Japan Travel Tips

I’ve been to Japan 3 times now. I’m not an expert but here are some tips that I’ve picked up along the way.

Tech stuff

If you have an iPhone, add the Suica card to your phone. The Suica card is used for all the transit systems in Japan. You can add value to it in the wallet app. If you use Apple Maps for navigation, it will tell you how much the trip will cost and if you don’t have enough value, it will prompt you to add more. Make sure you enable Express Transit Mode with your Suica card

If you have an Android, you’re stuck with the physical card.

To book Shinkansen tickets, use SmartEx. They also have an app. You can bind your Shinkansen tickets to your Suica card so you just need to tap your Suica card to get into the Shinkansen. To get your Suica card’s ID number, download the Suica App and press the (i) button to view it.

For eSIM I used Mobal.jp’s eSIMs. They’re pretty cheap. I personally used ~ 1 GB per day but I’m a power user. One caveat is that your phone MUST BE UNLOCKED for this to work. If it’s not unlocked…. pick up a hotspot at the airport?

Download offline maps for your map app of choice Apple Maps and Google Maps.

Download offline translations for Apple Translator or Google Translate.

If you have T-Mobile, make sure you enable data roaming as data is free.

Recommendations

• Locations
  • Kyoto
    • Kintsugi
      • Japanese art of fixing broken ceramics with gold
      • Pretty nice, small class and you get to keep the bowl after!
      • https://www.heiando-kyoto.com/
    • Foods:
      • Itsutsu
        • Very good soba!
  • Tokyo
    • Foods:
      • Sharikimon Onozawa
        • 1 Michelin star
        • Really good variety of Japanese foods.
      • Okoge
        • Monjayaki restaurant
        • There are two restaurants called Okoge right next to each other. The North one is better
  • Osaka
    • OKO - Fun Okonomiyaki Bar - https://www.oko-osaka.com/english-menu
      • Really cheap alcohol (200y per refill, make your own drinks)
      • Good Okonomiyaki too!
    • The whole area where the Glico man has a vibrant night life
    • Yakitori Ichimatsu
      • Michelin star
      • Really good food!
• Tax Free
  • Places that are tax free usually will do it at a base price of 5000 JPY.
    • Not that items listed usually have VAT so the price needed for a tax free purchase is 5500 JPY.
  • You can add your tax free QR code to your Visit Japan Web app. Some stores will take this. In my experience, most won’t.
  • Consumables will be placed inside of a sealed bag so that you do not use in Japan.
    • In my experience, no one checks to make sure it’s in the bag when you leave.

Gabe Chai

Software Engineer in NYC