| -- Japan On The Cheap -- |
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| Japan is an expensive place. At least that's what conventional wisdom says, and to a large extent this is true. If you are hiking across Japan with the help of rich Japanese relatives (this is an in-joke), then this is not a problem. However, this was not the case with me at all, so one needs to travel as cheaply as possible. In reality, Japan can be travelled economically if you're willing to put up with some unfamiliarity in what you eat, or how you sleep. Before leaving the US, I worked up a rough budget for my trip. Going by Lonely Planet listings, I came up with a rough figure of 80-100 USD (roughly 8,000-10,000 yen) a day for accomodation and meals, plus a little for mad money. Factoring in the 4 nights I stayed with my cousins in Tokyo, and the 3 nights that I spent with my friend in Oita, I settled on a budget of 90 USD a day, just to be on the safe side. Since Japan is primarily a cash and carry kind of place, I decided to rely less on traveller's checks and bought several hundred dollars worth of yen before I left. Plastic was to be used only in an emergency. (I used it once, but only out of sheer laziness) -- The upshot of all this is that I came home with quite a lot of money in my pocket. My expenditures ended up being more like 60 USD a day. (and that's NOT factoring in money I won at pachinko) All without sacrificing meals, or comfort. Here's how. Western-style accomodation is almost always more expensive. As in Europe, the assumption is that Americans want a western-style room with a bed and en suite bathroom. If you stay in Japanese style business hotels, you can get by on about 35-40 bucks a night (compared with 40-60 bucks for a western style business hotel, which are usually en suite)... For that price, you sleep on a futon on the tatami mat floor, and share a bathroom and toilet with the rest of the floor... not a problem, unless you hate sleeping on the floor. Forget hostels. They're expensive in Japan. You might as well stay in a cheap hotel, where you may pay a wee bit more, but you have a single room. And if your Japanese is good enough, or if you look hard enough, even a western-style business hotel can be found at a reasonable rate. More expensive hotels and ryokan sometimes include meals, but you pay more. When I was in Ise, and it was clear that I was going to have a fair amount of money to spare, I splashed out for 2 nights in a $120 a night ryokan-style hotel which included dinner and breakfast. The food was pretty good, and the accomodations were positively swank, but I still had to sleep on a futon on the tatami mat floor, and take a bath in the onsen downstairs. Japanese food is surprisingly reasonable. I had heard about how horribly expensive it is to eat in Japan, and was told that a single apple can go for up to $5 in Japan. Horrors! I never saw a $5 apple (the most I saw was a $2.50 one), but things like apples, which aren't traditionally eaten by the Japanese will cost you an arm and a leg. If you eat Japanese food, you will pay a whole lot less. Eating at a typical noodle place, you'll spend about $4-8 USD for a meal, depending on what you order. The cost of a typical sushi dinner is not too different from what you'd pay for it here in Chicago (a little less, perhaps), which is in turn less than what they charge in Florida. I had sushi several times and spent between 10-20 bucks each time. It's cheaper if you order a setto (set meal) than ordering ala carte, and even less if you visit a kaiten zushi place. Kaiten zushi is pretty fun. Everyone sits around the bar, while a conveyor belt carries plates of sushi past you on little plates of different colors. Yellow plates might be 100 yen, red plates 200 yen, etc. etc.-- You take whatever you want, and are charged by the color of the plates you pile up beside you. Green tea is provided free of charge, sometimes through a little faucet every couple of feet down the bar. These places typically cater more to working class Japanese people than to tourists, so they may act a little surprised to see you when you walk in. I actually have an amusing anecdote about this: When I was in Kagoshima City, I was wandering around (as I usually do when I'm in a city for the first time), and in my meanderings, got well off the beaten path into a residential area. At this point, I wanted something to eat, and there didn't seem to be much around. Finally, I stumbled across a tiny little kaiten zushi joint next to a little Japanese style tavern tucked away in a corner. When I walked in, there were about a half dozen rough-looking blue-collar types sitting around. All at once, everyone turned and stared at me as I sat down at the bar... Apparently, they didn't see many gaijin in this place.. Hell, I might have been the first-ever gaijin in there, judging on how they reacted! Anyhow, I sat down, got a cup of tea, and started selecting sushi off the conveyor. Immediately, they all started watching what I was eating. The first couple things I chose were pretty tame.. salmon and a tuna maki. But their interest was sparked by my subsequent choices. I ate the salmon roe, I ate the ika (Mmmmm...squid!), they seemed impressed by my eating the unagi (eel), and mentaiko (spicy cod roe), and they seemed REALLY impressed when I ate the red gelatinous spicy stuff (I'm not sure what it was..and I'm not really sure if I want to know). After a few minutes, one of the guys, an older guy who looked about 50 or so, gets up to leave... as he's leaving, he pats my shoulder and says something like "Ganbatte, ne!" (roughly, "You can do it!" or "Good going!") -- I didn't have the courage to try eating the yellow, pointed egg case looking thing... My new favorite Japanese dish is takoyaki. It's a sort of Japanese fast food. They're sort of like Swedish pancakes (the round ones), but a little smaller, and made with a flour and egg batter. Inside, there's a little soy sauce, and sometimes white wine or sake, and a nice little piece of boiled octopus. For about $4 you get 8 of these. Usually they'll brush them with teriyaki sauce, put mayo or mustard on top, and then sprinkle big flakes of dried bonito fish and some green onion on top. The heat and juice makes the bonito flakes wiggle around like they're alive.... MAJORLY YUMMY! This is the one Japanese food that I've craved the most since I got back to the states. If you're staying in Japan only for a few weeks, I definitely recommend getting a JR Rail Pass, especially if you're going to be travelling around a lot. My pass paid for itself during the first week of my trip, and the rest was just gravy. You can't get them in Japan, so you have to buy an exchange order in the states from IACE or Kintetsu Travel (we are lucky to have offices of both in Chicago) which you exchange for your pass when you get to Japan. Japanese first-class trains aren't that much better than standard class trains, so it's not really worth your while to upgrade to a Green Pass. Besides, most local trains don't have first-class seats. My 3 week pass cost me about $400 bucks. Going from Tokyo to Kyoto and back on the shinkansen (high-speed bullet train) can run about $300, so you get an idea of how cheap this really is. The best part is that in Japan, seat reservations are free of charge (unlike Europe), and JR Pass can make this easier on local trains, where they sometimes set aside blocks of seats for reserved-only tickets. As you can see, there are a lot of ways to save money in Japan, and if one keeps an open mind and is willing to put up with some unfamiliarity in what one eats and where one sleeps, travel there can be almost cheap. Ganbatte, ne! |