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Ghibli Museum Tokyo was always a tough get pre-pandemic, not sure that’s going to get any easier even with the new park getting the spotlight right now. Wouldn’t put it down as a guarantee but a “good luck.” NJPW and Stardom, try to aim for shows at Korakuen both for number of shows available and the history of the place. It’s not super big and is cool to see a live show at. Baseball, try earlier in the month because the end is close to playoffs getting started (or actual playoffs starting) which will be a much tougher ticket. Also Yokohama I’d consider, though obviously Tokyo Dome has a pull (and I think the Japan Hall of Fame?) and seeing the Swallows at Meiji Jingu is a ton of fun. surf rock posted:Sorry, this is the first I'm hearing of any of those; could you say more about why you enjoy those locations? I'm guessing the core idea is just to get out of the city for a bit. Nikko is in Tochigi, probably better as an overnight trip, and is famous for Nikko Toshogu shrine. Kawaguchiko is one of the cities (and a lake) in the foothills of Mt Fuji, and is a fun trip. Hakone is the classic daytrip from Tokyo, you can also easily get from there to another lake near Fuji and see some real sights. Ride the pirate ship.
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Feb 12, 2023 10:50
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I’m glad you are going to saga. Eat the beef in Kira honten. The stalls are called yatai and open everyday 5pm to 4am. You get some in nakasu coastline or in tenjin. That’s a good way to start and you can google some more for specific
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Feb 12, 2023 10:53
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harperdc posted:Ghibli Museum Tokyo was always a tough get pre-pandemic, not sure that’s going to get any easier even with the new park getting the spotlight right now. Wouldn’t put it down as a guarantee but a “good luck.” Tickets for the month are listed the month prior on the 10th e.g tickets for March are released on February 10th. I know they have a section for people outside of Japan but I believe it sells out very quickly. The section for Japanese does not sell out very quickly and is fairly simple to get (if you are outside of Japan) if you have a VPN and a Japanese phone number to verify your account. The new Ghibli Park outside of Nagoya is a very hot sell and I believe tickets for March 2023 were released in December 2022 and sold out pretty quick.
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Feb 12, 2023 11:53
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Charles 2 of Spain posted:The towels are good. I have way too many towels from that place. It doesn't make any sense to me.
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Feb 12, 2023 13:32
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surf rock posted:Honestly that's fine, I saw some pictures and the insane spectacle seemed cool, but maybe I can find something else along those lines. Or a wrestling show would probably provide more than enough spectacle. If you want something that is better than the Robot Museum but along the same lines, I suggest a burlesque place called After Party Tokyo. They put on good shows but slightly expensive. Very intimate environment though.
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Feb 12, 2023 13:33
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field balm posted:where are these food stalls? I'll be in fukuoka in a couple weeks and love street food lol I lived there for a long time and know it very well. I suggest Mamichan for your Yatai experience and Bar Gothic for some doing karaoke with Japanese randos. Ninoni is also amazing for happy hour.
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Feb 12, 2023 13:34
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field balm posted:where are these food stalls? I'll be in fukuoka in a couple weeks and love street food lol it was yatai okamoto, watanabedori, chuo ward
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Feb 12, 2023 14:07
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what are some over the counter pain killers that are easily recognizable? my legs are dying from all the walking and my trip is only half over.
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Feb 12, 2023 14:32
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KidDynamite posted:what are some over the counter pain killers that are easily recognizable? my legs are dying from all the walking and my trip is only half over. 
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Feb 12, 2023 14:36
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This is very effective and found in most stores.
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Feb 12, 2023 14:53
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Feb 12, 2023 15:10
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My favorite is loxonin (loxoprofen) because it doesn't contain caffeine. You need to buy it from a larger drug store that has a pharmacist on staff. A good massage (整体 seitai) or osteopath (接骨院 sekkotsuin) (not chiro) session will help too. You can go to osteopath without national insurance, and all massage places are cash.
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Feb 12, 2023 15:14
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Wonton posted:Most of the sights you listed are on the ginza subway line. Team planets is a lot closer to shiodome (well toyosu is far). Sumo practice is probably on the East side of the river. Still, I appreciate the insights! I'm definitely not locked in on lodging. Ideally I'd stay at a Hyatt property though so that I could use my points, and it looks like the only one in that area is Tokyo Station Hotel, which looks sick but isn't accepting any bookings during my stay.  Waltzing Along posted:Where are you coming from? Flying to the east coast rather than the west coast is going to make your trip a bit longer. If you can fly to LAX or SFO or even something in the NW you will cut some time out of your flight. I think I just defaulted to looking at IAD and ORD since I'm familiar with those airports. It's a fair point I should check other options though. harperdc posted:Ghibli Museum Tokyo was always a tough get pre-pandemic, not sure that’s going to get any easier even with the new park getting the spotlight right now. Wouldn’t put it down as a guarantee but a “good luck.” Thank you for these rundowns! I think I'm fairly settled on my dates, but I'll try to do the baseball game in my first couple of days there; I really appreciate that advice. Also, thank you for the rundowns; Hakone in particular sounds very cool. Busy Bee posted:Tickets for the month are listed the month prior on the 10th e.g tickets for March are released on February 10th. Ahhh, thank you for the top about the museum; that's super helpful. Ned posted:If you want something that is better than the Robot Museum but along the same lines, I suggest a burlesque place called After Party Tokyo. They put on good shows but slightly expensive. Very intimate environment though. That's fun! Thank you, I've got it on the ideas list. surf rock fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 15:37
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 I unironically love this poo poo. Being able to walk in and just grab a cup of random rear end sake is cool as hell.
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Feb 12, 2023 17:03
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Busy Bee posted:Tickets for the month are listed the month prior on the 10th e.g tickets for March are released on February 10th. Has anyone here been to the new Ghibli Park outside of Nagoya? Opinions online seem mixed.
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Feb 12, 2023 17:50
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KidDynamite posted:what are some over the counter pain killers that are easily recognizable? my legs are dying from all the walking and my trip is only half over. This may be a dumb question, but do they not sell Tylenol/paracetamol (acetaminophen) or advil (ibuprofen) in Japan?
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Feb 12, 2023 19:56
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Dad’s been under the impression that one can schedule taxi rides in advance (e.g. from Takamatsu to Takamatsu Airport), and the itinerary assumes we can take a cab from wherever we need to via phone. For the life of me, I cannot remember this being a thing, even in the Tokyo and Osaka areas. I know ride sharing services are banned, and I’ve only ever just hailed a standing cab like a regular person. Making this even weirder is that he has this app called JapanTaxi installed on his phone since apparently 2020 and it doesn’t look like you can actually register for it anymore, or at least my Japanese is too poo poo to figure out how. Am I missing something, and there is in fact a ride-hailing app now? If so, it’s not JapanTaxi, is it? Or maybe we’re better off just using the car as much as possible instead? As for Takamatsu hotel -> airport, can I just park his rear end on this airport shuttle? Or should he hail a cab around 5:30AM for his 7:30AM flight? I think I know the answer, but just to be sure, would they be available in that area? I know you can do that in Tokyo, but this ain’t Tokyo.
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Feb 12, 2023 22:12
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JapanTaxi doesn't work anymore. It has been replaced with Go タクシー, which last I checked you can only download if your region is set to Japan. DiDi taxi works and is available in multiple regions. Uber can hail taxis in some cities as well. These are all just for hailing normal taxis, I don't think ride share really exists. Also, not all taxis can actually get the address from the app, so sometimes you need to tell them.
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Feb 12, 2023 22:46
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Okay, so I’m not completely insane. I was expecting to be hailing cabs by a taxi stop, not pulling up Uber (which I’ve sworn off). Sounds like our best bet is cab or the shuttle to and from the airport for the car, and rely on the car otherwise. I’ll let dad handle this information, not my problem now. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Feb 12, 2023 |
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Feb 12, 2023 23:01
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Pollyanna posted:As for Takamatsu hotel -> airport, can I just park his rear end on this airport shuttle? Or should he hail a cab around 5:30AM for his 7:30AM flight? I think I know the answer, but just to be sure, would they be available in that area? I know you can do that in Tokyo, but this ain’t Tokyo. The shuttle is timed to make the flights, but if for some reason that doesn't work out, most of the places where you can catch the shuttle (Tak Station, Kawaramachi, etc.) also have taxi stands, so that will still be an option if he's running late or something. Maybe I missed it, but where are you staying in Takamatsu?
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Feb 12, 2023 23:19
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Cacafuego posted:This may be a dumb question, but do they not sell Tylenol/paracetamol (acetaminophen) or advil (ibuprofen) in Japan? Tylenol might be available, we have one variant from when my wife was unable to take normal painkillers because of the baby, and for ibuprofen you want to find a drug store and get Bufferin.
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Feb 12, 2023 23:36
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GO taxi app does not work in Shikoku. You'll need to ask your hotel or convenience store staff to call for you. Taxis can be reserved but you'll need to call and they still generally tell you to just call 20min ahead.
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Feb 12, 2023 23:56
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EVE is also ibuprofen but it has enough caffeine that it messes me up at night. Doctors always prescribe loxonin  my favorite 
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Feb 13, 2023 00:03
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Seconding the loxonin recommendation.
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Feb 13, 2023 01:02
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Takamatsu airport is nice that they pair the buses with the flights. Every flight number is pretty much paired with a corresponding bus departure time which gives you enough time to check in and all. Cab hailing is just really really really freaking expensive, especially for the country side with greater distances. See if you can hire a cab driver for a special rate of X hours or something. My in-laws bumped into this kyshuu campaign of 4k yen for 6 hours. If your dads going to be hauling rear end Arline bumfuck japan, he might as well just take the scheduled bus as part of his tourism itinerary because takamatsu airport busses just work. The crazy thing is that your dad has been to japan and smaller/ or more quiet places before. Why would he expect japan to be that convenient??? I guess it can be if you want to pay. I rather rent a car
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Feb 13, 2023 03:14
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Oh yeah Forgot to link this place. https://www.ryokancollection.com/ryokan/roka/ This group is legit. Their Okayama branch served amazing food. For 2 it’s around 44k lowest on weekdays , includes dinner and breakfast
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Feb 13, 2023 04:38
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Thanks for the funny and helpful answers. ozeki is probably better for my liver and kidneys than tylenol tbh. as for tylenol i haven't seen it for sale here but asked the wife and luckily she packed some which i didn't know about. Everyone in the entire world should be exposed to the contents of Hiroshima peace museum.
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Feb 13, 2023 15:39
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OK, I've booked my flights; I'm locked in for arriving on September 18 and departing September 30. I'm open to suggestions for lodging! You can see my planned events list on the last page.
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Feb 14, 2023 03:37
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Hyatt Regency Tokyo is fine, especially if you can cover most of it with points. Where you stay impacts your travel, it doesn’t mean you can only visit places that are in walking distance. It’s a 5-10 minute walk to the west JR entrance for Shinjuku Station, which means plenty of trains to go other places. “Perfect is the enemy of good” it’ll be a good hotel, the location is fine, and if it meets your budget/points target then go for it and worry more about your itinerary than finding a Perfect Place.
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Feb 14, 2023 04:17
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Do you need a nice hotel for some reason? I'm always in favor of going cheap since ideally you aren't going to be spending much time in there. Business hotels like Toyoko or Dormy are perfectly fine and you can probably manage twelve days for like $600. Spend that money on fun stuff instead.
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Feb 14, 2023 04:22
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Get cheap hotels. Unless you are a crazy hotel person or really want to use your points, the goal of Japan is to be in Japan, not to be in some fancy hotel in Japan. The only reason I would get a super fancy hotel would be to impress a girl, but I have no women in my life I need to impress in such a manner because they would never hang out with a cheapskate like me anyway. Also, if you are flying to Narita you can crash here a couple of nights at Ned and Breakfast. I don't take points or money.
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Feb 14, 2023 04:28
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harperdc posted:“Perfect is the enemy of good” Yup 
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Feb 14, 2023 04:38
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I need to say hello to ned and breakfast
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Feb 14, 2023 06:58
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Hyatt regency, from hotel door to platform , I say a good 15-20 min. One way. Twice a day, repeat 5 days. If it’s the only option with points then that’s too bad. It’s just a FYI about staying in west shinjuku when you are coming from HND.
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Feb 14, 2023 07:02
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surf rock posted:OK, I've booked my flights; I'm locked in for arriving on September 18 and departing September 30. I'm open to suggestions for lodging! You can see my planned events list on the last page. That is a huge waste of Chase UR points to be honest, I would save it where you can get more value for your points. Also, some of those hotels such as the Hyatt Regency Tokyo is in Shinjuku - I would not spend thousands of dollars to stay there, even if it was a nice hotel. It's west of the hustle and bustle of Shinjuku in an office area and the whole place gets quiet after business hours. Imagine staying in downtown of any major city in the US. You can get an Airbnb in a nice neighborhood for half the cost and more space. I like the Shibuya - Naka Meguro area.
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Feb 14, 2023 08:11
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Park Hyatt is a little too far from the station but like, if the price is right, go for it.
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Feb 14, 2023 12:00
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Thanks all for the feedback! Some quick thoughts: - I don't need to stay in the lap of luxury, but I'd like to be happy and comfortable with where I'm staying. I don't think I'll be out adventuring 16 hours a day for two weeks straight, and given my stomach's track record, I'm likely to be knocked out with food poisoning-like symptoms at least one day. - I'll look into the Toyoko and Dormy options! I've also seen a recommendation for Hotel Century Southern Tower, but that looks like it's in the same area as the Regency so I'm guessing that only makes sense if the pricing is competitive since it would have the same drawbacks folks have mentioned. - I do plan to look into Airbnb, but I've had enough sketchy experiences with Airbnb domestically that I'm a little dubious of it in general at this point. Of course, that was usually from me trying to score a deal and going to a place without many reviews. When I look into this, I'll specifically check the Shiodome and Shibuya - Naka Meguro areas. harperdc posted:Hyatt Regency Tokyo is fine, especially if you can cover most of it with points. Where you stay impacts your travel, it doesn’t mean you can only visit places that are in walking distance. It’s a 5-10 minute walk to the west JR entrance for Shinjuku Station, which means plenty of trains to go other places. It's a fair point. I've got seven months until the trip; my hope is to have my lodging settled in the next month and then I can play around with the itinerary for a bit. Busy Bee posted:That is a huge waste of Chase UR points to be honest, I would save it where you can get more value for your points. If you have suggestions for better value, I'm open to it. I've been saving them for five years and when I finally went to use them for the flights on this trip, literally every awards option aside from economy was already booked. So, I feel like I'm going to be dead before I get to use this poo poo in an optimal scenario because award availability is so limited. Ned posted:Also, if you are flying to Narita you can crash here a couple of nights at Ned and Breakfast. I don't take points or money. I'll be flying to/from HND, but thank you for the kind offer!
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Feb 14, 2023 15:08
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surf rock posted:- I don't need to stay in the lap of luxury, but I'd like to be happy and comfortable with where I'm staying. I don't think I'll be out adventuring 16 hours a day for two weeks straight, and given my stomach's track record, I'm likely to be knocked out with food poisoning-like symptoms at least one day. Fair enough, though I think you'd find the business hotels fine. Here's a generic Toyoko Inn room:  Bathroom is to the left with your usual bathtub/shower, sink, toilet. It's nothing fancy but not a hovel. Tokyo certainly isn't lacking in fancy hotel options if that's what you want though. You might find more flight options open up if you wait a couple months? I also used Chase points since I had enough for a free flight, I booked four months in advance and everything was available. The airfare thread might know more about how that works. To me free flights are definitely a better use of points if you can swing it. E: Also out of your room doesn't mean on your feet. I don't think loitering is a thing in Japan, you can go post up at a cafe for six hours and nobody's going to hassle you. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Feb 14, 2023 |
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Feb 14, 2023 15:17
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surf rock posted:I'll look into the Toyoko and Dormy options! I've also seen a recommendation for Hotel Century Southern Tower, but that looks like it's in the same area as the Regency so I'm guessing that only makes sense if the pricing is competitive since it would have the same drawbacks folks have mentioned. Hotel Century Southern Tower is great; I've stayed there several times. Its far more "in" everything than the Regency is; the Regency feels far far more separate from the fun stuff, especially at night.
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Feb 14, 2023 15:55
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surf rock posted:- I do plan to look into Airbnb, but I've had enough sketchy experiences with Airbnb domestically that I'm a little dubious of it in general at this point. Of course, that was usually from me trying to score a deal and going to a place without many reviews. When I look into this, I'll specifically check the Shiodome and Shibuya - Naka Meguro areas. Keep in mind that Japan cracked down on short-term rentals a few years ago. The barrier to entry into the market is a bit higher so that might keep the trashiest options out.
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Feb 14, 2023 16:10
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