Need Help with Transportation in Beijing and Japan
 

I have been reading guidebooks and posts on this board, as well as checking the appropriate websites, to prepare for my upcoming trip to Beijing, Nagoya, and Tokyo, but I am intimidated by the transportation portion of the trip. Here are my questions:

1) Should I contact the hotel in Beijing to send a car to pick us up at the airport? It doesn't look like the New World Courtyard has shuttles, according to the website. My husband and I don't know the language, and we will be exhausted from our flight from the East Coast, so I'm looking for the easiest way to get there.

2) This is the itinerary for Japan:

Day 1 - Arrive in Tokyo (Hilton Tokyo Bay)
Day 2 - Tokyo DisneySea
Day 3 - Nagoya for World Expo (Toyoko Inn Marunouchi)
Day 4 - Nagoya for World Expo
Days 5-8 - Tokyo (Hilton Tokyo)

Do we need to buy a Japan Rail pass based on this itinerary? I checked out the Japan Rail and hyperdia websites, but I'm still confused.

Thanks so much in advance!!!

At the Hilton Tokyo Bay definitely try the Asian section of the restaurant The Square...it is all sorts of Asian cuisine set up in a unique buffet style where the food is set up in manned stations by country and cooked to order if you like, or you can take freshly prepared plates as well. We ate there last October and were duly impressed...and we are hard to impress :)

If you have status with Hilton, get breakfast coupons at the Tokyo Bay over exec floor with lounge - the lounge is open only until 5 pm, and the breakfast up there is not as nice as in the other Japanese Hiltons. The lobby restaurant's breakfast buffet is great. Exec floor rooms are not any better or bigger than the other floors either. In Shinjuku, try for exec floor, as it's excellent there. Disney Sea is awesome...get priority seating reservations for lunch in the place next to the gondolas and ask to sit outside if the weather is nice...the food isn't special, but the atmosphere is nice and wine is pretty good...nice way to spend lunch. Ride Journey to the Center of the Earth...it looks scary from the outside, but it's not really...a big drop at the end is it. Indiana Jones has notoriously long lines, but it isn't that cool of an attraction to actually ride IMO...but the approach to it, the landscaping and building and details are excellent. Right across from it is an airplane hanger where a show, Mystic Rhythms, is performed...see this show...it is excellent.

Get to Expo early...it's crowded. You aren't allowed to bring any PET bottles into the site, but you can bring other containers, like paper boxes of drinks. Do that, and save time by not having to wait in line to buy drinks...and save money as well, as the prices inside Expo are far from cheap.

For round trip Tokyo to Nagoya the price is around 20,000 yen using shinkansen. If that is all the travel you will do (and it seems so), the rail pass may not pay off...you can use it on all the JR lines so you might break even using it, as you've got the airport trip and out to Chiba for Disney. Your call, I think. It's really simple to buy tickets (just allow time before your train departure time to line up to buy the tickets) as you need them.

Don't worry a bit about not knowing the language. You'll be fine in all English at both Hiltons, Expo, DisneySea...Toyoko Inn probably has an English speaker as well, though even if not, no problem. Take a taxi from Nagoya station to the hotel...it'll save you tons of hassle trying to figure out the subway and dealing with all the stairs with your luggage. Taxi won't cost you more than 1500 yen...probably under 1000...not worth the 500 yen savings you might get from tackling the subway system in a new city with luggage.

In Tokyo Shinjuku Hilton, if you have exec floor, ask in the lounge for sightseeing advice. They are so nice up there. Otherwise, seek out the ass't manager on duty for advice as they usually speak the best English and are the most helpful.

You don't really need a JR Pass, Sheryl. Like Kim says, the shinkansen trip is 21000. You wouldn't be able to use it for both airport transfers since your trip is 8 days. One-way on the Narita Express between the airport and Tokyo is about 3000. That's 24,000. You would have to do about 4000 yen worth of travel on JR trains in Tokyo and Nagoya to break even on a 28,300 yen JR Pass. That would be hard to do.

By NOT getting the pass you would be able to ride the Nozomi shinkansen which runs more frequently that the others.

I would not get a pass and would buy tickets to get between Tokyo and Nagoya. Buy a Tokyo-Nagoya roundtrip on the Nozomi shinkansen and a second ticket from Tokyo to Shinjuku to get to the Hilton Tokyo. I don't know how to get from the Hilton Tokyo Bay to Tokyo station.

The reason for the roundtrip is because (I think) you get a 10% discount. If you buy the tickets a month in advance I think you can get a 20% discount.

To get to the Hilton Tokyo Bay from the airport, there is probably a hotel bus. There definitely is(was) a bus from the Hilton Tokyo to Narita airport. I took it once and it made one stop at Shinjuku station before heading to the airport. I enjoyed the ride despite the fact that I was leaving.

Almost forgot to mention that I have seen/heard about special packages for visiting the expo from Tokyo. Something like 18,000 pp for shinkansen roundtrip and expo entrance. I might be wrong about the price. You should check with JTB.

Thanks so much for the info, KimJapan! As I mentioned, I'm nervous about the transportation. My husband is a Hilton HHonors member, so hopefully, we'll be able to take advantage of your suggestions. Is there anything else I need to know?

Also, does anyone have any info for Beijing?

Sheryl, there's no reason to feel intimidated by transport in China as long as you plan ahead a little and keep your wits about you.

At Beijing's Capital Airport it's a cost/convenience trade-off. Our hotel quoted us Y120 (say US$15) for a car, which we accepted, knowing that we'd be turning up at midnight after a long flight from Canberra via Sydney and Shanghai. As it happens the car didn't materialise, so with the help of the cab rank guy we got a cab which cost Y85 (US$10). This itself seemed to be a small overcharge, as we discovered when the return trip cost us Y60 (say US$7).

If you want to cab it, the best idea is to get your hotel to fax you its name and address written in Chinese characters so there'll be no possibility of any misunderstandings (the cabbie won't have any English, and Mandarin pronunciations are tricky). Make sure to hit an airport ATM for some local currency first, though. Do NOT accept a ride from anyone touting a "metered cab" (or for that matter offering to take charge of your bags) - use the official rank and wheel your own bags.

Overall we found Chinese cabbies (the licenced variety) very efficient and honest - the above experience was the first and only time we were overcharged in 3 weeks and 6 cities.

Obviously the above differences were no big deal, but I've heard of some quite outrageous markups quoted by Beijing hotels which I wouldn't pay out of principle if nothing else. But if it's just a case of $5-10 you might want to arrange a car to make things easier on yourselves.

I managed to post my message in between mrwunrfl's and Neil_Oz's, so thanks to both of you, too, for your info! All of your advice is helping to reassure me that we'll be able to handle the transportation. What a relief!!!

Sheryl, we used the subway in Beijing to get to Tiannamen Sq and other on the beaten path places and it was very convenient and easy to use. Taxis are cheap but you may occasionalyl want to use the subway too.

There will be buses at Narita Airport that will get you to the Disney resort and drop you at the Tokyo Bay Hilton...that is the easiest way to do it. On exiting the customs area of Narita there will be an information counter...ask there about limousine buses to Disney. Any of the buses that go to Disney will drop you at the Hilton...they make multiple stops, at Disney Land, Disney Sea, Sheraton, Okura, Hilton...others. When you board, the driver/baggage man will ask you where you want to go. Don't worry a bit about it.

Thanks for the info, hobbes, and for the additional info, KimJapan. I'm feeling much more confident about the transportation situation and appreciate everyone's help.

Jerryjuebj, thanks for your offer. I will contact you if necessary.

On a different note, this is something you fellow Fodorites may appreciate: my upcoming trip became a topic of discussion before a meeting earlier today, and a few people said that they couldn't go to a place where they didn't know the language. I replied that travel is my passion and that I wouldn't let anything get in the way of that, even though my husband and I don't know Chinese or Japanese. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion, and bridging the language barrier is definitely daunting, but I felt kind of sorry for them, limiting themselves in getting to know the world and its people. It just made me look more forward to going.

I appreciate your thoughts. I have survived several months in both countries, and did face language difficulties. But the traveller spirit in me, encouraged me to start speaking commonly used phrases, use sign languages etc.
There is NO place in the world that I would not travel, just because I do not know the language!

Sheryl
I also live and work in Beijing. I can tell you that:

$ 30 for an airport transfer is highway robbery

$40 is a fair day rate for a car service, inside city limits, plus tolls and parking

The average Beijinger earns 1,000 Yuan a month, about US$120

There are many "hei-che" (literally black cars) which are nothing more than privately owned vehicles illegally operating as taxis. Licensed taxis pay 5,000 Yuan a month, plus gas and repairs to be licensed where as the hei-che don't. They try and make the money without paying up for licensing.

I would never get in a car that wasn't licensed. Drunk driving, unlicensed drivers, exhaustion and safety are big issues here.

Would you get in a stranger's car in your home country? When you get in a licensed cab, you get with it the knowledge that you have some basic guarantees and recourse (but no seatbelts, hahaha).

A cab to downtown BJ costs about $8-13, including the toll. Unless there are more than 4 of you and you have excessive luggage, you don't need to make prior arrangements. If you get to your hotel and there is a discrepancy, the bell boy will handle it for you.

Incidentally, I also lived in Tokyo and can tell you without hesitation that travel there is simple, clean, safe, and therre is more than enoug English spoken in Tokyo.

You will get NO english anywhere in China. When I first arrived here in 1989, I learned Ni Hao on the plane. I agree you don't need to know the language to visit a place. It does make it easier, but it would never deter me, either!