Tokyo

So we landed in Narita airport, and the first item on our agenda was to exchange our Japan Rail voucher, for the actual JR Pass and to get our bookings done for the week. Now I had made an excel sheet of the trips that we needed to make, and train timings for the trips.

When we went up to the JR counter, the lady there took the excel, and without a single question, reserved all our seats in 5 minutes. This was no mean feat, as we were taking about 9 trips in 7 days. But there was absolutely no confusion, and she booked with 100% accuracy.

The first real eye-opener for us, was that this lady at the train booking counter was using a full touchscreen machine to do the bookings. The machine was so old, that it actually had rust on the edges, and seemed atleast 30 years old. It then dawned upon us, that the japanese started using the technology that is so exciting for us today..... 30 years ago!!

Tip #1: JR Passes
1 week JR passes bought in Japan cost JP¥ 56,000 (per person). While we bought ours in Singapore for JP¥ 28,000 (about SG$ 640). Why they would choose to make travel on the bullet trains so cheap for tourists, and double the cost for locals is beyond me. Suffice to say, you have to buy your passes outside of Japan.

Tip #2: JR Booking lifeline
All the bullet train (Shinkansen) & normal JR train timings and connections can be found at www.hyperdia.com. This was an invaluable resource for us to figure out what all travel we could/should do and how much time it would take us to travel between cities.

We took the Narita Express to Shinjuku (~ ¥ 3000 per head) and then walked to Oakwood Apartments where we were booked. We got a great deal here.... about ¥ 12,600 per day (for a 4 day booking). Its a nice location, but I think next time we might just stay in Shibuya cos we loved that place so much. Shinjuku is also a great place, lots of shopping, interesting streets, sights to see, etc.... And overall it was a good place to explore rest of Tokyo from, as Shinjuku station is like City Hall in Singapore, where all the MRT lines congregate..... so its the most conveniently located.

And if you buy a Suica card, which is like our EZ-Link, you can take all the lines (and boy are there a LOT of lines). Reading the subway map needs an advanced degree in cartology! The great part is that the staff at all the subway stations are super helpful, and will always advise the best line to take and so on.