Quote:
Originally Posted by oykib
Where in Japan are you headed? I've only been to Tokyo a few times. But I lived in in the Kinki area of Kansai (Kobe - Osaka - Kyoto) for nine years. One piece of advice, although it may be too late if you're leaving next week, is to pick up the seishun 19 kippu (the youth 18 ticket). It allows you to ride all the Japan rail trains for a single low price. It used to be about $300. That's about the price of one round trip on the bullet train from Osaka to Tokyo. It can easily pay for itself in a weekend.
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I'm staying somewhere near the Yokosuka naval base for about a week (probably going into Tokyo most days from there), then we're doing 3 days in Osaka. My girlfriend's best friend married a navy guy that's now stationed there and we're staying with them on the front end of the trip.
I would have loved to get the rail pass but the trip has been complicated by trying to follow the itinerary of my girlfriend's friend and her husband, who I'm getting incomplete information from. She booked herself and her husband on the faster bullet train line that isn't covered by the rail pass, and we have to go with them, it's a whole thing. I can't complain, it's amazing that they're putting us up in such an expensive part of the word, but trying to organize all this with 3 different people who have different travel philosophies than me is a very different experience than my solo trip to the Balkans last year.
The other fun challenge is that most of this trip will fall in the middle of Golden Week. I don't know exactly what that is, but I know everything will be crowded.
So if you have any must-sees for Osaka (or Kyoto), I'd love to hear them!