three weeks in Japan, about $25 Aus and we all have tons of data left. So glad I took your suggestion. Thanks. Doubt I’ll be giving Optus any more roaming money, even at $5 a day.

 

[RealtimeY]

On our trip to Japan recently we ran out of data but were leaving soon, so bought a $17 AUD, 6 GB eSIM from UPeSIM. It was emailed and ready to use immediately.

 

[karen blancfield]

And later I’ll report on what fun it was transferring through Manila last night, flying Haneda to Brisbane. We don’t recommend it!

 

[encryptededdy]

And later I’ll report on what fun it was transferring through Manila last night, flying Haneda to Brisbane. We don’t recommend it!

Interested to hear more about this. A friend has booked a PR ticket to Japan in April and I noted to them that I've heard before that transiting MNL can be a bit painful (bag inspections iirc?)

With that said PR fares really are a good 10~20% cheaper than anyone else right now.

 

[MDC]

We managed to secure decent flights on QF for the Sept / Oct school holidays. It will be my first time back to Japan for a long time and a first for the rest of the family.

Does anyone have opinions on the following hotels?

Tokyo: Keio Plaza or Hyatt Regency Shinjuku
Kyoto: Dhawa Yura
Hiroshima: Sheraton Grand
Osaka: Swissotel

I'm getting planning fatigue looking at all of the options because finding hotels with beds for the three of us (2 adults + 9 year old), or interconnecting rooms is challenging.

 

[Guvner]

Not sure of your budget but I can recommend this place:

Luxury 5-Star | Hotel New Otani Tokyo | Rooms & Suites, Meetings, Dinings

Hotel New Otani Tokyo offers luxury accommodations that include the 5-star EXECUTIVE HOUSE ZEN, and is nestled within a verdant 10-acre Japanese garden in the center of the city. Boasting a history of nearly 60 years, it has been serving guests from around the world with ultimate hospitality...

www.newotani.co.jp

The rooms in the tower are large and the gardens massive (for Tokyo). Great for a 9 y.o, plenty to see and do.
Peaceful surrounds and close to the metro station and shopping centres.
Pretty sure they do triple rooms.

 

[half-hour]

We managed to secure decent flights on QF for the Sept / Oct school holidays. It will be my first time back to Japan for a long time and a first for the rest of the family.

Does anyone have opinions on the following hotels?

Tokyo: Keio Plaza or Hyatt Regency Shinjuku
Kyoto: Dhawa Yura
Hiroshima: Sheraton Grand
Osaka: Swissotel

I'm getting planning fatigue looking at all of the options because finding hotels with beds for the three of us (2 adults + 9 year old), or interconnecting rooms is challenging.

I booked a room at Hotel Gajoen Tokyo recently.

The hotel looks great, and the rooms are massive compared to any other hotel I could find in Tokyo. The price was also cheaper than other less fancy options.

I booked a suite with a large bedroom and a tatami room, and requested a futon for the tatami room. Should work well for adults with a child.

 

[Buzzard]

This might seem like a silly question but is there much use for cash in Japan or are the majority of transactions eftpos / card/ suica card? I'm trying to establish if I should take a load of cash with me.

 

[karen blancfield]

This might seem like a silly question but is there much use for cash in Japan or are the majority of transactions eftpos / card/ suica card? I'm trying to establish if I should take a load of cash with me.

Having just arrived back today, cash is useful still. We use a debit card and withdraw from any Seven Eleven shop and they’re everywhere, no charges from our bank. We took out about $1500 during three weeks so that may be an indication. Taxis liked cash and it made it easy. Some temple admissions were cash only. And some bars, coffee shops. Buses were 100 yen in coins…. so thinking about your question, we definitely needed some cash.

Had the best trip….. just love traveling in Japan.

 

[RealtimeY]

We were surprised at how little cash we ended up needing. Two of us used about AUD 450 in cash over two weeks.

Some tips that made going cashless easier:

• Get a Suica or add one to your Apple Pay/Google Pay, which you can then top up easily on your phone on a whim. You can use this to take most public transport right away, and most major stores and convenience stores take it.
• The taxis we took seemed to have no problem with cards or Suica.
• Most restaurants had no problem with card payments.
• Road tolls also could be paid by card.
• 7-Eleven ATMs did not charge fees for our Debit Mastercard, and had low minimum withdrawals (I think JPY 1000), so it's trivial to take out a bit more if you need to.

 

[half-hour]

We were surprised at how little cash we ended up needing. Two of us used about AUD 450 in cash over two weeks.

Some tips that made going cashless easier:

• Before arriving (or upon landing, as we did), add a Suica to your Apple/Google Pay, which you can then top up easily on your phone on a whim. You can use this to take most public transport right away, and most major stores and convenience stores take it.
• The taxis we took seemed to have no problem with cards or Suica.
• Most restaurants had no problem with card payments.
• Road tolls also could be paid by card.
• 7-Eleven ATMs did not charge fees for our Debit Mastercard, and had low minimum withdrawals (I think JPY 1000), so it's trivial to take out a bit more if you need to.

Did you manage to add Suica to an Android phone / Google Pay?

I thought that iPhones are the only non-Japanese phones compatible with the Japanese NFC system.

For the same reason I thought Android phones aren't capable of contactless payment in Japan.

 

[karen blancfield]

We were surprised at how little cash we ended up needing. Two of us used about AUD 450 in cash over two weeks.

Some tips that made going cashless easier:

• Before arriving (or upon landing, as we did), add a Suica to your Apple/Google Pay, which you can then top up easily on your phone on a whim. You can use this to take most public transport right away, and most major stores and convenience stores take it.
• The taxis we took seemed to have no problem with cards or Suica.
• Most restaurants had no problem with card payments.
• Road tolls also could be paid by card.
• 7-Eleven ATMs did not charge fees for our Debit Mastercard, and had low minimum withdrawals (I think JPY 1000), so it's trivial to take out a bit more if you need to.

I agree with all that. Next time we would add Suica to Apple Pay. Another consideration was we were traveling with another couple so for some things, paying cash kept it simple.

Used the app Splitwise for the first time and that certainly worked well for shared costs tracking.

 

[RealtimeY]

Ah, you're right. It looks like it's iPhone only! In any case, it saves on a huge amount of coin handling.

 

[rbjhan]

And later I’ll report on what fun it was transferring through Manila last night, flying Haneda to Brisbane. We don’t recommend it!

sigh I heard some bad stories about them. But didn't want to alarm you before...

 

[karen blancfield]

So the PAL flight left Haneda on time at around 3.30pm Sunday, uneventful flight to Manila, landed at Terminal 1. Food was fine, French Chardonnay ok.

From there it got crazy. All those transferring to other flights were herded in and passports taken off us…. for some reason they needed to be photocopied. Staff were shouting, literally running from place to place carrying huge bundles of passports, nothing was clear about what would happen. We just knew we needed to get to Terminal 2. Eventually we were taken by bus there, with passports returned to us prior to getting on the bus, though we stood and waited for ages in some downstairs weird holding pen at the bottom of an escalator.

At that point, we picked up that we had to identify our luggage, open it so it could be swabbed and tagged. But there were people going to all different destinations so we were sent away and told to come back to do the luggage thing about 10pm. Some passengers didn’t get the memo at all about identifying luggage and only heard about it as they started to board the plane. One young woman literally ran off the plane to do the luggage identification after she had already boarded!

We had to pass through security screenings 3 times while in the transfer process!

From when we had the meal onboard at 4.30pm, til the next meal on the flight to Brisbane at 12.30pm, we hadn’t had as much as a glass of water. Virtually the whole 4 hours in transit was taken up by this ridiculous process. By the time we tried to buy something at the little kiosk, we were called to board.

Well, the consolation was that between the 4 adults traveling together, we had paid about $16 000 less than what the Qantas fares were. So maybe it was a small price to pay but surely PAL processes could be so much better. I felt sorry for the staff as well.

Is this the usual transfer process for PAL? I wouldn’t enjoy a second run at it!

 

[jase05]

So the PAL flight left Haneda on time at around 3.30pm Sunday, uneventful flight to Manila, landed at Terminal 1. Food was fine, French Chardonnay ok.

From there it got crazy. All those transferring to other flights were herded in and passports taken off us…. for some reason they needed to be photocopied. Staff were shouting, literally running from place to place carrying huge bundles of passports, nothing was clear about what would happen. We just knew we needed to get to Terminal 2. Eventually we were taken by bus there, with passports returned to us prior to getting on the bus, though we stood and waited for ages in some downstairs weird holding pen at the bottom of an escalator.

At that point, we picked up that we had to identify our luggage, open it so it could be swabbed and tagged. But there were people going to all different destinations so we were sent away and told to come back to do the luggage thing about 10pm. Some passengers didn’t get the memo at all about identifying luggage and only heard about it as they started to board the plane. One young woman literally ran off the plane to do the luggage identification after she had already boarded!

We had to pass through security screenings 3 times while in the transfer process!

From when we had the meal onboard at 4.30pm, til the next meal on the flight to Brisbane at 12.30pm, we hadn’t had as much as a glass of water. Virtually the whole 4 hours in transit was taken up by this ridiculous process. By the time we tried to buy something at the little kiosk, we were called to board.

Well, the consolation was that between the 4 adults traveling together, we had paid about $16 000 less than what the Qantas fares were. So maybe it was a small price to pay but surely PAL processes could be so much better. I felt sorry for the staff as well.

Is this the usual transfer process for PAL? I wouldn’t enjoy a second run at it!

We have done several trips with PR and yes there has been the odd occasion transiting through MNL where you just want to tear your hair out and I’m certain they do it on purpose but generally we have had no real issues transiting but I still prefer booking a stop over and heading into town

 

[karen blancfield]

We have done several trips with PR and yes there has been the odd occasion transiting through MNL where you just want to tear your hair out and I’m certain they do it on purpose but generally we have had no real issues transiting but I still prefer booking a stop over and heading into town

That’s what we did on the way to Tokyo as they canceled our flight a week before. We booked a hotel in Manila, had a meal and a walk, slept and flew out next morning. I agree, it was a better option than the transit!

 

[yaziyo]

How's the experience at Haneda these days? In March we have a flight to London on JL with a 7hr 50minute connection in Haneda (5PM Sunday arrival, 1AM departure).

While we could hang at the airport and lounge, heading into town for dinner and a bit of a walk seems very doable unless things aren't running smoothly in Haneda, perhaps due to covid procedures. We've been to Japan a few years ago and loved it, and a small detour to an Izakaya or something seems like an amazing layover opportunity.

Anybody have any insights on how Haneda is these days?

 

[karen blancfield]

How's the experience at Haneda these days? In March we have a flight to London on JL with a 7hr 50minute connection in Haneda (5PM Sunday arrival, 1AM departure).

While we could hang at the airport and lounge, heading into town for dinner and a bit of a walk seems very doable unless things aren't running smoothly in Haneda, perhaps due to covid procedures. We've been to Japan a few years ago and loved it, and a small detour to an Izakaya or something seems like an amazing layover opportunity.

Anybody have any insights on how Haneda is these days?

Astoundingly quiet, organised, calm….. I’d agree that a train ride to town would be very easy to do.

The contrast some hours later with Manila was…