Planning Trip to Japan
 

Hi,
Me and some friend are planning a Trip to Tokyo sometime in June and i have a few questions.

Were flying from the UK and was wondering if anybody had any experience flying with Virgin or Air France because were not sure which to fly with.
Virgin is £650 from London and Air France is £500 from Manchester (which is closer for us)

Were going for 2 weeks and i not really sure how much money i would need to take, so i was wondering is it possible to pay for stuff with a Maestro Debit Card incase my funds run low.

Also one of my friends has suggested going up mount fuji, but i was wondering if it is ideal to go up during June

it really depends. I would personally opt for JAL. but im an expensive whore. So scrap that.
Virgin is pretty cool, but since air france is cheaper you should go for it. However, it may be because you have a stopover or somewhere. I wuld go to your travel agents to see any deals on offer.

Your budget really depends on where you want to stay and what you want to buy. it would really help to make a list of things you want to buy before going to stop extra expenditure.
Plus, you gotta take into account that stuff in tokyo are EXPENSIVE(being the capital city and everything)

I would not count on anything besides a VISA or MASTER CARD for emergency expenses.

For questions about traveling to tokyo, like were to stay and how much money to take, as some cultural tips i would strongly recomend "Houseteks Guide To Tokyo" thread and "Tips, rules, and etiquette" also by houstek, they cover the basics i think.

150 pounds less and closer to you? Sounds like a bargain to me, though I haven't flown either airline. I did fly some other "bargain airlines" though (Korean Air, for instance), and it wasn't bad at all. Sure, the food may be a little cheaper than JAL or something, but for that kind of savings, it's more than worth it IMO.

Also, you may want to consider just what you want to see and do in Japan. Many people (including myself) who have been to Japan actually prefer the Osaka/Nara/Kyoto region, as it has more things to see and do than Tokyo. You can always buy a rail pass to take the bullet train, or take a night bus, to the Kansai region from Tokyo, but if you fly into and out of the Kansai International Airport near Osaka, you don't have to bother with any of that. If I were to go back to Japan, that's definitely what I would do. I mention it because you haven't bought your tickets yet, so you have a chance to consider and look into it.

june MIGHT be ok for fuji... i think July and August are the usual climbing months (I went end of August last year) so it depends what time in June...

If you're coming from the uk, I would advise you try to hold off until mid september for your trip because (as a fellow brit) I can honestly say the summer weather ruins the experience a little lol

card wont be any use out here - you will need around a grand a week if you want to really enjoy yourselves and see everything imo

on the card issue, japanese tend to deal in cash so atms that support foreign cards can be hard to find. i got myself a japanse bank account the week i arrived so i never had problems. one friend of mine had a citibank card, from america, and his card got eaten at what is usually the most compatible atm the post service one. he had to travel about 30mins to go to an actual citibank atm in Japan, he was lucky. my bank HSBC only has a brank in Tokyo and i was near Kyoto.

you may be lucky and have no problems getting money out of your account with your card but i wouldn't rely on it. you will have no problem carrying around reasonably large somes of money in japan. you'll see many japanese carrying around £500 and upwards of much much more. you won't need to worry about it getting stolen etc. i remember i was carrying around 300000¥ at one stage and i didn't feel worried at all, now do that in australia and people would think i'm crazy. my friend bought a car in japan recently and handed over 2000000¥ in cash haha..