• If you drive a Land Cruiser in Japan, you’re a douchebag.
  • Taxi doors open themselves.
  • Vegetarianism isn’t a thing.
  • Avoid Disneyland.
  • Tokyo is too busy!
  • Bullet Trains are fun, but the ICE3 is still cooler.
  • Wee before you start a road trip, particularly if you’re on a tour bus.
  • Add a PASMO or Suica card to your phone via Apple Wallet so you don’t need a physical card. You can just tap your watch or phone at the gates. You can also recharge it with ApplePay (No Cash!).
  • The generic IC cards (even ones added via your phone) work all over the country. It’s not necessary to get the tourist PASMO Passport.
  • Buy your JR Pass via the offical Japan Rail Pass site. That way you can reserve seats online and not have to mess around with ticket machines or wait in ticket lines.
  • A vast majority vending machines are for drinks. Most food ones we saw were ice cream or cans of hot corn juice.
  • Hot corn juice is pretty yum.
  • I know I don’t speak or read Japanese, but the reading really threw me. In Europe everything is still in Roman alphabet and a lot of words are similar (e.g. chocolate, schokolade, cioccolato, chocolat). チョコレート isn’t as clear.
  • The translate app on my phone solved a lot of kanji issues.
  • I found a Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar made in Hobart in the exotic food section of a supermarket.
  • There is a lot of iced tea and coffee action. They usually don’t sweeten it. The tea was always bitter, like it had been brewed too long.