I love Japan!!!! I just posted advice in another thread about southern Utah, my favorite place in the USA. Japan is my favorite place in the world. I've traveled all over from remote towns on Hokkaido to remote towns on Kyushu, hiked the Kumano Kodo and Nakasendo. My first trip I landed at Narita on March 11, 2011 at 2:20 pm JST and then got stranded overnight at Narita. I spent that first 24 hours stunned by the calm, stoic, patient and respectful character of the Japanese people. (If you're not sure what happened on that date Google it. ;))
Did you mean Hokkaido, not Honkaido? Hokkaido has a totally different feel from the lower three main islands - fewer temples and shrines, different architecture, very rural, so much less crowded. I do hope you visit Hokkaido - in the fall the hiking and fall foliage will be awesome.
Japan is also a very Mustachian place to visit if you follow a few pieces of advice.
The exchange rate is decent right now. 93 yen to a dollar... it was only 75 yen to a dollar in 2011, but closer to 100 to 1 when I was there earlier this year. I averaged about $100/day there including the hotel.
Good to note: Japan is a very cash-based society so they just about expect you to pay cash everywhere. (And I love the little trays they use to pass the cash back and forth everywhere.) They don't even blink if you pay cash for a hotel room, which I did if I didn't have to pre-pay online when I booked. Another way to easily stick to a budget.
Another good to note: no tipping anywhere!
Money savers:
1) Like nz said - RAIL PASS!!! Best deal in the world. A 7-day pass will pay for itself just in the round trip on the Shinkansen from Tokyo-Kyoto which ran about $240 when I was there. Get 14 day passes and over the course of 2 weeks use it to go farther than just Tokyo and Kyoto (maybe you are using it to get to Hokkaido?) The Shinkansen are an astonishingly efficient way to travel and they are astonishingly expensive... except for foreigners holding a rail pass. It's also great to just walk on and off trains and just wave the passes. Seat reservations are quick to get too if you want them (recommended for the Shinkansen, especially the popular routes so you don't have to stand in the unreserved cars.)
2) As someone else said, avoid taxis (but maybe make sure you use one once, just for the white glove, uniformed driver and the lace doilies. Maybe splurge once in Kyoto where the key landmarks are really far apart.)
3) Business hotels - Japan has wonderfully inexpensive business hotels.
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2025_business_hotels.html The rooms are small but comfortable and you should be fine if you splurge on a double room or larger. Just do not bring a large suitcase - the room could be too small. All the hotels have coin laundry so plan to use that halfway through the trip. Beware that many hotels sell out well in advance in places like Tokyo and Kyoto and you are going on short notice. Also agree with Beric to get a couple nights of the Ryokan experience but beware they range greatly in price and some are very luxurious with prices to match.
4) Second the cheap noodle bars - get hotels that include breakfast (look for Western breakfast if that matters to you), cheap noodles (500-600 yen) for lunch and do a nicer dinner. You should still be able to stay under 1500 yen/person for dinner.
5) Convenience stores. MMM often says, "food comes from your backpack" and you can fill your backpack with tasty beverages, pastries and snacks from any one of the cheap and ubiquitous convenience stories.
Some notes from me....
- In Kyoto, be selective in what you want to see because everything is a great distance apart and after awhile you can get burned out on temples, gardens and shrines and just the touristy-ness of it all. The Southern Higashiyama walk is a great 1/2 day stroll. It's a bit touristy like all the sights in Kyoto but a break from temples. Just remember MMM's story about the manly drinking flask with horns when he was in Ecuador. ;-)
- I second the vote for Nara, an easy daytrip from Kyoto. Make sure you walk the Naramachi neighborhood. Much less crowded and less touristy than Kyoto.
- Try to get to Hiroshima. It's a long daytrip from Kyoto but the remants of the A-bomb and the museum are something everyone should see in their lifetime. Something changed in me after I went there.
- It is easy to get burned out of temples and shrines. So make sure you go for a balance.
- One of the things be aware of is how profoundly mountainous Japan is, and how much this influences population density. Nearly everyone lives on the coasts and they are packed in tight in the Tokyo-Osaka corridor. Fortunately the quiet, polite, harmonious nature of the Japanese makes it bearable but reagardless, many areas of Tokyo make Times Square mid-day feel only moderately packed. For me, I found the crush of people in Tokyo overwhelming after 3-4 days.
- It will take you a month to see everything in the guidebooks in Tokyo so make sure you read up beforehand and decide what's a priority to you. Ginza and high end
shopping window shopping or Asakusa and the museums and temples or getting crushed in Shibuya and people-watching Shinjuku and strolling Yoyogi? It's overwhelming so it helps to have some sort of plan before you go. It might also dictate where you want to try to stay in Tokyo.
- Not sure if this is a good time to go to Fuji, but a daytrip to hike around Fuji is a welcome break from the city.
- If you do have time to plan things outside Tokyo and Kyoto, do it. The best places in Japan I visited were the ones way way off the beaten path.
- Few people speak much English in Japan outside of the business community in Tokyo. There's no expectation you'll speak any Japanese but do try, they love it. You will struggle to communicate but people will try so hard and resort all kinds of gestures of hospitality from just asking that you follow them and walking you to what you're looking for because they can't
tell you how to get there.
- In restaurants, pick places that have the plastic food or menus with pictures. It makes everything a lot easier to point.
- Double Beric01's point on the phone. I rent a mifi (pocket wifi) from this company:
http://www.globaladvancedcomm.com/pocketwifi.html, pick up/drop off at the Narita Terminal post office. For $6-7/day you have full connectivity without worrying about an expensive international data plan and associated data limits. It will save you for the GPS and maps alone. I also used the
http://www.hyperdia.com/ app constantly to plan train travel. Because there is so little English in Japan I found it a lifesaver to be connected to news sources while traveling.
