Summary and curiosities

As my very last entry for this Japan trip I summarised some sites and Apps which helped me to make this trip a full success. I also added the list of hostels and restaurants so hopefully it is of use in case you are planning your own Japan trip and liked the things I wrote about in the previous posts. At the end are also some curiosities I discovered whilst travelling.

Planning

• Japan-Guide is probably the most helpful source I used. They really list all possible information you would need about Japan. Their Best of Japan in 14 days was the initial source of my route which slightly adjusted to cover my needs.
• Japan Rail Pass is the official website for the Japan Rail Pass I used to travel around with next to all public transport for free. In my case I broke-even with the Rail Pass as I took really a lot of bullet trains but make sure to make a proper approximation beforehand as it might be cheaper to by a regular ticket than if you take less bullet trains than I did.
• Hakone Zenzan is the website for the Hakone area which explains best about what to do around Mt. Fuji and how to get around.
• Alpine Route is the official website for the alpine crossing I did and provides you all the information you need to plan your trip including time tables.
• HyperDia is a fantastic tool to check the train table in English. It is also possible to filter by train connections which are covered with the Japan Rail Pass.

Apps

• HyperDia also offers an App. I used the one for Android to check trains on the go.
• Gurunavi is a food App which easily allowed me to search for a specific restaurant type in the area around me.
• I first downloaded also some Apps for Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka but never used them at the end. I preferred using the good all paper-based maps and asking people for recommendations.

Hostels

Absolute Recommendation:

• Imano Tokyo Hostel   – Tokyo
• K’s House Hakone – Hakone Yumoto
• Guest House Pongyi – Kanazawa

Recommendation:

• Khaosan Kyoto Theater – Kyoto
• Quality Hostel K’s House – Takayama

Cannot recommend:

• Bonsai Guest House – Osaka

Can absolutely not recommend:

• Akihabara Hotel 3000 – Tokyo

Wasabi KitKat

Japanese love KitKat and it must be the only country in the world which has a Wasabi version to offer. Normally everything is green tea (Macha) flavoured though; particularly when it’s ice cream.

Macha ice cream

Another weirdly cute thing is the Japanese obsession with Hello Kitty. As it wouldn’t be sufficient to have it present in all merchandise they also use it to “spice” up the traffic in Tokyo. As you can see below they replaced the regular road construction barriers with Hello Kitty ones.

Hello Kitty on the road

Japan loves vending machines so it does not surprise that you can find them every where selling basically everything from food and drinks until electronic equipment. My favourite ones were the coffee ones though. Especially the boss as he is the biggest boss of them all.

Always good for a smile are the plenty hilariously clumsy translated shop and restaurant signs.

Talking about restaurants, it seems to be a thing to have the dishes presented in some sort of plastic in the windows to illustrate what they are serving. For me this was the indicator to not use any restaurant which had such displays though.

Last but not least I want to present you the most ugly car I’ve seen for a while. Unfortunately it is not a novelty to discover ugly cars in Japan. They seem to have a completely different portfolio of cars which are more focused on space efficiency and other “beauty standards”.