Going 2 JP in 4weeks - Some questions
 

Hello !

I bought 2 lonely planet books for Tokyo (encounter, and the bigger version) and when searching for additional information on the internet I came across this forum, which is very helpfull (housetek amongst people-great stuff)

I still have predominantly two questions unawnsered, which I couldn`t really find an awnser to browsing trough the Japan Forum so I was hoping some of you could help me out so here goes.

Details

WHEN: 7 ~ 15 November 2008
AGE: 26
HOW: Amsterdam to Tokyo, direct flight trough KLM
INTERESTS: Nightlife, sightseeing, culture(food), geeking out (arcades) taking pictures with my DSLR of interesting/cool stuff/scenery.
GO OUTSIDE TOKYO?: No, I have 1 week I will focus on Tokyo.
BUDGET: 1500 Euro (2,035 USD / 207,640 Yen) with possibly +900 Euro more IF needed.

Questions

1. I am unsure where I should stay for the duration of my vacation in Tokyo I have figured out two options.

- Stay in a hotel in Shibuya, so that I can go out at night in walking distance and do not worry about catching the last train back to another area of Tokyo where my Hotel is located.
Also saves the fuss of finding the right train when slightly drunk :)

- Stay at the Oak hotel in Ueno which has a JR station nearby for easy access to Narita airport.
Website of the hotel with location details: Oak Hotel

So what do you guys reckon ?
I am used to alot of festivals/parties and sleep deprivation partially due to work hehe, but I do not reckon I will be pulling "all-niters" nightlife trips every day since doing so would only cost you "daytime" the next morning.
Waking up very late is just a waste of time.
Would it be worth staying in Shibuya still ?
Or would Ueno be a more central location to go to and from locations in Tokyo ?
Reading about things, Roppongi hills sounds like a great place for me to go out as wel.

Which comes to question number 2.

2. I wanna get a feel of the travel times to and from areas in Tokyo which is partially also dealing with staying or not in Ueno.

How long would it take to go from the below list ?

Ueno to Shibuya
Ueno to Roppongi hills
Ueno to Shinjuku
Ueno to Akihabara
Ueno to Harajuku

Also how long would it take to go from the below list ?

Shibuya to Akihabara
Shibuya to Harajuku
Shibuya to Shinjuku
Shibuya to Roppongi hills

3. I will be only going for 1 week. A JR rail pass costs me 200 Euro which is 27,491 Yen or 270 USD.
Very expensive, will this be usefull to me ?

I will not be going to Kyoto as I dont think it would be worth it to be going to Kyoto for just 1 day (i.e return the same day) and there would be extra hassle with paying for another hotel, doing something about the hotel in Tokyo for not paying double etc. etc.
Personally - I do not reckon that I will spend more then that amount of money for the JR pass on individual train / subway tickets in Tokyo since I also reckon I would mostly be walking and exploring once I hit an area a day.
Tough I do have to keep in mind going to and from Narita is a 2000 yen ticket or something right ? What do you guys reckon ?

Well thanks in advance for reading so far :ywave:
I would appreciate any awnsers given as thats one step closer to completing my planning :-)

1. Both Shibuya and Ueno are great location to stay at, as long as you stay close to the Yamanote line you are fine. Roppongi hill has a lot of nightlife yes, but its also a "foreigner" hang out (from my own experience), its no different from any pubs/bars/clubs district in the west or Europe, so don't expect it to be "way different"

2. Japan Railway's site has a schedule finder that can help you find these info, thought most of these route you outlined will be somewhere around 20-30 minutes.

3. The JR pass is great only if you need to ride the shinkansen, otherwise i would opt out on it, as you will probably discover that a lot of places you may rather walk than taking transit

If you are into the culture and traidition, then you really should pay Kyoto a visit. In which case, I would suggest to stay for 2 nights and 3 days, this still give you plenty of time in Tokyo to do what you wanted to do. If you do choose to do Kyoto, you best purchase a JR pass. A one way ticket (reserved seat) cost around USD$150

Thanks, I will thus base my deceision of which hotel/area to stay at by cross-referencing a hotel in a price range I like, with the distance to the nearest station that serves the yamanote line.

I see, maybe that is why it is largely talked about to go to if your a foreigner.
I will check it out for I guess one part of the evening and move on.
Since I am still interested in seeing the shops and art exhbitions there.

Excellent ! I never figured going directly to the JR site would be so helpfull.
I figured something as native as that would surely have a website purely in unreadable (to me) Kanji :-)

The 20-30 minutes will be do-able since I plan on mostly walking instead of going public-transit crazy for every lil distance.

This is really helpfull, since I if I do stay in Tokyo, the JR pass wouldn`t justify the cost at all.


I have given this some tought, but I`m not sure on this yet.
I`ll do some more planning and research for hotels etc. budgetting to see what I can do.
I would also rather additionally go to Kyoto, after all it`s not like I can just take a train from amsterdam to Japan any day I want right :)

Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it :-)

Another thing you can do concerning kyoto is to go with a standard Shinkansen ticket, which is much cheaper, and will reduce the cost, but it could mean standing for 2-3 hours.

Do drop by Yokohama, I personally find it more interesting than Tokyo

I just checked out Wikitravel, Yokohama can easily be reached 20-30 minutes from Tokyo depending on which line you take for a modest fee in Yen so I`ll definitly go stop by there for a day, it looks quite nice, probably quiter compared to Tokyo by the looks of some of the pictures and definitly more interesting than Odaiba does.

Another question just popped in my mind tough hoping you guys who`ve been to Japan don`t mind explaining.

Japan seems to have *alot* of different public transport companies, lines etc.
How easy is it to navigate for a foreigner ?
I can survive Paris`s subway system without problem for example.
But at least, that`s written in .. well Roman letters and you can just see where you need to go (which platform) even if you cannot actually read what it means :)
What about Japan ?
Is everything in a train/metro station noted in Kanji and would I need to be prepared to have a map of the system with me that notes both kanji and english translation next to it ?

Any help would be appreciated with the above topic.
I think that`s the only thing that I am still sort of worried about at this point.

Coming weekend when I have time I will finalise everything for my trip, I have 3 hotels to deceide from which I`m still undeceided upon but i`ll have to settle that this weekend, making notes on what I would like to see each day as a guideline - having already travelled alot elsewhere in the world I know not to cram things too much or really make a tight shedule cause you will most likely squander times on things of interest you might come across etc.

All stops are written in Kanji, hiragana and romaji (ENGLISH). Since the World Cup big city subways have also been given numbers.

It is not difficult to navigate if you know the name of the station you want to go to. Japanese people tend to be pretty helpful if you have an idea where you want to be.

Excellent ! I should be fine then :D

I wasn't aware of the numbers, but then I guess its something that they can reuse if they do win the 2016 summer game bid.

On that note MMM, any "insider" info concerning the 2016 bid? Does it look like Tokyo will get it?

Short answer about your Traveltimes:
If you stay in Ueno you will be only 2 Stations from Akihabara, but further away from the Rest /around 15 to 25 min).
When you stay in Shibuya, you will be far away from Akihabara but closer to Shinjuku, Harajuku and Roppongi.
Though, i liked Ueno better because it had more a Asian feeling than the area of Shibuya. Have you thought about making it half/half. Like spend some cheap days in Ueno and than head for a nice place in Shibuya for 2 days?

From Ueno you can easily walk to Akiba and Asakusa, but you can also take the train. Im not sure about the distances around Shibuya, but walking from Ueno to Shibuya sure would consume alot of time.

Cheers
Firebir

I have no insider info whatsoever.