kuranosuke

lyndie; lucky you, free food for 6 months. i hope you took advantage of this, as i am sure you earned it.

my favorite sushi place is sushizanmai in tsukiji fish market. take the hibiya line to tsukiji station, and its about a 10 min. walk to the fish market.

if you like kaiten sushi, and some do as you can pick and choose with abandon, i like maguro hito in asakusa, about a 5 min. walk past the big red chochin on the main road. if you can't find it, just ask the police and the police koban near the red chochin.

i think florence had a great tonkatsu restaurant she recommended. just click on her name. i think it was also in asakusa.

Lyndie

tks albaaust and kuranosoke for the info. alba-did you buy your JR pass in Oz? If so. who from?

Have fun you two!

Lyndie

my spelling is hopeless-should preview! sorry kuranosuke for spelling errors!

mrwunrfl

Click on "Oceana" on the following page for a list of places in Australia where you can buy an exchange order for a JR Pass:
http://www.japanrailpass.net/eng/en05.html

Lyndie

tks mrwunrfl. I'm thinking the overnight bus (www.nightbus.info/ourservice.htm) from Tokyo to Kyoto or Kobe is good value at 4800 yen per person. Then maybe buy a JR West pass or JR East pass depending on where we decide to go. These passes are much cheaper than the JR pass for 7 days, which I don't think we can use to our financial advantage. What do you think?

albaaust

Hi Lyndie
You said earlier you got a good deal on Frequent Flyers so did we - the flight from Sydney cost us 40,000FF from Sydney! Hope your deal was better. What was really good was that we actually flew JAL to Tokyo. I can fill you on some tips about maybe flying on that airline if you want.Anyway,ever mindful of building up those Frequent Flyers I purchased them from the Qantas head office (in Perth)-meant we got bonus points. Also purchased insurance from them... ditto

albaaust

Sorry..bit ambiguous..We purchased the JR passes from the Qantas Head Office. They took about a week to process.

albaaust

OK me again the hotel site we used was http://www.hotelclub.com.au/
and we stayed at the Dai-ni Tower Hotel. It is currently offering a hot deal of 10,000 yen a night for a double room.

mrwunrfl

I think it depends on your actual itinerary. The 4800 yen bus fare is certainly cheap.

The JR East Pass is 20,000. That plus a Tokyo-Kyoto-Tokyo bus trip costing 9600 would be more than a 7-day pass. The JR West passes may be useful.

You need to read the restrictions on the passes to understand what trains you can't take and to see what region the passes cover. It ends up being a trade of time and effort for money (e.g. 6.5 hours Kyoto to Hiroshima with two changes of local train vs 1.5 hours on a shinkansen).

I've seen Uji give bus travel advice on the japan-guide forum.

Here is info about a variety of rail passes:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2357.html
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2361.html
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2357.html

Lyndie

Thanks, guys, for the info.

albaaust-yep 40,000 points Syd/Tokyo. Bargain I say! Emailed Qantas ff and am awaiting their reply on JR pass, so thanks for forward info. Seems we are flying on QF so whether they codeshare with JL or not, not sure. Thanks also for hotel website. Any airline tips appreciated, please! We are both around 180cm tall so seat tips on seatguru are first thing I seek!

mrwunrfl-appreciate those web addresses!! and yes I'm leaning toward the JR west pass. Will do some costings and check out those sites.

Of to cook some dahl now-the Hunter Valley has turned on a magic day today! Have fun all!

mrwunrfl

I just realized that I made a mistake in describing the JR West Sanyo Area Pass. It does cover the Sanyo shinkansen, including Nozomi, from Kyoto to Himeji to Hiroshima to Hakata. It also covers the Haruka Limited express between Kyoto - Shin Osaka - Osaks - Tennoji - Kansai Airport. It is 20,000 for 4 days.

http://www.westjr.co.jp/english/travel/jrp/index.html
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2361_04.html

albaaust

Hi again.Firstly, my husband is 190cm so he does have a problem with being comfortable when flying. Our flight was Qantas from Sydney to Brisbane and then JAL from Brisbane. We had to catch a special train from Brisbane Domestic airport to the international airport to connect to the JAL. What I did when we got to Brisbane was simply to explain to the guy doing the ticketing about leg space and he then organised for us to have two seats with one between us and to keep it free. I'm small so don't need the space. On the way back what we did just before the plane took off was have a quick look at empty places then put various belongings on them. You have to be quick but you will know the regular travellers because they will all be doing it. One couple who were obviously together actually had four seats to themselves (in the middle of the plane)and slept across all the way back. Bet you have the midnight flight back!!
Obviously, strictly speaking this is not legal but I bet because Qantas has these specials on at this time that the planes are not full!

albaaust

Just re-read what I wrote.I have to tell you that the Japanese are so polite that they are not the ones swapping seats. The other thing is that some people actually swapped seats completely before the plane took off!! Another thought I had is if you are able why not hire a bicycle while you are in Kyoto? It is cheap, you keep fit and you certainly experience more than catching a bus! We came across a French couple who were doing this- they had hired bikes from somewhere near Gion and we were envious. I'm sure that other people would be able to provide you with more information on this if you are interested.

albaaust

Me again... sorry...stream of consciousness stuff..if you are tall you will laugh at how small some of the bathrooms are in the hotels.Japanese hotels have not caught up with the fact that their population is growing taller!