Random Personal Posts by Gaelen Gates

Now that we’re back from Japan, I have to do a shout-out for a trip planning tool that I used for the first time on this trip: Wanderlog. There’s a free version and a paid version, and I used the free version. Paying gets you some additional features, notably one that orders your day’s itinerary in a way that makes sense from the locations.

As background, I really enjoy detailed trip-planning, and always give myself at least 4-5 months' lead time so I can really spend time learning about the place and designing an itinerary. I could never find one tool that does it all, and I typically use a combination of (1) multiple saved Google Maps, including one for restaurants, one for sightseeing stops, etc.; (2) Google Docs that combine notes, recommendations from other people, and research information; (3) a singular Google Doc with a day-by-day itinerary and page references to (4) travel books from Lonely Planet, Moon, or Rough Guide. It’s always kind of a pain to navigate and track things.

Enter Wanderlog. This is an app that has entries for almost all places a person might want to visit as a tourist, as well as almost every restaurant, train station, hotel, etc. It allows you to create separate “lists” for each of these things, and then combine the items into an itinerary. It will then estimate your walking/transit/driving time between each place. Here is a screenshot:

If you click onto any of the items, it will reveal more detailed information, including address, opening hours, and, often, how much time people typically spend in the place. If the display photo isn’t the right one to jog your memory of what the place is, you can change it. You can also add manual information like cost and notes.

Finally, there is also a maps view that allows you to combine layers of lists, and one, some, or all of the item’s on a particular day’s itinerary. For example, this view combines my restaurant list (red) with my itinerary for a particular day (orange), so I can see which restaurants might be convenient as a lunch stop.

There is both an iPhone app and a desktop web page, and they sync together, so you can work off of both. As I noted, the paid version includes a relatively slick feature that will order your itinerary stops in a way that makes sense based on their location, although my experiments with that (you get a 7-day paid trial when you sign up) were mixed, and I had to double-check everything. That being said, I’m super impressed with this app. It’s presumably less useful for those planning non-traditional trips to see friends and family, or to visit other destinations that wouldn’t be on a public list, but for the average tourist, I found it to be excellent.

We’re back! We were awake for about 22 hours for the trip home, I slept 11 hours last night! I’ve uploaded my best photos to a Flickr album here, although I’m still working on the captions.

I posted most of them to Instagram as I went, here they are:

• Batch 1: Tokyo
• Batch 2: More Tokyo
• Batch 3: Hakone Open Air Museum
• Batch 4: Hakone
• Batch 5: Osaka
• Batch 6: More Osaka
• Batch 7: Nara
• Batch 8: Kyoto
• Batch 9: More Kyoto
• Batch 10: Last Days in Tokyo

The fact that Adam speaks some Japanese made a huge difference in terms of how friendly people were and what we were able to do! But as a first-time traveller to Japan, here’s what I learned from this trip and would tell other first-timers:

• Outside the big cities, many places are cash only. Many places that take credit cards require a plastic card (not phone pay).
• Wear comfortable shoes that you can walk 20K-30K steps a day in. This is our typical travel style, but I think even people who don’t typically walk a lot will walk a lot in Japan. Make sure they can slip on and off easily for no-shoes areas. I wore APL TechLoom Travelers, and I later saw a Skechers knockoff on sale for $50 so I bought those too, and BOY could you tell the difference at about 15K steps in a day. The APLs were comfortable even on hiking/long walk days.
• It rained more than we expected. Bring a good umbrella and waterproof shoe covers if you’re going during a somewhat rainy season!
• Get a Suica card and add it to your Apple Wallet (NOT the Suica app). Go to Apple Wallet —> + —> add transit card —> Japan —> Suica. Then download the Suica app (NOT the Suica mobile app). Add some money to the Suica card before you get there, so you’re ready to take the train from the airport. Then you’ll be set up to tap your phone to pay for all local transit systems throughout Japan.
• Once you have the Suica Card, get the SmartEx app for Shinkansen tickets (it requires a Suica number).
• In Kyoto, expect many popular sites to be crowded. Don’t go to Arayashima bamboo forest, which is PACKED, look up the locations of other bamboo forests that are just as nice. There isn’t really anything special about Arayashima.
• Japan has almost no animal welfare laws. The number of animal cafes have expanded, and no matter how well a cafe promises to treat their animals, there is no universe in which a wild animal, such as an owl, hedgehog, or otter being handled by strangers all day is a humane environment for that animal. Resist the temptation to patronize them.
• Related: Be prepared to see pet stores selling puppies and kittens. I didn’t expect this and it was jarring and upsetting.
• Carry a small container of hand soap, or sheets of paper soap, as many public bathrooms don’t have soap.
• In Nara, raise both empty hands in the air to show the deer you are out of crackers. Otherwise they may bite you! They understand the “hands up” gesture very well.
• Stairs and escalators have specific rules about where to walk and stand, and it’s not consistent. Look for signs.
• No walking and eating. If you buy food at a street food stall, you’re expected to stand next to the stall and eat it.
• If it’s your first time in Tokyo, stay in Shibuya or Shinjuku where you’ll be near all the major rail lines, which you’ll take everywhere.
• If you’re not from a city, don’t be intimidated about taking transit everywhere. Google Maps has good directions, and things are color-coded and signed well in English.
• As in Europe, many double-occupancy hotel rooms only have a “full” size bed (NOT enough room for 2 people!). I like to use Booking.com to sort for hotels where the bed is either a Queen or King.
• Carry a plastic bag for garbage, as trash cans are few and far between and you may need to carry it for a long time.
• Bring a coin purse or something to keep coins in, you’ll end up with a lot.
• At food establishments, each person is expected to order an item, and they can be very persnickety about insisting on the rule. For example, Adam and I went to a mostly-empty dessert pancake shop on a weekday afternoon, and wanted to share a very large pancake set with ice cream. We were required to order a drink (I got coffee) so we would each be ordering one item. We also encountered a “1 drink minimum” rule at a nicer restaurant where we spent about $50 pp.
• Don’t let reports that Japan is overtouristed stop you. Some of the most popular spots in Kyoto were packed at midday, but that was the only place we encountered uncomfortable crowding. It’s a beautiful and interesting country that’s worth visiting. With the weak yen, it’s also surprisingly cheap if you are used to living in San Francisco!