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First of all, if you guys get to Fukuoka, give Ned a buzz. Lots of restaurants offer all you can drink and you can get ridiculously trashed easily. Even when the non alcoholic drinkers load up on sodas, there is a chance for them to get another glass spiked. Japan is awesome, it's orderly, clean, good food, quality ingredients, amazing retail service, detail minded. and the whole country is becoming easier for tourists. God knows that they need new foreign tourist dollars now with their sinking economy. I have been there several times on the average of every 2/3 years with my family and friends on short trips or shopping sprees. Tokyo more than 8 times in my life. The north in Hokkaido has awesome Whistler quality snow and with its grid streets it feels like a Japanese version of America. The cities have alot of niche bars, restaurants, food and venues. The mountains have nice hiking and the temples or ryokan can be nice romantic or family getaways. With a group of people, it's actually not too expensive to rent a car and drive around to a farm, smaller towns and have a taste of the countryside. Cheaper than a rail pass for 4 or more people to drive. The south and western Japan has a totally different vibe and things are not as convenient to get around but still nice to visit. Kyushuu cuts of beef are cheaper than kobe beef but still good! Oh and Japanese electronic toilets rule. I went on a 20 day goongrilmage last year thinking I will be done with Japan for a while but I'm actually wanting to go to Japan again. Ned is in the south, Pompous Rhombous is in south and to me that's cool enough to vist  My few anecdotal gripes as a tourist is that
USMC503 posted:I am going to Singapore but have a stop in Narita. Sadly, I don't have enough time in Japan to go through customs and chill for a little while, so I wanted to know what you guys recommend to do in the airport (never been in Narita before)? Any restaurants worth mentioning there? ntan1 posted:Basically, there are only two places that you should be waiting for, and they are Daiwa and Sushi Dai. The both cost about 5500, and have ridiculous lines. Grand Fromage posted:I am going to be a cheapass in Tokyo but I would like to blow money on good sushi once. What's a good place that's high class, maybe max ~$200 for omakase? Also needs to accept credit cards or I'm going to need to flee the country right afterward. I can vouch for the 10,000 omakasa. It's drat expensive, not 200 dollar territory. There's also the famous Tsuruya at the Peninsula Hotel, starting from the "basic" 10,000 8 course tempura meal. The city can be a huge money sink. caberham fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Jun 15, 2012 |
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Jun 15, 2012 09:36
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Worst part is that the ramen blows compared to the other quality ones in Tokyo. It's odaiba bad. For middle class families from the country side. If you are at Yokohama and have free time you can go for it, but I was a sucker to take a long train ride from Tokyo. China is a but kitschy but it's the cleanest China town in the world with the stores arranging the inventory neatly like any Japanese store which feels really weird. In fact avoid all ramen museums, the one in Fukuoka was not much better.
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Oct 21, 2012 07:20
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If you want fancy try kyubei. http://www.kyubey.jp/index_e.html 6,000 yen for a decent assorted sushi, and 10,000 yen for balls to the walls good. My go to best middle tier taste/price ratio is sushi sanmai. Their assorted tuna set for 3150 yen is the bomb. The Shibuya store is 24 hours open! Think there's one near aksaka. yeah it's yurakocho station and it's 24 hours too! https://plus.google.com/114184461930075215023/about?gl=jp&hl=ja http://www.kiyomura.co.jp/shops/search/ Sushi is good, but do give the fried food and ramen a shot. Tsunahachi - http://www.tunahachi.co.jp/en/ good fried ice cream, good wheel cake tempura. Middle tier tempura without breaking the bank. You can splurge at the Peninsula hotel but it's really pricey.
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Jan 14, 2013 16:53
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How about funerals? Is it mostly just a Shinto Buddhist service? Have any goons here been to a Japanese Christian funeral service?
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Apr 12, 2013 08:58
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Bloodnose posted:I wanna say Osaka Prefectural Museum or Kansai Museum or something like that? It's really good and has some interactive stuff to play with. Think it was the Osaka Prefectural Museum. They had an interesting layout and number of artifacts but almost everything was in Japanese  I remembered some museum volunteers invited us to play some history related board game in Japanese. They insisted on us playing when we clearly didn't speak much Japanese. I think we failed almost every question but at the end everyone was relieved that the game was over and politely smiled. That was a really  moment
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May 13, 2013 03:26
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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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Macs rip you off wherever you buy in the world right?
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Jul 16, 2013 02:43
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But the trains are never full, lots of free space! Don't the seats also swivel allowing you to stash extra space? Or is that only the keisei sky liner?
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Aug 9, 2013 00:20
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Mister Roboto posted:So would you suggest: That's what we did for Japan goongrilamge 2010. We came into Hiroshima at night from Osaka, stayed at toyoko inn. In the morning I went to the peace museum then to miyajima for lunch. Taking the shinkansen to fukuoka was a close call, it was a mad rush from the jr station to the hotel collect bags then to the station and flipping out the jr passs and jumping onto the train. Just in time for Ned's Thursday yattai! I'm a friend of Ned in America is a lot easier to explain than weird internet stranger at his door step. For internet I recommend renting a 3g sim card from docomo or somewhere in the airport. It helps a lot when you are in a moving train. Searching online maps,and joining the line chat group for help. It's 2013, don't be a Neanderthal.
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Aug 12, 2013 02:03
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Sim card is not hard people. Only countries with backwards telecommunication infrastructure like USA, Canada, Australia make things seem to be difficult. gently caress Virgin/Fido/ATT/T-mobile for over priced pre paid plans. Japan should also be on this list too. I hope LTE is already implemented. Airports in the major cities have stalls renting out sim cards. It's really easy. darth cookie posted:
Renting a iphone 4s for 125AUD/ 15 days is an amazing deal but the problem is that it's not your phone. That means you got to resync everything, your contacts, set up your anime wall paper, sync your files, your preferences, apps, etc. Which kind of defeats the purpose of carrying your own phone with you where everything is accessible with you all the time . Unless you already backed up your settings with Titanium backup, and have a habit of loading up different android roms and all, I would avoid renting a phone. If you already have a smart phone ready, renting another one is doesn't make too much sense. If you have a unlocked quad/tri band GSM 3G phone then you can use data and calls easily. Calls are more for emergencies (but being in a densely populated country, you can easily borrow a phone or call when you buy something from someone), data is the focus here. You can also get those portable mifi devices but for 2 users, but the problem is that they only last for 3 hours and you need to carry another one of those portable lithium ion battery packs.
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Aug 13, 2013 11:17
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marmot25 posted:Yep, that's the one. There's a small subset of symposia jointly hosted by the Materials Research Society and JSAP that I'll be presenting in. You going as well? Wow the engineers in my company go to JSAP from time to time, they love being in Japan and seeing Japanese Engineering 
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Aug 21, 2013 02:42
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Seconding Niseko, it's time for me to buy another Hirafu t-shirt! I haven't been in 5 years  so I will be itching to go again. Last time I been, there were more and more Aussies setting shop, I suspect there would be more Aussies nowadays, so maybe you can find something?
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Sep 3, 2013 04:10
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腐女子
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Sep 9, 2013 10:34
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Oh wow do people really use that? How about 內賤 
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Sep 9, 2013 11:13
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Shibawanko posted:And how do Hokkaidoäns drive? After all the place is close to Russia... And are there any wackityass traffic rules or conventions I ought to know about - other than driving on the left? My relatives love going to Japan and renting a car. There's GPS, auto highway tolls and everyone in Japan are too polite! They are typical Hong Kongers and worship almost anything Japanese But from reading goon experiences, be careful going through intersections 
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Sep 12, 2013 09:18
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Can't you just go to an apple store or order online and deliver it to some Japanese address?
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Sep 16, 2013 08:00
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Pompous Rhombus posted:although I might do it again if there was a bunch of snow on the ground (and I uh, had a girlfriend). I bet you were just using your medium format camera and taking over exposed pictures of your self Jossos posted:They do in Japan as well, they just do it out of the corner of their eye, Yeah, I'm sure people are just more subtle, that's all. It's like catching a small glance of other people's junk when you are at the urinal/gym locker room
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Sep 28, 2013 02:27
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If you like culture, tru, I would skip Osaka. The castle is more of a replica and photo op anyways  Spend time in Kyoto and Tokyo.truavatar posted:Hey Japan goons. I'm visiting from the China thread. I've been checking out flights from Shanghai to Osaka and Tokyo for awhile now and finally landed on some good deals. Now my wife and I are thinking of spending (American) Thanksgiving weekend in Japan! It looks like we can get round trip flights for between $200 and $275 each. We would be flying in on Friday the 29th around noon and leaving on Tuesday the 3rd around 2pm (5 days, 4 nights). You should fly to Korea for goonsgiving I will see you 2 weeks before in Shanghai, let me bring you a bunch of maps and places to go for food and culture. And remember, many restaurants in Japan close early by 9ish. Like what other people in this thread say, 5 days between 2 cities is kind of rushed. The best solution is to go twice! Japan is a great country for tourists, you can never get bored. LimburgLimbo posted:How much do you sleep that 3 hours eats up a whole day. Or be like this man just hitch hike 8 hours  riderkick posted:To be clear, that doesn't factor in getting to the train station from where you are, and from the Osaka station to where you want to go. Also time that it may take to get your tickets if you're unfamiliar with the train system. If you go early/late in the day, like you suggested, it's not so bad. Just wanted to point out that 3-5 hours in the middle of the day dedicated to travel when you're on a tight schedule is not ideal. I kind of agree with this. You still need to check out and check in. But Truavatar and his wife are light mobile travelers. They can easily just use backpacks for 5 days and go everywhere. 5 days over 2 Tokyo/Osaka is stretching it, but I'm sure they are up for the challenge: fly into Tokyo in the morning, do 2 days, take a night bus/last train to Kyoto and then go back to Shanghai.
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Oct 11, 2013 07:44
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JCB exists in south east asia and korea.higher end restaurants tend to be ok with them because Japanese tourists can easily spend big bucks. Seconding Citibank, they are trying to expand into the Asian market but most of their branches or atms are only near the financial districts. Can you guys exchange currencies online with Citi bank? I'm not so lucky, I need to go to the counter for that, and exchange in person. And a lot of times the rates at citi bank are so so.. Another method is to try to work with banks that have foreign partnerships. China construction bank asia has an atm deal with bank of America.
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Oct 19, 2013 02:10
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Safest bet is to check in online beforehand. Once you have a boarding pass, staff are way more flexible in letting you in. Plus flights never really start on time and have a bit of delay here and there.
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Oct 29, 2013 04:36
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Grand Fromage posted:It is hilarious that condoms are regulated like medicine and there's a limit. Counter-productive much? He can also be banging dudes too! Don't discriminate.
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Nov 6, 2013 03:19
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Holy loving poo poo what is wrong with you tourists. You guys sound like brokeass 14 year olds with iPod touches because you need to rely on free wifi. This just shows how bad north americans are with smart phones. It's near 2014, apps are plentiful, LTE is looming everywhere, 7 generations of iPhones are already out and Steve jobs is loving dead. Data is not expensive at all and very.convenient. Once you land in the airport, either rent a wifi hotspot or a gsm sim card. If you use Verizon then you are subhuman. That's it, end of discussion. If you ever read the OP, then you probably know that if you want to meet goons, get on LINE and just message people to meetup/for tourists questions/translation help. Heck even obnoxious mainland Chinese tourists from the country side who can't for their lives use a sit down toilets can use smartphones. Now if you never had a smart phone and saved very very hard to travel then good job. You probably have your planned a lot of things so good for you.
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Nov 16, 2013 04:08
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I went to Stuttgart and bought Lederhosen for Oktoberfest. Is that cool? Next time I want an authentic cowboy hat and boots
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Nov 26, 2013 12:06
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It's hand crafted with threads of aryanism and Bavarian engineering. And IT'S A NATIONAL DRESS NOT A HALLOWEEN COSTUME YOU BIGOT. Unless I'm a German zombie. But that's just redundant
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Nov 26, 2013 12:21
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Mainers are crazy.
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Nov 27, 2013 09:03
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Grand fromage you should abandon Japan and come to Hong Kong instead. Get a tonne of cooking supplies, eat Thai food, fresh seafood and hook you up with a decent mattress and room. I can also get you your Japanese fix out of your system. We have ginza bairin for tonkatsu, a few almost identical tsukiji sushi places , 24 hour ichi ran ramen. And a few cheap Japanese curry places.
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Dec 6, 2013 14:48
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Grand Fromage posted:How much does a smartphone data plan run per day at the airport? I'm not making the mistake of relying on wi-fi again. If you came to Hong Kong this would totally not be a problem because I have a spare pocket wi-fi for my Gooooonz. The SSID is : "mom's basement" try air busan. smart 7 days, only 220 USD, 15 days 270 USD.
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Dec 10, 2013 09:58
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The Worst Muslim posted:Hey guys it's me the guy who had a bad China day and bugged out and posted here! My comrades in the China megathread still never forgave me. Anywho, I'm planning my next big adventure and I just wanna ask how reasonable it would be to walk almost all of Japan? Starting from somewhere like Aomori and ending up in Fukuoka, how long would it take if I use the main roads and such? Drop this hipster traveler pretense, you just want to ride the cat bus to a maid cafe and watch anime. Just get a rail pass/hitchhike. Or try the 88 temple tour
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Dec 16, 2013 04:30
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Revolver Bunker posted:But I wasn't expecting to be mistaken for being mainland Chinese as often as I was. Especially being that I'm 6'1" with a medium build. That's probably because you dress bad or walk funny True Gaijins wear anime shirt and just stick to Akihabara. I kid, I kid, but a lot of times it's Japan fashion or mainland Chinese   Or Mainlanders don't really speak English and use broken Japanese or sometimes just speak Mandarin  Got any pictures to share? Seems like an awesome trip.
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Dec 17, 2013 03:44
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French Canadian posted:
I'm sure you guys will have fun. Don't worry too much about accommodation. If the room turns bad just cancel after a day or two. For kagoshima there's toyoko inn which is quite near the JR station. Toyoko inn is a decent alternative.
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Jan 6, 2014 15:17
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Hey goons, I'm coming to Osaka with my girlfriend early February for a week. Last time I came to Osaka I thought it was ho hum compared to Tokyo. So this time I would like to get it right! I think I definitely missed out on awesome food places and just went to a few generic ones near namba. If any kansai goons can give recommendations that would be awesome! Oh and a Osaka goon meet would be nice! Hopefully peanut can make it. darth cookie posted:
Have you been to an hourly hotel? Lots and lots of mirrors, even mirrors on the ceilings!
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Jan 10, 2014 18:21
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Madd0g11 posted:Stop being a prude, life isn't life till you bang two hookers in a mirrored room while high on redbull and viagra. Pattaya trannies and golden triangle narcotics or bust! quote:You should come to Tokyo because that's where the cool kids are. Except I am Ok, he's p.cool. Thanks for the invite but airfare was too expensive for Chinese New year. We are are flying peach without being too pricey (still is). Cathy costs 110 000 yen per person for economy to Tokyo. Ugh. I would have picked Tokyo too, to me I find it more international and easier for non Japanese tourists. I'm also super familiar with all the food spots in Shinjuku, ginza, and asakasa. The food options dare I say beats Osaka. I really hope to be proven wrong. Then again kansai can be super fun too. Heck you can never be tired of Japan as a tourist. Clean streets, ultra polite and detailed customer service, great food and agriculture (JA tastes great). Oh Japan! And of course a good pool of j goons. More level headed and reserved than k goons but still perverted in a passive salary man way.
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Jan 11, 2014 06:51
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I am OK posted:Kobe is the best place in Kansai for real. It's very small though so you'll do everything there in a few days. Thanks goons. I guess going to Kobe China town will be fun. Japanese China towns are the cleanest ones in the world. So any Kansai restaurant recommendations? It's my annual splurge so I don't mind spending more for a nice dinner. I mean heck, a nice Ryokan in Kyoto is going to cost 30,000 yen per night right? Ugh, wish I had more money. Japan can be sooo expensive. Im checking booking.com I know Washington/Toyoko Inn is good enough just to settle my bags. Fingers cross we can meet up with MORE GOONS and peanut. Everyone loves peanut. Except my old cellphone
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Jan 12, 2014 01:45
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Go go Asian telecoms. I can buy a sim card tailored for traveling in Japan. Data and.minu minutes. I'm out of town but if it's cost effective enough I can snail mail you guys a sim card
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Jan 16, 2014 19:21
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Found the page. It's a sim or micro sim, 36 usd and you get 15gb. The only limitation is 7 days. hk.chinaunicom.com/mobile/20216
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Jan 16, 2014 22:37
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bobula posted:I'm thinking about checking out Hong Kong while I'm in Japan, since flights will be cheaper. Does anyone have an airline recommendation? I'm not at all familiar with inter-Asia travel so I don't know if there are certain airlines that do it better or cheaper than others. If you are patient enough peach airlines is the budget carrier direct from Osaka or Tokyo to Hong Kong. Cheaper proper airline is China Eastern but that means a lay over in Shanghai. The lay over is usually 2 to 24 hours long. A longer lay over means time for you to head out to the city or meet some goons for a beer. Proper carriers like Cathay and JAL are more expensive but much more comfortable 3 hour flight. Anyways for more hk questions pop into the China travel thread and post there. HK is a pretty cool city for me and it's a nice goon shelter so the Hong Kong girls and boys brigade will throw you a welcome party. If you ever do come over please oh please bring me a box of Tokyo banana. And if you ever do have a chance to stop by Tokyo takashimaya then get a box of Gramercy New York "cheese cakes".
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Jan 22, 2014 00:28
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peanut posted:Listen to Caberham. No No No, peanut is the true master
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Jan 22, 2014 10:44
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Going multiple places is fine but first night staying in Tokyo is not time efficient. Fly into Osaka, do all your kansai traveling then go to Tokyo. You save yourselves two trips of Tokyo to Osaka.
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Jan 30, 2014 10:08
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Hi Japan goons, can someone please go go over my itinerary? Monday Arrive 5pm Kansai, collect JR West Rail Pass Train to Shin Osaka ---> Okayama Oakayama ---> Shikoku. Check in at around 10pm. Tuesday Hangout with Goon, enjoy the country side, eat seafood Wednesday Take a train to Kyoto, Evening meal in Gion, walk around Thursday Usual Kyoto sights, ginkakuji, inari fushima, and a whole bunch of more temples Friday Girlfriend will dress up in a Kimono and take pictures walk around town and more temples Saturday OSAKA GOON MEET 7PM Sunday Morning, miss Japan
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Feb 1, 2014 08:30
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Pompous Rhombus posted:I don't see any Kyushu on this itinerary. A Bad Itinerary.
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Feb 2, 2014 02:50
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