Adventures in Japan part 1

Okay, so here's my first travel post! I'll be writing several posts about my September 2016 trip to Japan. I traveled there for two weeks between September 9th and September 24th. Here's part #1!

Before Leaving for Japan
So, the question a lot of people ask is why did I travel to Japan? The biggest reason was baseball. I had always heard that Japan was big into baseball and had wanted to see games over there for some time. I had originally thought that I would go see games on my own and had scanned the Nippon Baseball League website for tickets and dates. However, the more I searched I eventually came across Bob Bavasi's JapanBall website. Bob runs a yearly tour of Japan baseball, usually in September.  I was attracted to the idea of traveling with a group while there and enjoyed the idea of someone taking care of all the ticket details. I'll write more about Bob's tour later in this post.

While making travel plans, I bought a two week Japan Rail pass. There are various sites that you can buy this from, but I ended up going with the site recommended by Bob here. Note that if you want to buy a rail pass, you should buy it before leaving for Japan. If you don't, you'll find that buying tickets in Japan is very expensive and could cost you many thousands of dollars once you're in the country. I later found that bullet train travel in Japan is very expensive to native Japanese people but the pass is subsidized for tourists if bought before arriving in Japan. Rough cost estimate for the two week Japan Rail pass was about $450. More on how to use the JR pass later.

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Additionally, while on the Japan Rail website, I saw an offer to rent a pocket wifi. A friend who previously traveled to Japan recommended the wifi device, which would allow you LTE internet access where-ever you are. In addition to my rail pass, I also bought a two week rental of the WifiHot spot, which ran about $85. I also arranged to pickup the wifi device at the airport upon my arrival. More information about the wifi device and pictures later in this post.
Other than these purchases, I also arranged for about $200 worth of Yen currency via my bank, which was delivered a week or so before I left. I had read that Japan is a very cash-heavy country, with places not accepting credit cards so I wanted to be prepared.

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Flight To Japan
I flew directly from Chicago to Tokyo's Narita Airport. Flight departure time was right around 5:30 p.m. on a Friday while arrival into Tokyo was 8:30 Saturday evening. Narita is located at least an hour outside of Tokyo and given the late hour of my arrival into Tokyo, I booked a hotel at the Tokyo Narita Airport Hilton for the first evening.
The flight to Tokyo was uneventful - I tried to sleep for the beginning portion of the flight and stay awake at the end. Mostly successful. I flew via ANA, which turned out to be a great airline.

​Time Difference Between Japan & USA
I suppose I should mention at this point the time difference between the two countries - at the time of my travel there, Japan was 13 hours ahead of US Eastern time and 14 hours ahead of US Central Time. So, that meant that if it was 10 p.m. Saturday night in Japan, it would be 9 a.m. Saturday morning back in the USA on the east coast.

Getting to the hotel
The Hilton runs a regular shuttle from the Narita terminals to the hotel, so after picking up my wifi device I headed straight over to shuttle pickup. After an uneventful evening trip through the countryside, I arrived at my hotel where I was immediately greeted by a TV playing the Hiroshima Carp baseball game. The team had won the game and was celebrating the winning on the Central League championship.

​For the most part, any hotel you stay at will have English speaking staff so getting to my room was very easy. While at the hotel, I also picked up an international phone card which took me a little while to figure out. I ended up being able to call home from my hotel room. Using the card from the hotel room was one of the cheapest options and was extremely convenient.

​That's it for Part 1! I'll be back soon with more from my trip. Stay tuned! 
​Tom

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