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Airport Limousine Bus runs all night, just at double the fare from midnight to 5am. That's what my wife and I did when we flew SFO to HND and got past security at 11:30pm and then watched the ticket counter girl freak out for 30 minutes over our JTB bus voucher that was mistakenly issued for NRT. We were heading to Shinjuku so our bus fares were more like $20/each but it beats hanging around in an airport for five hours. If you're just going to Shinagawa it should be a lot cheaper. If you're really that stuck on not paying, then the airport monorail to Shinagawa starts up again at 5am. It's 12km walking, and at the minimum Google puked up a warning about there might not be sidewalks. (IE not safe to walk) *edit* another late night bus service, Keihin Kyuko Bus 1000JPY to Shinagawa: http://hnd-bus.com/route/nightmorningbus.html#shinagawa CrazyLittle fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Jul 7, 2013 |
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Jul 7, 2013 18:09
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CrazyLittle posted:Airport Limousine Bus runs all night, just at double the fare from midnight to 5am. That's what my wife and I did when we flew SFO to HND and got past security at 11:30pm and then watched the ticket counter girl freak out for 30 minutes over our JTB bus voucher that was mistakenly issued for NRT. We were heading to Shinjuku so our bus fares were more like $20/each but it beats hanging around in an airport for five hours. If you're just going to Shinagawa it should be a lot cheaper. Thanks! Yeah I heard the limobus was about 20 bucks which seemed a bit much, I have to get to Meguro ultimately so I'll ask around how expensive it really is. Maybe I'll take it to Shinagawa and walk from there, that's at least halfway there.
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Jul 7, 2013 19:10
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Anyone ever used one of these "free internet" SIM cards for Japanese tourists? http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/indepth/exotic/JapanesQue/special/ntteast.html "We will begin by explaining how to use these free Wi-Fi services, although there are no difficult procedures involved. Basically, you just need to pick up a free Wi-Fi card from one of the counters established at facilities such as airports and tourist information centers (see illustration below). Simply show your passport and you can receive one of these cards. The ID and password necessary to log-in are printed on the card, so you just need to enter these as directed at an access point with the NTT East Wi-Fi signal (0000FLETS-PORTAL). Having done that, you can then make free use of Wi-Fi spots provided by NTT East for 14 days (336 hours). Simple and easy!"
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Jul 11, 2013 04:09
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I didn't bother, there's plenty of free wifi around. Besides, I read that it's only for Tokyo... unless I read an old article.
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Jul 11, 2013 14:08
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Talas posted:I didn't bother, there's plenty of free wifi around. Things must have changed a lot in 3 years, because I had a hell of a time finding free WiFi in Tokyo.
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Jul 11, 2013 16:03
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Well it's on the Tokyo Metro now apparently.
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Jul 11, 2013 16:48
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DiscoJ posted:Well it's on the Tokyo Metro now apparently. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/04/05/business/subway-riders-get-connected-thanks-to-free-tokyo-metro-wi-fi-service/#.Ud7T7jvQooM April 2013, so yes, fairly recently. It also mentions that they'll decide at the end of this month if they're continuing it. It also appears to be for only 15 minutes at a time, up to 5 times a day. They mention an app in that article, but the official site makes it look more like how you'd normally connect to any other WiFi service. http://mt.arepo-nttbp.net/tokyometro/en/guide.html That would have saved me a huge headache when I visited.
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Jul 11, 2013 16:58
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Mister Roboto posted:Anyone ever used one of these "free internet" SIM cards for Japanese tourists? Edit: Incidentally, as another option for internet for tourists I had good luck with bmobile's prepaid data SIM. (It's possible it sucks unless you use their iphone premium plan on an iphone, though. It was unusably slow when I tried to tether a computer but not with tethering another idevice which may be because they do some sort of header based QOSing, and if the non-premium service is as slow as the PC tethering was, I probably wouldn't recommend it). mystes fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Jul 11, 2013 |
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Jul 11, 2013 17:22
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I broke down b-mobile in the Japan cell phone thread last year. They have a bajillion SIM types as well, so what kind of service you get depends entirely on what SIM you're using. Also since it all piggybacks on Docomo's network, you're subject to Docomo's QOSing as well as bmobiles, which is why speeds on the free plans go to poo poo from 12-1pm every day as the country's officeworkers all whip out their phones. I'm really happy with my unlimited data SIM, but I bought it for using the forums at work basically, so having a cap of 25kbps isn't a problem at all for me. If you were trying to use Youtube or even Windows Update or something on this connection you'd probably want to throw it out the window, though.
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Jul 11, 2013 23:18
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Sheep posted:I broke down b-mobile in the Japan cell phone thread last year. They have a bajillion SIM types as well, so what kind of service you get depends entirely on what SIM you're using. Also since it all piggybacks on Docomo's network, you're subject to Docomo's QOSing as well as bmobiles, which is why speeds on the free plans go to poo poo from 12-1pm every day as the country's officeworkers all whip out their phones. Edit: In any case I guess I can't really recommend b-mobile since I can't really predict whether or not someone who uses it will be limited to the horrible 25kbps. I don't have an iphone now, so I don't know if I would try it myself. mystes fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Jul 11, 2013 |
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Jul 11, 2013 23:36
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I have a 10 hour layover in Narita this November with my (soon-to-be) wife. I've spent a fair amount of time in Japan but she hasn't, so I'm tempted to try and do a whirlwind of Tokyo for her and hope we're not too jetlagged to gently caress it up (I don't speak or read Japanese very well). Alternatively, I'm considering just going into the town of Narita itself and chilling out. I really don't want to miss our connecting flight. What do you guys recommend?
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Jul 12, 2013 01:31
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blk posted:I have a 10 hour layover in Narita this November with my (soon-to-be) wife. I've spent a fair amount of time in Japan but she hasn't, so I'm tempted to try and do a whirlwind of Tokyo for her and hope we're not too jetlagged to gently caress it up (I don't speak or read Japanese very well). Alternatively, I'm considering just going into the town of Narita itself and chilling out. I really don't want to miss our connecting flight. Narita. Even with perfect connections you're going to be wasting around three hours or more just out of the airport to/from Tokyo, leaving you with seven hours of running around.
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Jul 12, 2013 02:00
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Like tarepanda said, you don't have all that much time. 7 hours is enough to do some stuff, but not really all that much time, and chances are you'll be tired and not in the mood. Unless you have something specific you want to do/see just stay in the area.
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Jul 12, 2013 02:18
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Best case scenario you're looking at 2 hours from wheels down to being in the city, given immigration customs train times etc. And that's if you know exactly where you're going. Then if you leave the city 2 hours prior to your flight (which is cutting it quite close) you have 6 hours left. So unless by whirlwind you mean "doing a lap on Yamanote" I don't really think you have enough time. You could maybe visit Akihabara and Tokyo Tower but dunno if that's worth the hassle. If you do decide to go this route I recommend leaving your luggage at the airport -- just pack whatever you need for that day in your carry-on. In fact this may not even be optional, since the airline might require you to re-check immediately due to the layover. Staying in Narita is probably the way to go. I'd say you just visit Narita-san, get a nice lunch somewhere, then chill in one of the onsens nearby. Hopefully that will be Japanese enough for her. edit: well that's what i get leaving the reply window open for 10 minutes
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Jul 12, 2013 02:22
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If you do go to Narita, don't go to Narita-san together, because the superstition is that couples who go there together will soon break up!
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Jul 12, 2013 03:02
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mystes posted:I definitely wasn't getting a 25kbps cap on my iphone with the U300 SIM. Also I know the problem wasn't tethered vs nontethered data because tethering someone's ipad worked. Seriously, this is going to sound idiotic, but I don't know how this could have been the case without packet introspection, so if you have the U300 SIM you might want to try changing your user agent string to the iphone safari one in case that magically helps. It's not just HTTP data that's being throttled, but I also can't be hosed to take apart my router and check the exact SIM I'm using - they clearly state that the speeds are 30kbps best effort on the one I'm using though. As I said, that's plenty for me, but the fact remains that by definition every b-mobile plan uses Docomo's network, and you're subject to all the throttling and QOS issues that involves, along with b-mobile's own turbo boost whatever system. b-mobile can be a decent option for people here for longer stays but I wouldn't really recommend the majority of their offerings to tourists. Edit: I am definitely on a U300: quote:商品名：b-mobileSIM U300 6ヶ月使い放題パッケージ Sheep fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 03:15
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Anything particularly cool/fun/interesting to do around Suginami (near Asagaya to be exact)? Really doesn't matter what, specifically.
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Jul 12, 2013 03:51
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WHATEVS SISTER posted:Anything particularly cool/fun/interesting to do around Suginami (near Asagaya to be exact)? Really doesn't matter what, specifically. Hey, I used to live there! The answer is drink or go to Shinjuku.
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Jul 12, 2013 04:15
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Sheep posted:It's not just HTTP data that's being throttled, but I also can't be hosed to take apart my router and check the exact SIM I'm using - they clearly state that the speeds are 30kbps best effort on the one I'm using though. As I said, that's plenty for me, but the fact remains that by definition every b-mobile plan uses Docomo's network, and you're subject to all the throttling and QOS issues that involves, along with b-mobile's own turbo boost whatever system. quote:iPhone4 専用のネットワークについて *:Because how could they possibly tell if http traffic was coming from Safari unless they were actually looking at the headers. Thus, my speculation about changing your user-agent header to possibly get a speed-up, although even if this is how it worked I don't know if you needed their iphone4 specific SIM or whether this information is still applicable. mystes fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 05:21
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LimburgLimbo posted:Hey, I used to live there! Yeah that's pretty much what I expected, haha. From the looks of things there's some okay jazz clubs to get smashed at so that's cool!
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Jul 12, 2013 05:29
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WHATEVS SISTER posted:Yeah that's pretty much what I expected, haha. From the looks of things there's some okay jazz clubs to get smashed at so that's cool! There are a lot of little nice bars and izakaya behind the station on the opposite side from the long shoutengai. Check that out.
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Jul 12, 2013 07:23
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I figure this is probably the thread that is going to have the biggest MY JAPANESE FRIEND population who could give me some good advice: I've got a third-year high school student who plans to go to college, but would rather not do so in Japan, as she's interested in living/working abroad. She's not entirely sure what she wants to do with her life (can't blame her, I didn't at her age), although I know last year she was thinking of going into elementary education. She's very much a people person (student body VP, etc) and says she sucks at math and stuff (I'll take her word for it, only explanation I can think of why such an English prodigy would wind up at one of the worst schools in the prefecture). The US is kinda good in that you can do gen-ed's your first year and put off choosing a major. But I know it's about the worst of the English-speaking countries as far as getting a job/visa once you graduate. [Plus, America sucks for a whole lot of other reasons.] She did a homestay in San Diego over winter break last year and really enjoyed it, but fortunately doesn't have a fixation on the US or anything. I was thinking of recommending a working holiday; it's a good chance to level-up her English (on the job, hanging out with friends, or doing a 3-4 month language course), maybe get a better idea of what she wants to do, and see how she deals with living in a foreign country without ponying up a year of pricey international student fees. It could really only help her chances applying for universities abroad (although she's my best student by a country mile, I think she needs to improve her English before she can handle undergrad coursework), but how badly would it mess with her prospects of entering a Japanese university if she decided to take a year off and go abroad? I know there's the whole ronin thing, so maybe it's not the end of the world? I do know that coming back to Japan with a foreign degree/experience can be quite an adjustment and even a hinderance to employment with many Japanese companies, but that's pretty far down the horizon and kind of a worst-case scenario, I don't want to discourage her right from the outset. I also have some foreign friends here who did a year in Japan right after high school on the Rotary program. Is there anything similar open to Japanese students to go abroad after finishing school? I'm actually not sure what her financial situation is (thought about asking, figured I'd better wait), so if you guys have any info on scholarships (either from the Japanese government, or available from individual countries/universities/organizations) you could pass on, that'd also be much appreciated! Pompous Rhombus fucked around with this message at 07:31 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 07:28
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AFS offers volunteer abroad for people 18+: http://www.afs.org/
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Jul 12, 2013 08:05
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mystes posted:That looks useful but you realize that a card with wifi login instructions printed on it is something completely different than a SIM card, right? b-mobile's SIM cards seem like an inexpensive option for ~2 weeks... if you have a device that has been confirmed to work with them. I had a fun time trying to get it working with my Motorola Atrix HD. I assumed it was probably supported and wouldn't be an issue. It didn't work, and their email support had no info on why, since my phone wasn't on their list. I only needed data to use Maps on the go, more or less, so in the end I opted for one of (US) AT&T's plans, through SoftBank, which ran about the same price as the 1GB SIM, but had 180MB. That was more than enough for 1.5 weeks of frequent map use in Tokyo, with everything else disabled. I tried calling their support (open 3 hours on weekday mornings IIRC) and got disconnected every time at random intervals while on hold the full time they were open. Never spoke with a person, and that's when I gave up.
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Jul 12, 2013 09:41
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Pompous Rhombus posted:The US is kinda good in that you can do gen-ed's your first year and put off choosing a major. But I know it's about the worst of the English-speaking countries as far as getting a job/visa once you graduate. [Plus, America sucks for a whole lot of other reasons.] Um, what? We're not called a melting pot without reason. Also, we're already needing teachers as it is, let alone in another 4-5 years after even more baby boomers have retired (when your student would graduate).
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Jul 12, 2013 14:10
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Fryhtaning posted:Um, what? We're not called a melting pot without reason. Hahaha do you really think it's easy to get a work visa to the US?
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Jul 12, 2013 14:21
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LimburgLimbo posted:Hahaha do you really think it's easy to get a work visa to the US? I've never heard that it was hard to get a holiday visa in the main English-speaking countries, nor have I heard that it was easy to get a working visa in any of them. As far as working holidays for someone who isn't sure what she wants to do, Disney is one of the best companies in the world for doing so. The parks and the cruise lines are heavily young foreigners. Great for a people person as well.
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Jul 12, 2013 14:54
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Fryhtaning posted:I've never heard that it was hard to get a holiday visa in the main English-speaking countries, nor have I heard that it was easy to get a working visa in any of them. The US doesn't offer working holiday visas.
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Jul 12, 2013 16:42
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Pompous Rhombus posted:It could really only help her chances applying for universities abroad (although she's my best student by a country mile, I think she needs to improve her English before she can handle undergrad coursework), but how badly would it mess with her prospects of entering a Japanese university if she decided to take a year off and go abroad? I know there's the whole ronin thing, so maybe it's not the end of the world? I don't think you can't defer admission to universities in Japan for a year like you can in other places, and I don't think she would be able to use the previous year's entrance exam results, so she would have to fly back to Japan to take entrance exams. Plus, this would mean that she would presumably have to be doing some level of studying for them while abroad. It's unfortunate, because if you could just defer admission it would probably be extremely easy to just apply in Japan and then consider other options while abroad.
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Jul 12, 2013 17:12
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Mr. Fix It posted:The US doesn't offer working holiday visas. Not explicitly, no, but there are a ton of different kinds of working visas for non-immigrants. Visas to work on a cruise ship are a combination of class C1 and D, of which the stats show an overall refusal rate in 2012 of 11%, which drops to 5% or less after the refusals that were waived/overcome. And that includes all countries, some of which have an overall refusal rate of 50%. Japan is one of the lowest at 10%. The general business/pleasure type B visa sits around a 25% refusal rate. The type F for students is a bit harder at a 35% refusal rate. It's all in the stats. The bottom line is that the student wouldn't have too much trouble getting a visa to stay for a year or so on some kind of program designed for international students. If she's coming just to go to a community college, yeah, that'll be harder.
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Jul 12, 2013 18:23
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The long and the short of it is that going to the US would suck and going to Australia would be objectively better for an infinite number of reasons
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Jul 12, 2013 22:42
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Weatherman posted:The long and the short of it is that going to the US would suck and going to Australia would be objectively better for an infinite number of reasons Yeah except it would be Australia.
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Jul 13, 2013 00:03
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More pertinent to the discussion though, there's no reason why she can't go to Japanese college a bit late, as long as she can pass the exams. They won't refuse her just for being old; I know other people who have started college late, even though it's less common in Japan than elsewhere. Also don't worry a foreign degree hindering her job prospects; that's not really the case unless she wants to go to some really traditional Japanese company where she shouldn't go anyway because she's a woman and would have basically no future there. Anyway if she's that good at English, and especially if she gets better during some time abroad, she can and probably should go to one of the English-medium or partially English-medium programs we were talking about earlier in the thread. Sophia, APU, ICU, Waseda, Hosei, Keio, Rikkyo, etc. Or do college/community college in the US or elsewhere. She has a lot of options.
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Jul 13, 2013 00:14
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USA is really restrictive  She can go to Canada  instead for working holiday.
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Jul 13, 2013 03:30
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Mr. Fix It posted:The US doesn't offer working holiday visas. There are working holiday-esque but slightly-more-restrictive visas available for America if you've got Ireland, NZ, or Singaporean citizenship, last I checked (winter 2012). It's just that nobody knows about them, so everyone just assumes they don't exist, since the working holiday culture isn't nearly as big a thing for Americans. Sheep fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Jul 13, 2013 |
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Jul 13, 2013 07:37
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Fryhtaning posted:Not explicitly, no, but there are a ton of different kinds of working visas for non-immigrants. Visas to work on a cruise ship are a combination of class C1 and D, of which the stats show an overall refusal rate in 2012 of 11%, which drops to 5% or less after the refusals that were waived/overcome. And that includes all countries, some of which have an overall refusal rate of 50%. Japan is one of the lowest at 10%. These low refusal rates are because many Japanese companies have operations in the US and sending people for a 1 or 3 year stay is sort of a de facto thing that happens. I know at our company 100% of new hires have to do a 1.5 year stint abroad. She doesn't have a giant multi-national backing her so she's either going to have to pay the big bucks for a university or its going to be really hard.
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Jul 13, 2013 16:00
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LimburgLimbo posted:Yeah except it would be Australia. As an Australian, I laughed. On-topic, I used to work in intensive English programs run by Australian universities, with the aim of getting students up to an English proficiency suitable for undergraduate/postgraduate study. Basically every university in Australia has some kind of program that does this, but the places I worked at did it really well, and I would recommend them. English proficiency level at the start of their study doesn't matter too much, it just means if their proficiency is low, it takes longer for them to progress through the levels to the end point. We had students with very very low proficiency spend a year working through from pre-intermediate level to the university prep classes. Sometimes they crashed and needed extra time, sometimes they didn't. I'm happy to answer any questions on the topic, I have students in a similar situation now and I'm giving them some advice from my experience. PMs are fine.
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Jul 14, 2013 02:17
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Japan goons! Me/GF normally live in Korea and are dropping by Okinawa for a few days in the last week of August. It's our first time on that particular island, so everything is new. We haven't booked places to stay yet or developed any itinerary of note. Would stay in a hostel preferably. Any recommendations, for either of those two? Mostly interested in water things, nature things, and cultural things. tirinal fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Jul 15, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 09:22
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tirinal posted:Any recommendations, for either of those two? Mostly interested in water things, nature things, and cultural things. Churaumi Aquarium is supposed to be one of the best in the world. There's also Shuri Castle and Shikinaen Gardens for the cultural stuff. It sounds like you're looking for typical tourist spots, so japan-guide has a good summary.
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Jul 15, 2013 13:23
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I ended up getting a Japanese laptop after all. The keyboard isn't bothering me much so far, unless I want to type an @ or a :. Christ, they're cheap though compared to Europe. Like 40% off.
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Jul 15, 2013 22:20
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