Guest What?
Astute readers might have noticed that there was no “Hi, Tech” last week. Apologizes for not writing, but I had a really good reason, I swear. My wife and I are playing hosts to a friend from college, and we’ve been busy doing out host duties, like showing our guest the local sites (i.e. big trees and tiny cars) and helping her avoid accidentally eating raw horse.
All the hosting has (a) put me in a very travel agent-y frame of mind and (b) not left me with much time to plan a proper article. I didn’t want to let my writing muscles atrophy any more than they already have by skipping another week, though (some days I can barely string two words together as it is), so this week I’ve gone with my newfound fondness for planning other people’s trips and pulled together a collection of sites that may be useful the next time you have a visitor.
None of these sites are particularly obscure and you could probably find most of them after 30 seconds on Blingo (which may or may not be how I found some of them). Still, it might be nice to have them collected in one place for easy access the next time you’re looking to distract your visitors with something other than your tales of bravely facing six classes of elementary school students in one day.
General
Coming to Japan for the first time can be scary. Remember when you first got here and didn’t know why there were slippers in public bathrooms? Chances are your guests aren’t going to know things like that, either, and that you don’t have the time to write them a six-page email explaining all of Japan’s quirks. Luckily other people have explained the basics of visiting Japan for you, and all you have to do is send your future visitors a few links to make sure they don’t get themselves deported before you can pick them up at the airport.
- Lonely Planet Japan
- Lonely Planet, makers of many a paperback guidebook, also has a website with information on every country they cover. Not surprisingly, the (free) website contains only a fraction of the information in the (not free) guidebooks, but it does cover the basics pretty well. Perhaps more helpful are the Lonely Planet Japan Bluelists, where Lonely Planet readers can make suggestions of things to see and do that might not get covered anywhere else.
- Wikitravel’s Overview of Japan
- You’ve probably heard of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that is written and edited by its users. Wikitravel works just like Wikipedia, only all of its articles focus on world travel. Wikitravel’s Japan section is huge and all-encompassing: it contains all the general Japan info a visitor could want, as well as links to more in-depth articles. It also puts my humble little guide to shame, but I’ll try not to let that bruise my ego too much.
Tourism and Sightseeing
As painful as it is to accept, your visitors might want to do more while they’re in Japan than just see you. I know, it’s insulting, but you have to rise above it, be a good host and help them have the Japan adventure they’re hoping for. Or you could just point them to some website and go back to brooding on why anyone wouldn’t want to spend all of their time with you.
- About.com’s Guide to Visiting Japan
- Like most other About.com sections, this guide offers a wide variety of recommendations and resources for tourists coming to Japan. It may not contain the most insightful or in-depth information, but the guide is at least edited by a real human being and is frequently updated.
- JapanGuide.com
- JapanGuide.com, as one might expect, is a guide to Japan. It has info on all the tourist hot spots in the country as well as many out of the way places like national parks and local museums. It also has information on living in Japan, although it’s nothing you won’t figure out after a couple of months as a JET. Sadly, JapanGuide.com fails the “Saga test,” having a measly one line of information on my beloved prefecture.
- Japan National Tourist Organization
- I’ve mentioned the JNTO site before, but it’s worth writing about again here, if only because it passes the “Saga test” with four whole paragraphs on my home. Four! That’s approximately one paragraph for every non-Japanese restaurant in the prefecture.
Hotels
Sometimes, when your six tatami apartment isn’t big enough to hold you andyour parents, or when your guests are traveling to places not near your home, you need to find a decent hotel. Sadly, many decent hotels in Japan are either outrageously expensive or booked five years in advance. There are some good deals out there (”out there” meaning “not found through Japanese travel agents”), though, if you know where to look.
- JapanHotel.net
- JapanHotel.net is a database of hotels, inns and ryokans all over Japan. You can search for lodgings by area, read about each accommodation (including room rates) and book online if you find something you like. You can find some nice bargains if your guests are up for staying in a basic Japanese style room. I just used this site to book a room in Kyoto during cherry blossom season, so it gets my recommendation.
- Rakutan Travel
- Rakutan Travel works just like JapanHotel.net only with different hotels. Again, deals can be had with a little hunting.
- Ryokan Reservations
- If your rich aunt and uncle are coming to visit you rather than your friend in the Peace Corps, they might want to try a night or two in a ryokan, the Japanese guest houses that often feature swanky hot spring baths and elaborate meals. JapanGuestHouses.com can help you make reservations at a number of ryokans across the country, although it’s not cheap: visitors can expect to pay anywhere from 7000 to 70,000 yen per person for the chance to stay at one of these places.
Language
Visitors to Japan will get further with a few Japanese words and phrases in their vocabularies than without. These sites cover basics like “do you speak English,” “where is the bathroom?” and “no blowfish, please.” (Fine, so maybe they don’t cover that last one, but I still think it’s important.)
- Wikitravel’s Japanese phrasebook
- Wikitravel’s wonders never cease. Not only do they have that huge sections on what to see and where to go in Japan, they also have a nice little phrasebook so visitors don’t get lost in all the seeing and going. The phrasebook is very nicely written using both Japanese characters and the Western alphabet.
- About.com’s Guide to the Japanese Language
- This About.com guide is written for both students (or wanna-be students/anime fans) of Japanese and visitors alike and thus covers a pretty wide range of topics. The audio files can be helpful to tourists looking to pick up a little spoken Japanese.
Trains
Japan could be hit with the apocolypse itself and still the trains would run on time. This punctuality makes traveling by train an excellent choice for visitors, and the all-powerful JR Rail Pass can make it semi-affordable, too. All of the following links go to the various regional Japan Railways sites, which contain not only train information but also local sightseeing advice.
- JR Hokkaido
- Covers all of Hokkaido, that big island all the way up north.
- JR East
- Covers the Tohoku region of Japan, including Tokyo.
- JR Central
- Covers central Japan, including Nagoya and the bullet train line from Tokyo to Kyoto and Osaka.
- JR West
- Covers the Kansai region including Kyoto and Osaka.
- JR Shikoku
- Covers all of Shikoku, the island everyone forgets about.
- JR Kyushu
- Covers all of Kyushu, the not-so-big island all the way down south.