Japan – Be Prepared

Posted on by J Traveller

This is a part of the Before You Ask segment

WEATHER IN JAPAN

on weather in different areas in Japan

I know a lot of people want to ask about weather and what to wear. Check weather and climate in the above websites and see how that matches what you normally would wear for those temperatures. Everyone tolerates different temperatures differently so for me, anything over 10C i'm in a t-shirt, over 18C and i'll start to sweat when walking. I can tolerate -15C in a t-shirt and a good knee-length down coats and jeans. I have friends who can wear wool scarves and leather jackets at 23-24C sunny days in humid Hong Kong and hardly sweat in a full suit at over 30C. So please don't ask what to wear for a specific climate. No one knows you or what kind of environment you are used to. If you already know roughly what you can tolerate, we can definitely help you find where to buy good clothing in Japan. In general, Japan has a lack of good cold air conditioning, and many hotels and ryokans don't even allow you to turn on cold air, but... they do really like to use heat, trains in winter can often be over 25C and for those of us who cannot tolerate dry heat, it's good to be in a t-shirt with a big coat you can just take off easily (as opposed to layers and layers of static electricity).

Nippon.com has a good write-up on the various climate regions in Japan.
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1a Okhotsk Average temperature below 0°C in winter. Low annual rainfall.
1b Tōhoku; Hokkaidō Heavy rainfall in September and winter. Average temperature below 0°C in January and February
1c Hokuriku; San’in Average monthly temperature does not fall below 0°C. Heavy snow in winter.
2 Kyūshū Heavy rainfall in June and July.
3 Nankai Heavy rainfall all year round, particularly around June and September.
4 Setouchi Warm with low rainfall all year round
5a East Hokkaidō Severely cold in winter. Low rainfall, except around September when it is high.
5b Sanriku; Jōban Lower temperatures and less snow compared with the Japan Sea side at this latitude.
5c Tōkai, Kantō Heavy rain around June and September to October. Fine weather in winter.
5d Chūō kōgen Great seasonal variation in temperature. Severely cold in winter with little accumulation of snow.
6a Nansei shotō Warm with little seasonal variation in temperature. Low rainfall.
6b Chichijima Warm with little seasonal variation in temperature. Heavy rainfall in May and November.

and on Surf, Snow, Sakura and Koyo(Autumn colours),

here's a detailed list of Japan's Popular Seasonal Activities.

ON HOTELS & OTHER ACCOMMODATIONS

for more information on this, please see our Accommodations post.

Common accommodations booking websites includes:

Make sure you do your own price comparisons to get the best possible deals.

JNTO also has a list of booking websites catering more specifically to Japan.

As for luggage delivery to/from hotels, take a look in this thread.

ON CURRENCY EXCHANGE

Depending on the country you’re traveling from, you might have better exchange rates there, or you might have better exchange rates in Japan, but 2 important things comes to mind: Do you want to spend time in Japan exchanging money? And is your country’s currency exchangeable in Japan? Reading through a lot of opinions online, if you are unsure, bringing an internationally accepted debit card(like ones with Cirrus or Plus symbols) and bring a Visa/Mastercard, is probably your best bet. You can get cash out of the debit card quite easily via ATMs, and Visa/Mastercard are most commonly accepted credit cards other than JCB.

Japan Post Bank’s ATM service

Many convenience stores may also have ATMs that accepts international cards.

You can exchange money and travelers cheques at banks, but they take way too long and way too much paperwork. I’ve done this in a pinch several times, each time it took no less than 30 minutes to exchange USD into JPY. If your country can buy prepaid Mastercard/Visa foreign exchange cards, those are a good idea. You can put money in them, and they act like an international ATM card as well as a credit card, like this one from Hong Kong.

Tokyo Cheapo has a good article on currency exchange:

Places where it’s definitely cheaper to buy yen with local currency? Hong Kong, Taiwan. If you’re laying over in Hong Kong, HKD is linked to USD, so the rate barely fluctuates. 1 USD = 7.75 HKD, with usually no more than a 0.04 difference.

It’s probably not a good idea if you’re not from the United States to buy USD just to exchange it to yen in Japan, since you’re losing on exchange rates twice, but if you must bring cash... USD rates are better in Japan compared to other currencies. Do check with your local banks and see the exchange rates first. It’s not always cheaper in Japan.

ON SOME BASIC MEDICINE IN JAPAN

This post and the comments talks in detail about many kinds of basic medicine to be found in Japan.

which lead to my current draft of meds info.

ON ELECTRICITY

(thanks Magi Ya for suggesting this)

All of Japan has 100v power sockets, so for countries who run on 220-240v, only plug in electronics you brought that have a built in transformer, ones without transformers will fry and possibly catch fire. leave those things at home. Luckily many modern day electronics like laptops comes with an AC adapter with built in transformer for 110-240v, and smartphones charge via USB cables, which are limited to 5v.

Japan also uses 2 flat pronged plugs, similar to North America. Japanese prongs are both the same size. US plugs that don't have an additional grounding prong are often one slightly longer than the other so it may not fit in Japanese wall sockets. There are cheap plug adapters that can be bought for less than $1. Understand that these just change the shape of the plug, they are not transformers and cannot change the voltage difference.

 

100V | Japan
110V | Taiwan
120V | US, Canada
127V | Mexico
240V | UK, Hong Kong, Kenya
230V | Most EU Countries, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, etc...
220V | Ireland, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Ukraine, Russia, Egypt, Philippines, China, etc...
220-240V | South Africa
110-127-220V | Brazil
127-220V | Morocco
for a comprehensive list of voltages, please click here

For hair dryers and water boilers, usually hotels(even cheap ones) provide them for free in room. I do not suggest bringing curling/flat irons, steam/clothing irons, or other heat generating items unless you also want to carry a 1-3kg transformer in your suitcase. Leave them at home and go to a salon for your hair needs, and laundromat for your clothes pressing(that’s only if you need your clothing pressed and starched).

For all intents a purposes, it's fine with North American appliances pluged into Japanese sockets, and for the most part, it should be fine for Japanese appliances to be used in the US, but things like hairdryers and curling irons from Japan may run a little too hot in the US due to the extra voltage and some components could burn out. Typically digital electronics such as laptop computers and smartphones usually have a multi-voltage power adapter and those should not be a problem at all.

For those of us living in 220-240v countries, buying things that require electricity in Japan will most likely require the use of a transformer. So think about that before you consider that magical heated toilet seat that also washes your bum. If you plug a Japanese appliance that normally accepts 100v into a wall that supplies at 220v, the appliance will burn out, and may possibly result in an electrical fire.

I used to have something this big, just to charge the original Nintendo DS i bought in Japan for Hong Kong use (we run on 220v here).

ON WHEELCHAIR AND ELDERLY ACCESSIBILITY

There are many places where train access requires walking on stairs (platform bridges), especially once you get into rural areas, but even in large cities some older stations still haven’t upgraded. The same goes for large department stores and some tourist areas. Also if you make reservations at restaurants, make sure they’re on ground floor (called 1st floor in Japan) or their building has elevators, there are many buildings that don’t. Places like Akihabara are generally not friendly to wheelchairs as wider wheelbase ones might not be able to get into the extremely narrow elevator doors in some buildings, and many shops are upstairs on buildings without elevators, limiting the places someone wheelchair-bound can go. On the other hand, there are buildings like Omotesando Hills that are almost completely traversable in wheelchair due to their barrier-free design, the triangular walkway at Omotesando Hills in a continuous spiral incline with no steps at all other than the elevator-accessible basement level.

Japan Accessible Tourism Center is a website that notes by city, the accessibility of some of the major tourist attractions and some info on accessibility on public transit.

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A huge thanks to many members of Japan Travel Friendly Discussion Group for help in creating and updating the information in this document.

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