I’m going to Japan for 8 days to work. What should I expect? I’ve very little if any time for touristy stuff. Mostly will work a trade show in Tokyo. I am led to believe I will have a translator with me at the show, but not away from the show.
How hard is it to get around Tokyo as a total novice? What should I try to do? How do you handle the time shift? I haven’t traveled to Asia in 13 years or so and am dreading the body clock issue.
How hard a time will I have entering Japanese Customs and leaving? Should I leave the iPod home? What about normal over the counter drugs? Do I need a scrip for my CPAP machine?
Ambian is your friend. Seriously, the only way to alleviate jetlag is to be well rested. You want to sleep everynight, well then take an Ambian or equivalent. You’ll still have waves of jet lag but your body will be rested, and trust me this makes an enormous difference. Take a pill on the way over, take one that first night, and then every night afterwards for at least a few days. Same thing when you go home.
That’s what I do, YMMV.
Asakusa has a cool temple and nice area to wander. Yoyogi Koen on Sundays to watch them crazy kids show off. If you want to get out, I always liked ChiChibu Okutama. I’m sure the Tokyo dopers can give suggestions.
No reason to leave the iPod home that I can see. If you have a computer you can charge it with that (modern laptops can generally convert power) or you can use your wall charger (I did, never seemed to hurt anything). There shouldn’t be any hassle at customs, it is a modern first world country after all. OTC drugs shouldn’t be any problem as long as you aren’t importing huge amounts. However, I believe cold drugs with an excess amount of codeine or pseudoephedrine are not allowed in Japan, e.g. NYQuil (maybe they make a different version now because of meth issues? Not sure on that.) But even then they would probably just confiscate it. I don’t know what a CPAP machine is but I wouldn’t imagine there would be any unusual problems.
Don’t know about jet lag–it always hits me hard. I definitely never had a problem getting to sleep at night though, my only problem is that I would wake up at 5 AM and be exhausted by 9 PM every night for a few weeks. Good luck with that.
It’s ridiculously easy to get around Tokyo once you get the hang of the train system. JR runs most of the lines that you as a tourist would need. They are above ground trains, not subways. The Yamanote loop runs around Tokyo in an endless loop (well, until about 1 AM) and stops at almost every important tourist destination. If you are near a train station it should not be at all difficult to get around. English is everywhere in Tokyo, especially in train stations. It can be overwhelming at first, but it is honestly super-easy, especially if you use a site like Hyperdia. Just find out the name of your nearest station, and the name of the station where you want to go. Any tourist guidebook or website will tell you this. Then just type it in and it will tell you everything. Trains run near constantly so you don’t have to worry about the time, just look at price and connections (actually you don’t have to worry about price either, but it’s probably easiest for you just to buy tickets with the right price. If you want, I can explain more about the train system but seriously–really easy!) Also most station employees in a major train station will be able to speak English decently well and direct you to where you need to go (Especially if you get lost in Shinjuku. And everyone gets lost in Shinjuku…)
Do you know the area you will be staying at? I could probably recommend some stuff based on that. If you have just have a few hours at night, I would say just go wander around downtown Shinjuku or Shibuya (2 major stations on the aforementioned Yamanote lines.) It will blow your mind, especially on the weekends. Never seen that many people in my life. Definitely try to check out the neon at least.
