Korean Job Discussion Forums

[daniel-andersson]

I was in Japan 2 weeks ago and passsed by Fuji 3 times... Non of the times I could even see the top and what I heard climbing it should be like standing in a queue for 3-4 hours...

As for Osaka city, the pass is valid for the Osaka loopline which goes around the city at many different stops.

I had 9 dys in Japan and went to Sapporo, Toya, Nikko, Tokyo, Fuju, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima and Shiminoski with the pass. You can easy calculate if its worth the money from the link I wrote earlier. The pass price depends how many days you want it to be valid for... (Note thats its also valid to the airports). The bullet trains are also perfect place to eat a cheap lunch

[farrepatt]

Well, the Fuji information isn't quite right.

Shin Fuji is close to Mt. Fuji, but you'd be better off going to Odawara. From there you can take a train into Hakone. The one problem with this train is I'm pretty sure it's not a JR trains so it isn't covered with the JR pass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odakyu_Electric_Railway

Hakone is the park around Fuji. If you're lucky you'll get some great views of Fuji. I've been a couple of times. Once it was incredible and I got some fantastic photos. The other time it was cloudy and I didn't see Fuji at all. From my understanding it's usually pretty cloudy in the summer and clear in the winter around Fuji. So it may not be worth it. You can get a Hakone pass for 2 or 3 days I think. It lets you ride the train, boat and cable car:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Hakone

As for climbing Mt. Fuji. I've done it twice. The first time I didn't plan too much and it was a miserable experience. But still worth it in my mind. I'm not a climber, but when I got to the top I really felt like I'd accomplished something. The 2nd time I did it was last summer. I planned it much better and the weather was great. I enjoyed it much more. Still tiring for a lazy guy like me, but pretty cool. It was clear so I could look down the crater at the top and I had a great view from the summit.

There are a few places that run buses to the 5th station where most people start their climb. Though there are multiple 5th stations as I believe there are 4 or 5 routes up. You need to make sure you come back down on the same side otherwise you could find yourself in some trouble. If you have more questions about feel free to send me a message.

[chris_J2]

[dzkouns]

[farrepatt]

Sorry Chris_J2. I obviously didn't read your post properly. I had thought you said to get off at Shin Fuji. I almost made that mistake once myself.

If you get off at Odawara, there's a nice Japanese castle about a 10 minute walk from the station. It's nothing spectacular if you've been to Himeji or Matsumoto, but it's not bad.

[chris_J2]

[trigger123]

planning on a trip out to japan very soon, early august in fact.
looking for some advice about getting there from korea though.
i plan to go to tokyo for a few days, take a couple of day trips out of the city too. how would the beetle ferry-train option compare to flying? they appear to be roughly the same in price, with the former taking longer.
i imagine the japan rail pass wouldn't be that economical, considering the only 'big' rail journey i plan to make is from fukuoka to tokyo, or would it?
i also looked into this korea/japan discount pass that includes some rail travel in korea; does anyone have any experience of using this pass?
thanks in advance for any advice

[chris_J2]

I went from Busan to Fukuoka by Beetle (3 hours), then Nagasaki > Fukuoka > Hiroshima > Kyoto > Fuji Go Ko > Kamakura > Tokyo > Miyajima > Fukuoka > Busan, on a 7 day pass. I missed Nikko outside Tokyo, & Nara outside Kyoto. Maybe next time.

I also went in August. It was very hot & humid. With the exception of Hiroshima, all the cities I went to, had drink vending machines on every street corner. Chilled Pokhari Sweat, cola, etc. Overnight accomodation throughout Japan was expensive, ranging from 3,500 yen at 3 sisters hostel in Kyoto, to 7,000 yen, in the chain hotels. Cost of living is roughly double that in Korea.

http://www.treklens.com/members/chrisJ/photos/Asia/Japan/

http://beta.trekearth.com/members/ChrisJ/photos/Asia/Japan/

[cangel]

Right now, JR has a 2 day kippu pass (free travel) for just Y12,000. This is good for all shinkansen (bullet) trains in Japan. The only problem is that the days are consecutive.

[timeo]

Of course, the 7 day consecutive pass is 28,300 yen, so think carefully whether you wouldn't mind paying slightly more than double for 3.5 times the benefit. Just got back from Japan a few days ago and it's scorching there. I walked outside around noon yesterday in Seoul and thought that the weather was positively cool in comparison.

[travel zen]