If You Are Visiting Japan For The First Time, You MUST Read This! These Tips Will Help Even If You Have Been to Nippon Before

If this is not your first visit to Japan, you might already know some of these pointers but just as a refresher, go ahead and take a quick look. It will help make your romp around Japan go a little smoother.

For those who are travelling to Japan for the first time, heed these...

1. Bring your passport along whenever you intend to SHOP!

This probably translates to "Carry your passport with you ALL THE TIME" if you are anything like me. Because I shopped and shopped and shopped my way through my Japan trip. By the end of the vacation, I actually had to buy another luggage to fit in all the stuff that I had bought! 

Us with our purchases from just 3 days!

The point is, you are probably going to buy lots of stuff so take advantage of the tax refunds available. Japan offers tourist tax refunds of 8% if purchases made are above ¥5000 (tax-free value) or ¥5500 pre-tax within each store. So grab your friends/family to pile your purchases together to hit the tax refund value.

Look out for this sign at the shops!

**To Take Note**: You are strictly speaking not supposed to use those purchases within Japan so the shops will seal those items in bags for you. Therefore, food items tend not to have tax refund especially those meant for immediate or near-immediate consumption. 

2. Carry your own trash bag around

One thing will become apparent while wandering around Japan - the rare appearances of waste bins. The first time I had to throw some trash in Tokyo, I ended up hanging on to that trash for a full two hours before I found somewhere appropriate to dump it into!

The rare appearance of dustbins in Japan (Image Credit: Japan-guide)

After that, I made sure to carry a trash bag around wherever I went just so I can put all my waste into it without having to play hide-and-seek with the waste bins. So, if you don't want to go on a hunt for those bins, I recommend you get yourself a plastic bag to dump all your trash into throughout the day!

3. Google Translate is your best friend (if the Japanese language isn't)

In Japan, the Japanese characters are everywhere. And I mean, Everywhere! That means trouble for you if you can't read Japanese or at least Chinese characters. The Japanese language is made up of Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji characters with Kanji characters being similar to Chinese characters. So if you can read Chinese characters, you will be somewhat able to read/understand certain signs and make your way around.

If you don't, you are going to be almost certainly lost. And I do mean LOST! Signs, menus, food packaging - make that any product packaging, bus stop signs, etc. are not going to make any sense. That's when you will remember this blog and the tips here, which would lead to a **lightbulb moment**... 

You will then whip out your smart phones, pull up Google Translate and begin scanning all these Japanese phrase to make sense of what all you didn't understand before.

The convenience of Google translation (Image Credit: Google)

And this leads me to my next tip...

4. Recognise the character for flushing toilets

The anatomy of a toilet in Japan is a lot more complex than your regular toilets elsewhere worldwide. I mean, with their bidet seats spewing water off different outlets and at different angles, it is going to get a little complicated with the myriad buttons. Plus most of these instructions are going to be in Japanese characters.

See those characters on the toilet. Stop - Bum - Bidet on the first row. (Image Credit: Nippon.com)

I know some of you are going to scoff at this, claiming you could definitely find your way around a toilet. Well, to each his own. But if you do happen to fail at flushing away your shit, it WILL mean great embarrassment for you as it did me.

This happened when I was at a mall in Osaka, happily doing my business in a cubicle. And I mean THE BIG business. Once concluded, I, of course, turned to hit the flush button. But for the life of me, I couldn't find the damn button. 

After having desperately tried several buttons, I had no choice but to cover my shit up, leave the cubicle and ask the next-in-line for help to flush my excrement away. You cannot imagine the mortification. Or maybe you can - it wasn't the end of the world but definitely something to avoid if you can and now you can...

5. Wear comfortable shoes

Expect to do lots and lots of WALKING!! And CLIMBING in Japan. So make sure you have comfortable shoes on! Even going to their theme parks (e.g. USJ or DisneySea) is going to involve long standing hours in their many queues. 

My partner had on boots in the early leg of our journey which wasn't the most comfortable. His feet rebelled and ached for the entire trip!

If you find yourself wearing shoes that are killing you, worry not. There are plenty of places you could get shoes from, at attractive prices. The ABC Mart is one such place! Shoes from Nike, Adidas, Puma, etc. can be bought at very reasonable prices. So, there is no reason your feet need to be tormented any longer. 

ABC Mart in Tokyo, Japan

6. You don't always need to buy the Japan Pass

Japan Rail Pass (Image Credit: Look)

The recent spike in the prices of the JR Pass might make you question if you actually really need this pass. And as it turns out, you don't always require the JR Pass. Or at least it makes more sense to just buy the individual train tickets.

It used to be that tourists to Japan often bought the JR Pass the moment they have confirmed a trip to Japan and there is no denying the convenience of it. After all, who wouldn't want to just hope onto the JR line trains without the hassle of purchasing individual tickets. 

But now, this convenience comes at a steep price so unfortunately, a little more due diligence on your part is needed. Check the prices of your individual trips. Trips like Osaka to Kyoto, Osaka/Kyoto to Nara are cheap on their own. If you are travelling from say Tokyo to Kyoto to Osaka, it is now possibly cheaper to do so by buying the individual tickets than getting a JR Pass.

** I hope this will help you with planning your Japan itinerary. Do drop me a comment if you have more questions otherwise, have a wonderful trip!