Blog 002, Gagan Makhija, Mar 2018, A pocket friendly trip in Japan

Hello my dear friends and thank you very much to take out time to glance through this post. I received the baton of the relay talk from Siddhesh Wani and I would like to thank him for that.

This post is about a 10-day long trip that a friend of mine named Akshat Kadam and I had. It was an amazing trip filled with awesome experiences and beautiful places. One of our biggest achievements was the cost of the trip which we tried to keep quite low. And I am excited to tell you all about the little things you can do in Japan to do just that. Ride along and you will know about affordable stay, reasonable transport and a lot more. Also near the end I share some awesome attractions of Tohoku (which translates to ‘East and North’) region in Japan. Okay, let us dive in.

The map above shows a few of the places and approximate path of the tour. It does not show all the places we visited in Tohoku but it sort of demonstrates the length of the trip. Furthermore, the total distance travelled (round trip) was around 2500 km. This should get you a perspective of the size of Japan as a whole. Japan is indeed very small compared to India.

Starting on with the cost of a trip, the real big expenses are the transport, accommodation and food. They can consume from 50% to 80% of your trip cost at times. The fees for fun activities and little purchases is really not that big most of the times. Now, let us dissect these big costs one by one and also how we can reduce them particularly in Japan. After all, every yen saved is a yen earned!!!

Transport

The cost of transport starts with the choice of transport. We chose a car so next comes the cost of fuel, parking and tolls.

Our mode of transport: Car

Now the northern part of Japan is quite inaccessible by public transport. Apart from that we had a multitude of places we wanted to go to. Further, public transport comes with inconvenience of set timings, carrying your bags etc. Moreover, the public transport is quite expensive in Japan. With regard to cost and time efficiency we came to conclude that car was a good option. We later realised that Japan has roads with excellent scenery as well. Now when you rent a car in Japan there are really three options

The pyramid is for both price and no of stores. Now if we go bottom up, the lower option is very well known in the whole of Japan. Brands like Times, Orix and many car companies like Toyota, Nissan etc go into this category. They offer great services, awesome car with a lot of features and near new condition. The problem is that they cost a lot for the rental as well as for the insurance.

The middle of the pyramid is where the stores are less in number but are larger in size by my experience. With the offers running at the time of this writing, these can be over 40% cheaper than the bottom category. Budget car rental is one company I have used. They have good cars and good service with a reasonable rental cost. The insurance is also a little cheaper.

Now the top category is really where things get interesting and this is the range where we got our car rented from. The cost reduction here comes from the fact that this is a service run by second hand car dealer companies. So, in most cases the car is not in its prime condition but it is in fairly good. Now you don’t get various choices and great facilities. Even the shop timings are inconvenient. But we could get a car for as low as ￥26,000 (total cost) for 10 days including insurance meaning ￥2.6k/day. That is less than a fourth of the bottom category. The company we used is BROSS but you should be able to find such second-hand car dealers around in your city as well. You may have to browse the web in Japanese though. But it is worth it.

Fuel Costs

On a long trip, fuel costs can really add up but there is little you can do about it. You can either buy cheaper fuel or cut the distance. Now we were not willing to cut a lot of kilometres but we did sometimes change the itinerary to shorten the distance whenever possible. Now coming to fuel costs, that can be reduced to some extent if you take a little care.

There are basically 2 types of gasoline stands in Japan. Normal pumps have a person filling your car while the other is self-filling type. Self-filling pumps are on average ￥5/litre cheaper than normal pumps. So, if you take care of where to fill up the car, you should be able to save a little cash there. Also, when changing elevation, the way we did, keeping a check of the tire pressure can save some fuel.

Tolls and Parking

These are two expenses that can eat up your pockets in Japan very easily. The expressways in Japan are very well connected, fast but quite costly. There is always a free of cost road but a paid expressway is much faster and convenient. So, one can just optimise the usage of expressways. Parking costs are also high in Japan starting at ￥100 for an hour and going as high as ￥100 for 20 min. Now to save on parking costs, one should know the free parking areas. All govt building usually have a free parking and so do all most convenience stores. What one needs to stay away from are areas where the max parking cost is not mentioned clearly. If necessary, first read all terms and conditions. Parking near train stations can be dangerously costly at times.

Accommodation

When it comes to staying people really know just hotels and Airbnb. Crouch surfing maybe getting popular in some parts of the world but not so in Japan. However, there are ways to stay for an affordable price in Japan. The one We used and recommend is Internet Café (Manga Kissa). Now, Internet café in japan are completely different from what I had experienced in India.

Pros of Internet café

1. It charges you by the hour and not by the day
2. There is an option with full flat mattress big enough for a 175 cm man to sleep comfortably (not hotel bed level but still comfortable enough)
3. You get a computer with fast internet to plan stuff for the next day, upload photos etc.
4. Drink bar and soft ice cream
5. Quite reasonably priced food inside
6. Lots of Manga

Cons of internet café

1. You get a cubical just enough to fit you comfortably
2. Toilets etc are common
3. There is a paid shower room but not at all places (Not a con actually. Just that there are places where you can’t bathe)
4. No English support
5. You can’t get the comfort of a full-sized bed

This is an image of one the most widely available Internet café called Kaikatsu Club.

You could also look for hostels and also camping at good locations and some places can be really good like lakes or places near sea. We did camp couple of times ourselves.

Food

Food is a tricky thing. You want to enjoy the delicacies that different places have to offer but not spend too much. There are however a few tricks to have a good balance and here is a short, bulleted list

• Buy 2 litre water bottles from convenience stores (Seven Eleven, Family Mart etc.). These cost around ￥100, making them way better compared to small bottles
• People usually like to munch stuff on a road trip. Popcorns are great snack as they are reasonable in price and fair for health being whole grain
• For on road lunch, convenience stores are a great place as they have fair variety and again cost effective
• Ramen places are quite reasonable all over Japan even near stations
• When you want to taste the delicacy of a particular place, check what it is in advance online and zero in to only those things. Avoid picking anything and everything that seems a little different
• Avoiding souvenir stores will save a lot for you. They can be found at every attraction and without many exceptions, they are costly

Some of the Amazing Experiences Tohoku has to Offer

 

Nebuta Meuseum in Aomori city is an absolute delight. With all the great stuff these guys do every year, this is one of the must visit places.

Ryuusendo caves in Iwate. Japan is a real beautiful country but these caves simply left me spellbound. I did not want to leave this place.

Matsushima is a city in Miyagi Prefecture and this is the port where the cruise ride starts. The cruise ride here was a delight. It was so good that I plan to go there again sometime. Apart from being one of the top 3 most beautiful places in Japan, this city is famous for its sea food. 

Thank you very much for reading the post. I would love to hear your views and/or constructive criticism if any. Feel free to reach me : gagan.makhija646@gmail.com

Next I would like to pass the baton to Pranav Shetty who has been an amazing senior for over an year now.