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Question! I still don’t understand quite how phones are supposed to work. That is, if I’m staying for a month, what do I have to do to ensure I’ll have a functioning phone abroad?
In other news, I REALLY have to get back into studying… My meagre Japanese is not going to be enough to survive in its current state, which has me a little worried…
Still, can’t wait for November.
There’s a few things you can try:
1. Ask your current provider if there’s anything you can do that’ll let you travel with the phone without roaming charges.
2. Buy an international prepaid SIM card – I used http://www.ekit.com/ when I went to America (mostly because I was given a discount for booking with HI, so I don’t know for certain if they’re the best option.)
3. Rent a phone when you get to Japan. There’s a few phone-rental shopts at Narita Airport, for example. From what I’ve heard, you won’t be able to rent just the SIM card, but the costs aren’t too bad.If you have a Sprint or Verizon phone, your phone almost certainly won’t work in Japan. If you use AT&T or T-Mobile, you will need to have your provider SIM-unlock your phone, and chances are that they will not if you are still under contract. Roaming charges will be obscene, so your best bet will probably be to rent a cell phone. You can google for japan cell phone rental, here is one site that seems to have decent reviews: http://www.rentafonejapan.com/?gclid=CMeqpu_6lq8CFehgTAodwjU0ww
I was afraid of that. Indeed, I use an iPhone under AT&T. Looks like I’ll be renting a phone then.
Not too big a deal I guess, but it’s one more cost to drain from my already dangerously small travel funds.
Will I still be able to bring my iPhone along (say if I should want to use its non-phone functions) without worrying about some hidden “surprises” on my bill?
You can bring your phone as long as you don’t do anything phonish with it. You could just leave it in airplane mode. There is no wi-fi anywhere anyway.
Glad to hear you’re more certain about coming now. It’s a great experience. Did you figure out what city you are going to? Kasukabe? Why did you chose that city? (just out of curiosity)
OK cool, that’s good news, I gotta have my music when I’m out and about. XD
Indeed, it will be Kasukabe if I can score a place there. As it’s a research trip, I want to be at or near to the city I plan to live in. I picked Kasukabe after being made aware of it by (of all things) my favourite anime, which takes place in it. I researched it and found a lot to my liking. It’s a decent sized city (big but not too big) for my lifestyle, close to Tokyo for more work/play options, and as it’s not part of Tokyo proper, housing prices are not bad at all.
And yes, I’ll admit it, my dork half is tickled by the thought of living in the same city as Konata and the gang. XD
(←)Lucky Star is indeed a good series :3 Funny that it made you decide to go there, I hadn’t even considered the city to be a location that excited in reality. From the anime it seems pretty chill, but I can’t imagine it representing it very well haha.
Ooo, good luck with that. I only managed to get a bit over halfway up. Intending to try again someday…
@Mark, I agree Kasukabe is not really that exciting, but when considering a place to live, that’s actually what attracted me to it! If I’m in the mood for some fun and thrills, Tokyo is just a short train ride away, and when I’m done, back to Kasukabe for some peace and quiet. Certainly not a tourist place, but for a potential immigrant, a worthy place to research. I honestly had no idea where to think of living, so Lucky Star acted as a “guiding arrow”. :3
Hehe, I owe Lucky Star a lot, actually. I know it sounds very weeabooish to say, but it was Lucky Star that restarted my interest in Japan, which then led to my desire to live there, and thus finally giving me a real dream to work for in my life. I don’t know if it’s an exaggeration, but I can almost credit Lucky Star with getting my life back on track!
@Joel Thanks! I’m going to have a shock when I get there because looking at photos it appears far easier than it will actually be. I’m going to haul my tripod up there and try to get some exceptional shots. :)
Ooo, yeah. Don’t go thinking it’s easy. Oh, granted, it’s basically just walking up a steepish hill, which is easy enough… until you do it for eight hours straight. That said, I never really felt tired while going up – I just found that whenever I started moving, my brain would start telling me to stop. When I stopped moving, though, my brain’d go “what are you waiting for? We’ve got a mountain to climb!” In the end, we stopped for the night at the seventh station, and didn’t continue in the morning. Still a bit disappointed. Hence my intent to try again someday. =)
In any case, make sure you prepare for it. And possibly reconsider taking anything for which “haul” is the operative verb. =P
My boyfriend and I are going in Feb. 2013 because our friend is stationed in Japan and is done with his term the first week of March. He has a house so we’ll be staying with him. A few of our friends might tag along.
My boyfriend and a few of our friends have been there three times. My guy found a neat arcade that is apparently all old school games both in Japanese and American. Also seeing the Ice Festival is one of the biggest things to do in Sapporo.
We will be going to Sapporo and Hello Kitty Land for sure. Everything else is tentative.We are planning on saving up to $1,500 by August for a flight. After that we plan on having no less than $3,000 for spending cash,etc. Also, if you have a credit card, our friend was able to use his in some places. I think it may depend on the area and what you’re buying. I’m sure if you went to the shopping district you may be able to use your credit card.
Hi all,
I haven’t been on this forum for a while.
I travelled to Japan 2 years ago and haven’t stopped thinking about it. If it wasn’t for my job I’d be looking for excuses to live there!Anyway, I think that some sort of meet up would be a brilliant idea. I’ve just posted it on the FB group then thought about the forum and found this thread.
Will (UK)
Awesome thread, I have traveled to Japan.
I was always interested in Japanese culture, then when I went to Japan, it was everything I expected and more! So that is when I decided “I must learn Japanese *hero stance*” Which led me here to Textfugu:D because I had always watched Tofugu and thought I would give it a try.
The people in Japan, you have most likely heard this, are very nice. I didn’t meet one mean person there, even if they didn’t like me and my family, they were still very, very nice. I stayed in Asakusa, literally 30 steps away from the market. It was beautiful waking up in the morning around 7AM, (jet lag) and going outside to feel the nice warm air and to see how extremely quiet it was for such a big city. The thing that surprised me most was how we only saw one group of elderly people out that early! Then when we went to the Starbucks, we actually had to wait for it to open! I found this hiliarious because in the US if you can’t get your Starbucks at 5AM, for some people, that is an outrage.
I got to see the famous city, nicknamed “Electric Town” I forgot its real name but it started with an A. That was pretty awesome, it was interesting to see people actually looking at buying hentai figures ._.
We saw all around Tokyo and went up to places like Kamakura and saw its famous Buddah and stuff like that. Another note worth thing was going up some mountain, I remember, and getting to eat Black (hardboiled) eggs, the myth is that they prolong your life for 10 years. The best part was some really nice Japanese guy came over to me and just gave me his last one! I said arigatou many times :). It was really nice of him. It was awesome too because we came at a luck day where we could actually see Mt. Fuji almost perfectly!
A funny thing too was on a menu board in English for coffee instead of “Blend Coffee” it said “Brend Coffee” just so you would say it like that so they would be able to understand you XD sterotypes much? I also had some really good Curry, Kobe beef, Tempura, Sushi bar, SOBA(so, so so good) and I even tried a tempura bean paste snack, it was actually really good!
AS FOR PHONES IN JAPAN:
We had iPhones on AT&T, once you get there it will most likely connect to SOFT BANK automatically, but if you don’t have a plan with AT&T of course you will get charged. You can rent a phone if you want to, but you can also just pay for international plans, BTW Japan’s Phone signals are more advanced than ours (or at least that is what they told us) so iPhone 4′s are one of the only phones that can actually work there internationally. It’s like going to Germany or Europe where your iPhone connects to Vodaphone (been there too, many places in Europe, Japan is best.)
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