I was there for fifteen days, and spent 68,250 yen, though this doesn’t include hotels (which my friend paid by credit card – and many of which included free breakfast) or most of our train travel (since we bought JR Passes before we went). I didn’t spend a whole bunch on shopping either (though I did waste five thousand on a taxi when I (mistakenly) thought the train I wanted had stopped for the night…)

As for the cheapest airport, Google searches suggest Narita, Kansai, Chubu and Fukuoka in varying order. Keeping in mind some of them will be just plain unavailable depending on your country of origin (for example, flights from Australia only land at Narita or Kansai), and it’s going to depend heavily on the time of year anyway.

I recommend getting a JR pass if you want to travel by shinkansen. You will probably also need to spend some money on public transport ;) From airport to wherever you are staying etc.. I will be traveling in just under a month and I am expecting to spend around 60,000JPY to spend on food during my stay (13 days). Being a student it is in my highest interest to travel cheap, but instead of sleeping in only capsule hotels I decided to do homestay for a few days, capsule hotels for a few days, and then booked a hotel while I am in Tokyo. Capsule hotels are however ½ the price per night…

If it helps you in any way my overall budget (including flight ticket, food, JR pass, hotels, and some extra money to spend on whatever I want) is around 400,000JPY. I think you can do it for probably around 300,000 if you take a cheaper plane, spend less on food, and less on hotel.

Hello guys, it’s me again.So it’s time for me to travel. Almost. About 10 days and then a dream comes true.

A friend asked me to buy him some j-pop related stuff, like merchandise or familiar stuff. Is there a certain shop for this in Tokio or can I find it in music stores? I’m talking about goodies like shirts, prints or figurines.

We’re visiting only Tokio so we’re going by train most of the time (I love trains btw) and I was wondering if there’s some kind of weekly city ticket we can buy for save some money? We have something like that here in Germany for every big city :)

Or a Suica card. It’s useable in more places, you don’t have a pre-charge it with quite so much when you first get it, and if you’re coming from Narita Airport, you can get a Suica + Narita Express package deal.

http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2359_suica_nex.html

I can’t say that I’ve ever seen someone suggest getting a Pasmo before. =)

And something else I forgot to add: it might be worth crunching the numbers to see if a JR East Pass is worth the money – since you’re only staying in Tokyo, you’ll probably find it’s not (and an all-Japan JR Pass certainly wouldn’t be) but there’s no harm in checking. It gives you free travel on all JR trains (though not the private subways). It tends to pay for itself if you’re riding the Shinkansen around the place, but not so much if you’re staying in one city.

http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/eastpass

If you want to find out train fares, Hyperdia is the place to go. There’s other similar websites, but Hyperdia is the one I use the most. =)

http://www.hyperdia.com

One minor side note: it’s “Tokyo” rather than “Tokio” – in hiragana, とうきょう. If you pronounce it とうきお, you’re going to get some funny looks. =)

Also, concur with Winterpromise: tell us all about it. =D

Joel, yeah I do see what you mean that Suica can be used outside of the greater Tokyo area.  I hadn’t noticed that before.  On my first trip to Tokyo, my wife helped set me up with a pasmo and I never looked much into the differences then.

A quick Google search turned up this list of links:

http://www.japan-guide.com/forum/quereadisplay.html?0+91845

Can’t really speak for anything, because I’ve never used them myself (I brought a laptop and used the Ethernet cable, and my friend connected wirelessly via my laptop) but it’s a start.