No of course not. The first thing you'd notice about Japan (and perhaps any country with multiple weather seasons really) is that there is an acute sense of seasonality.
Food, clothes, festivals etc are keyed-off seasons
Chinese festivals are very similar - you don't eat tang yuan in January for example.

Right now, it's Hinamatsuri - festival for girls. Boy's day is in May when they fly carp flags.

End of october = definitely still fall/autumn. Winter starts in tail-end of Nov into Dec.

I assume you are not so concerned about temps but you want to catch the autumnal colors.
Leaves will have already started falling but you can still catch some of the tail-end of fall hues. By 1st week of Nov though, most of the leaves will be gone.
If you google, Japan has color predictions (just like sakura blooms in April) as part of the weather forecast on where and when the maximal fall colors will be reached. I think it is usually the 1st 2 weeks of October.

This is absolutely not correct. Men can, and do, get spousal visas. Pretty routine. No such BS as "women must follow the man" in Japan.
And after several years with a visa, you can then apply for PR. PR is only obtained after you demonstrate presence in a country for some time on a visa.

Unfortunately, what might complicate things is the OP might not want to *live* in the Japan but still wants to obtain a visa to perhaps ease entry/exit from Japan at immigration. Most people I know on spousal visas/or PRs actually live and work in Japan.

Yes Apr 1 was during the spring break school holidays before the start of the new academic year. The new school year starts tomorrow Apr 5.
As with anyplace else, try to avoid school holidays.

On a related note, tanoshi - your girl should be starting kindergarten soon no? Kindergarten = big deal to Japanese i.e. big formal ceremony, lots of speeches, parents take the day off to attend etc. It was one of the few days of the year that I had to wear a suit.

The first 4 characters are hiragana for su ki da yo - meaning "I like ...". The last character is katakana (tsu) and is incomplete (part of a longer word perhaps?)
So the meaning of the phrase is "I like <something>"

Or maybe it is referring to Tsu - the city with the shortest name in Japan.

If the katakana was written smaller, it would then serve as a stress word/exclamation on the previous word i.e. yop! so then the meaning would be su ki da yop!! meaning <shout>I like you very much</shout>.

This post has been edited by tatsuyachiba: Apr 6 2010, 07:27 AM

Unfortunately no plans yet because airlines fares seem to be getting more expensive these days and companies are cutting down on business travel.

Wife and kids were there last week though and they went to a pretty unique restaurant called Zauo: they went to their branch in Kameido (http://www.zauo.com/contents/zauo_kameido.html) where they let you fish using either just a big hook or a pole with a bait and then you get to eat your catch. Your table is right next to the "fishing pond". They run a sushi making class right there on the spot for the kids and teach them how to turn what they catch into nigiri-zushi

I had no idea your daughter's so big now; finished kindergarten and now, if I'm not wrong, ichinensei. If she's not been there, maybe she'll like kidzania (www.kidzania.jp) - my kids love the place - you get to pretend to be grown-up and learn to do different jobs. The place is a madhouse during the holidays though.

Perth in WA is nearer and has cooler weather in May.

Not sure if this has been posted here.

If you're looking for a ryokan in Tokyo, Sawanoya looks good at around 5000yen/single. Near Ueno station so straight shot from NRT on the Keisei line. Classic budget ryokan with tatami rooms, futon, japanese bath etc.

Disclaimer: I have not stayed here before (we have our own place in the Tokyo area so no need for hotels) but it looks good.

Nice. Staying in a ryokan (Japanese-style inn) is a quintessential Japanese experience - a must-do for those into culture.

Looking at the descriptions, you don't give up much staying at a budget ryokan over a luxurious ryokan, most of the important elements are there. Higher-priced ryokans (say in the 20000-60000yen per head range), the major difference is in the food (70% of the cost differential is in food). From past experience, at a higher-price ryokan, you get plated service in-room, they make your high-end futons at night for you, better ambience/views, boutique toiletries, in-room ofuro(baths) and and well-appointed shared onsen baths that are alternated between the genders daily because each bath is unique etc.

Would you've enjoyed it if you had gone?

I've been to Kabuki-za twice and despite 1) the english translation provided by rental headsets 2) some prior familiarity with the historical storyline (kabuki often but not always is based on some historical context), it was a little dense for me.

Kabuki plays stretch over the entire day with multiple acts and at Kabuki-za, they sell tickets to the whole play or specific acts. The cheapest, and shortest, are the 15-minute acts interspersed over longer acts. I sat through one 15-minute act and one one-hour act in the cheap seats (4th floor, at the very top, of the Kabuki-za theatre) on the 2 occasions I went. IIRC, it was maybe 300yen for the 15-minute act and maybe 800yen more for the act that lasted an hour.

Did I regret it? No. It was interesting but I'll say that twice was enough. I went primarily to bring my kids to see Kabuki, and also to see a famous "onnagata" (male actor playing a female role- all roles are played by males). Most of the audience are fans: they know the correct moments to laugh, when to applaud and when to boo the bad guys. They will shout <some specific phrase in Japanese> at the appropriate moments too - everyone knows the stories because again, they are usually based on some well-known historical setting. Noobs like me - best to keep silent. It's like going to a baseball game for the first time - you don't know the cheers, you don't know when to sit or stand or when you can go to the john, and you don't know what songs to sing at what innings.

Besides Kabuki, I've been to several Noh and my kids like rakugo (something like Chinese cross-talk - funny).

Sad to see it gone - the architecture was a nice part of Ginza.

This post has been edited by tatsuyachiba: May 2 2010, 11:41 AM

You do understand that only Kabuki-za will disappear, not kabuki performances, from Tokyo. My regret was for the passing of a grand old Ginza landmark, not kabuki itself.

Like I said earlier, this is Japan - kabuki is far from extinct and there are plenty of kabuki fans especially recent converts due to a new kabuki "prince" - Ichikawa Ebizo
The Japanese love to anoint "princes" aka enka prince (Kiyoshi), golf prince (Ryo-kun), this-prince-n-that-prince etc.

If you want to catch kabuki in Tokyo, there are other places to do so e.g. National Theater (near the Hanzomon line near Tokyo Sta.) and and the Shinbashi Enbujo.

If you like culture, you might be interested in other Japanese traditional art-forms e.g. Noh, Bunraku, Rakugo/Manzai etc as well as musical performances such as taiko drums, shakuhachi, samisen etc

This post has been edited by tatsuyachiba: May 4 2010, 10:34 AM

omochi = yes
beer = no (if carryon luggage). You're only allowed 100ml per container, all of which must fit in a gallon-size clear ziplock bag, in your carry-on luggage. If you check-in, you'll be ok for flight, however not sure what customs will do in KUL.

KY

If you recall, I was looking for pay-as-you-go internet access sometime back.
While we have a place in Japan, we're only there 2-3 months out of a year

I may have found what I was looking for: b-mobile

Looks like it's 3000yen a month. Great if the techies among you could comment on this.
I've not heard of this company although it looks like they piggy-back on the docomo network.

I do have an unlocked 3G aircard that works with the Japanese frequencies.

Sorry I should've been clearer. AirCard is a brand (I believe SierraWireless) but people usually use it interchangeably to mean 3G modem.
In my case I have an ExpressCard 3G card that is unlocked/UMTS 2100 (I think b-mobile uses docomo's FOMAS network)

I am thinking that this works just like any other prepaid mobile internet (e.g. just like TrueMove in Thailand, Starhub in Singapore etc) i.e.
1) b-mobile provides me with a prepaid SIM (not sure how much they charge for the SIM itself)
2) I insert SIM into my aircard.
3) Connect

Is this correct?

Thanks musha, PsyCHZZZ and tanoshi for your comments. I did not know that they throttle bandwidth but 300kbps should still be enough for me to do the things I need e.g. email, web, VoIP and Sling.

So get SIM, input APN/password and good to go, hopefully.

Good luck and best wishes, tanoshi.

Just like Malaysia, Japanese citizenship can only be obtained, in this case, through blood relationship.

Never heard of this, sorry. If you want to find iconic Japanese confectioneries, the top 2 IMO are Meiji's Kinokoyama (shaped like mushroom) for chocolate and Bourbon's Rumando for cookies (wafer). Rumando has been around since Showa 49 (1975)!

Can you do Hakone in 1/2 day? If you arrive at Hakone (I'm assuming you mean Hakone-Yomoto station) around noon, sure, I do it all the time. People do daytrips to Hakone all the time from Tokyo, leaving at say 9am and getting back at say 8pm. You, on the other hand, are already in Hakone and from what it sounds like are staying in Hakone for the night.

I've been to Hakone more than a couple of times. Sometimes I just stay in Odawara and make the daytrip up to Hakone, just because it is more convenient to get back to Tokyo from Odawara. I've also stayed at Moto-Hakone (which is near the lake), in Gora, up in Togendai by the ropeway etc. Where you stay depends on what you want out of your trip. I like Togendai or Ubako or Gora because of the view (my room opens up to view of Mt Fuji) but in terms of access, not so good i.e. more trains to get there.

Conversely, you may want to stay in Hakone-Yomoto (or even Odawara) for easier return to Tokyo. If I'm asked, I would pick Hakone-Yumoto for the 1st time traveler. It is nicely in between Odawara and say, the apex of the Hakone mountains. From Hakone-Yumoto then you take the switchback train up the mountain to Gora and perhaps then the cable train up to Sounzan and then the ropeway to Lake Aishi. The switchback train takes perhaps 1.5 hours to Gora, the cable car is maybe like 30 minutes to the top (be prepared, people run to these cable trains pushing every one out of the way! so much for polite Japanese myth!) and the ropeway, maybe 30 minutes end to end.

You may want to stop at Owakudani on the repeway to see what a sulfuric volcano looks like. Skip the black eggs - they taste just like eggs (duh!)

Then onto Lake Aishi and the boat ride. Maybe 30 minutes. Then you maybe to the Tokugawa checkpoint* and then it is time to go back. You'll probably take the bus back to Hakone-Yumoto.

* the checkpoint is fascinating if you like history as I do. Checkpoints all over Japan were the primary way the Tokugawa shogunate maintained power over all the other daimyos (the other major reason was forcing all the Hans[clans] to maintain expensive Edo quarters) for so long.



Mt Fuji is not in Hakone. You can, however, get an amazing view of it, particularly on the Hakone Ropeway. Also the reflection Fujisan casts on Lake Aishi is very nice and famous view.

Quick answer: None

Terminology refresh: there is a difference between a "stopover" and a "layover". A stopover is a scheduled stop at a intermediate city enroute to your destination e.g. if you are flying KUL-NRT-<stay 2 days in Tokyo>-LAX. In this case the tax (called the Passenger Service Facility Charge or PSFC in NRT) will already be inbuilt into your ticket fare.

A layover, on the other hand, is when you connect in NRT but are not staying more than 24 hours e.g. KUL-NRT-LAX with a 5 hour wait in NRT for the connecting flight to LAX. A layover is defined as any connecting segment than is < than 24 hours. No tax is collected and no tax will be collected.

Long time ago, NRT used to collect the PSFC at the airport. You had to buy a coupon at the airport at departure much like how it used to be at BKK. That went away I think in the mid-to-late 1990s.

Lots of people do what you're planning to do but you'll still need a visa or the ability to enter Japan without a visa. I've done this a couple of times to meet family/friends while in transit; I'll take the train to Narita City, have lunch (they are famous for their unagi) and then go back to the airport. Be careful though that immigration may have lines (I set aside 1 hour for this just in case). Technically though you *don't* need a visa for Japan if you are staying < 24 hours because immigration can give you something that's called a "shore pass". My dad missed a connecting flight once and the airline put him up in a hotel and he didn't need a visa. Neither do the Chinese travelers in transit from China through NRT to elsewhere who stay the night while in transit need visas. But to get this, you must have a good reason I guess. To be sure, get a visa.