Definitely, definitely get decent headphones and earplugs.  You never know how close you'll be sitting to a small, crying child.

Last edited by pudding cat (2011 November 12, 5:34 am)

Don't worry too much about what to bring. If you can't buy it there, you don't really need it. As you travel more, you'll realize that bringing less is better.

Jarvik7 wrote:

I've never seen eye masks or earplugs handed out.. At least not in economy.
Don't expect it..

You must travel on some god awful airlines then,  I only travel economy being a student and my flights to Japan and back to England I got, Eyemask, Earplugs, Headphones, Pillow and a Blanket.

Ok I'll give you the headphones sucked, but they weren't that bad.  The headache I got flying out in feb was because the leprechaun in front of me dipped his seat back so low no matter what I did to the screen I couldn't look directly at it  without slumping down in the seat..  I'm 6.3, that ain't easy or comfortable.

One additional strike against buying toiletries or whatever here is that (as I said before) the exchange rate right now is so unfavorable to people from the US that you're going to end up paying a lot more for things.  If you're getting paid a standard wage in yen you won't find that things are appreciably more expensive, but when you're bringing dollars and converting them to yen, it hurts.

My personal opinions on flying:
* check your airline's website for things like luggage limits -- some are more generous than others and sometimes the limits differ for different destinations (usually that's "to-US" and "everywhere-else")
* if you haven't flown before then check the airport/airline website for the details of all the stuff you can't take in carry-on (liquids!) so you don't get a nasty surprise at the airport
* it's better to arrive early and find yourself past security with hours to spare than to be fretting in a traffic jam or a queue somewhere about whether you're going to get there in time
* check-in online; if you have bags to check in this doesn't save you a huge amount of time at the airport but you can usually pick a seat if you haven't already
* make sure you have everything you need (money, possessions, info) to get you from the destination airport to your bed for the first night. Planning ahead means you don't have to think while you're jetlagged
* I like to take enough cash in foreign currency that I don't have to rely on finding a cash machine at the destination airport
* take a Japanese novel or two to read on the plane ;-)

Jarvik7 wrote:

Not everyone wants to backpack around or spend time doing laundry and looking for essentials while looking like a scruffy homeless person when they could be doing something fun. Not to mention that you waste money and damage the environment by rebuying stuff you already have at home and then throwing away the unused portion on return.

The first thing I do when I visit a foreign country is check my bags at the hotel and go off to have fun, not search for toiletries that I couldn't take carryon before the drugstores close while lugging around all my crap and getting sore shoulders.

Similarly, I usually stay out late and them come back to the hotel, crash, leave early the next morning. I don't want to wash stuff in the sink while I'm exhausted and potentially drunk and then have it strung up all over the room smelling musty, potentially having either to wear damp clothes in the morning, or have a bag full of damp clothes that will make everything smelly.

If you are carrying around a big backpack with all your crap you're doing it wrong too. Leave it at the hotel. At that point there is no difference between two big suitcases or a backpackers backpack. People loathe backpackers with their giant bags banging into everything and everyone.

There is also the issue of bringing back shopping you did in the foreign country. Sure you can bring folded bags, but those are hardly going to protect anything when you inevitably have to check it in.

I really fail to see much benefit other than "you don't have to wait a few minutes at the luggage carousel". If I was going to a third world country then I might be with you since theft is common and a hotel is not a secure location to keep your stuff, but Japan is safe.

Now if you are planning on backpacking & hitchhiking & hosteling & using seishun18 ticket to go to five new cities every day, then having checked suitcases is obviously silly.

Sorry but I honestly don't know what you are talking about.  I'm not a back packer nor am I talking about back packing.  When I worked for the FBI and traveled around for business do you think I was a scruffy back packer?  Have you not noticed the hoards of other business professionals that have learned how to travel around the world with carry on only?

The size limit for carry on that will be accepted on almost any flight is still huge.  You can EASILY back over a weeks worth of clothes, all toiletries, your laptop, camera, etc with you in such a bag.

I also don't know what you are talking about in regards to toiletry items not being allowed on carry on?  Of course they are.  You simply have to pack them via the regulations. 

Washing clothes when you are tired and drunk?   Where did I say you HAVE to wash your clothes every day or when you are tired and drunk lol?  In fact for a week or so trip you won't have to wash anything as you can easily carry a weeks worth of clothing in a carry on bag. 

Musty and or damp clothes?  Right, I guess you need to inform the rest of the world with no access to clothes driers, which includes 99% of Japan, that hang drying doesn't work.  And why would you wear wet clothes around haha?  Again this argument makes zero sense. 

And in regards to having a bag full of wet damp clothes that make everything smelly?  Once again you are simply making things up that literally makes no sense at all.  Why would you have a bag of wet clothes?  Do you not understand the concept of hang drying?  Furthermore I find it hilarious that you are pretending to be worried about a "smelly" bag when I'm talking about filling your bag with clean clothes which have been WASHED when you are talking about stuffing your bag with a weeks worth of dirty underwear at the end of a trip.  So yeah sorry, if anyone is going to have a smelly bag it would be the guy who is NOT washing and drying his undergarments, not the guy going home with a bag full of clean ones haha. 

Carrying around a big backpack?  As I pointed out earlier I have no idea what you are talking about. 

Bringing back shopping?  Again I don't know anyone who does this to a significant degree to where it wouldn't fit it in your carry on bag.   Like I said earlier I moved to Japan, permanently, with a carry on bag only.  That included my suit, clothes, my laptop, DESKTOP, Canon DSLR with extra lens and battery, various Japanese study books, etc all packed carry on only.  The idea that the average person is going to come to Japan and need to carry home significantly more items than what I carried over to start LIVING in Japan is just grasping at straws. 

As for you "failing to see the real benefit besides having to wait a few minutes for your luggage"?  Wait until the airline looses your checked luggage once, or your luggage fails to be changed over on one of the connecting flights causing you to have to wait one to two days to finally receive it and then get back to me.  Same goes for when it gets lost or stolen on the way back with all of the "shopping" that you packed into it.

That and you aren't just waiting a few minutes to get your bag.  You are waiting longer to check in at the airport, you are waiting longer to receive your bag, you are slower everywhere else in and out of the airport while carrying your baggage, you are potentially slower going through customs, you are slower unpacking when you get to the hotel and you are slower when repacking when it is time to head home.  Then on top of all that time wasting and the risk of having your items completely lost, stolen or delayed you are almost always paying extra for it to boot.

Yeah, having air-dryed clothes for several years in Japan I couldn't help laughing at the idea that you could dry all your clothes overnight in a hotel room.  If you have specific "travel" clothes that are made to dry quickly it might be possible, but with normal clothes it's not going to happen.

Well, we're not talking about a hypothetical trip, we're talking about an actual trip.  Pointing out that it's only a quarter of a year makes it sound like it's unimportant, when in fact winter is the only relevant season for this thread.

You can really only do laundry on a trip when you are relatively settled in, so it can be annoying depending on your situation.  When I was recently in Tibet my friend washed her clothes since she figured we had another day in Lhasa... but then her clothes didn't really dry very much and we kept going to higher and colder altitudes on our way to Everest--she had to keep packing up and then re-hanging stubbornly wet clothes.  Not fun, and your clothes don't exactly end up smelling like roses (though not moldy, since it was so cold).

Tzadeck wrote:

You're ignoring the fact that people have different preferences than you and travel differently than you and in different situations. 

Some things you're saying are also just flat out untrue.  He's coming to Osaka in December.  Try hanging up a pair of trousers that you just washed in Osaka in December.  They take about two days to dry--not just a few hanging until morning.  I did laundry on Saturday morning here in Kyoto; we've had pretty nice weather, but I still had three or four things that weren't completely dry as of Sunday night so they're still on my balcony hanging (jeans, pajama pants).  It's Monday afternoon now, and I assume they'll finally be dry when I get home from work.

No I'm not ignoring anything.  I clearly pointed out that there are specific cases, but the vast majority of people simply over pack and make up excuses as to why they need to bring a crap load of things.  They also seem to take anecdotal cases to the extreme.  So basically if you read my post and are trying to argue with me about "well I might want to carry big thing X back with me", when I already clearly stated there are such exceptions, then I really am having a hard time figuring out who you are arguing with. 

Case in point the washing of clothes?  Did anyone mention where I said you HAVE to wash your trousers lol?  Washing clothes doesn't = "OMG you must wash everything in your bag or else!".  Why would you wash your pants every day?  Do you do that normally, especially since you weren't planning on doing it anyway?  Answer:  Of course not, so why are you now applying that to my statement that you can wash clothes?  I'm clearly talking about things that you would really want to be able to wash, such as underwear and socks. 

Not to mention the fact that I've clearly mentioned numerous times that even with carry on only you can bring a weeks plus worth of clothing with ease anyway so if you really didn't want to have to wash you wouldn't.

As for Jarvik's response he's just proven to me that he is either or a horrible packer or has no clue about baggage size limits for carry on only.  I'm sitting here TELLING you how much I pack carry on only, that I MOVED to Japan permanently with carry on only, without having any more luggage or items shipped over, and yet he's trying to tell me about "seasons" and "layers".  And if he hasn't seen other business travelers with carry on only then he just simply hasn't flown very often or talked to any business people. 

Let me list what I brought with me using my carry on only bag:

1.  A full sized super thick overcoat. 
2.  Approximately 10 days worth of clothes.
3.  A full suit.
4.  My desktop computer minus the case. 
5.  Laptop.
6.  Canon T2i DSLR and accessories
7.  Two pairs of shoes PLUS my high top lace up heavy boots.
8.  Sennheiser HD580 headphones plus amp.  These are huge full size circumaural headphones BTW. 
9.  A few towels as I moved straight into an apartment and not a hotel.

So no I'm not just talking about domestic travel.  I'm talking about traveling like you actually know how to travel.  It is only the people who are still stuck with the check baggage method that try to defend why they have to bring endless bullshit with them  on every single trip.  I've traveled both ways and so has everyone else that one bag's it and yet one bagging is what everyone who has learned how to do it sticks with, for any kind of travel, pleasure of otherwise.  It is a one way street towards one bagging it, not the other way around, because once you learn how to do it you realize how stupid lugging around checked luggage is for 90% of trips. 

I mean do you honestly think I would sit here and tell you to travel with carry on only if it was in fact worse than when I traveled with multiple bags lol?  Why would I continue doing it and why would everyone else that does it continue to advocate doing something if it turned out to be WORSE for them more often than not?  If taking carry on only sucked then I would have stopped doing it and went back to carrying around checked luggage. 

And comparing being worried about delayed or lost luggage to a plane crashing is beyond absurd, and once again your counter argument is some anecdotal evidence that because it has never happened to you that it must not be a legitimate concern.

Here is reality:   In the U.S. 1 out of every 150 passengers have their luggage lost or misplaced.   The rate of lost luggage for international flights?  Nearly twice as bad, coming in with about 1 in 85 passengers having their luggage lost of significantly misplaced. 

So no, it is an EXTREMELY valid concern, especially considering I have literally everything I could possibly ever need for 95% of vacations packed in my carry on bag.  Not to mention the fact that everyone keeps forgetting to mention that you are paying an extra $40-$60 to check luggage ($20-$30 each way) for the vast majority of flights today.  That alone knocks out 90% of the anecdotal cases of needing room for things you buy while on vacation because for that amount of money you could simply buy most things on line and have them shipped to you with a FAR higher rate of success than trying to "ship" it via your checked luggage haha.   That's also $40-$60 to buy toiletry items in Japan, or whatever else you are convinced won't fit in your carry on bag (but the reality is it almost always will).

When someone makes a convincing argument as to what I have been missing out on by traveling carrying on only/light carry for the majority of my trips of various purposes and location (vacations to Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, business trips in U.S., etc) that isn't some one off anecdotal case then I'll be all ears, but until then I'll continue traveling in a fashion that is far superior the vast majority of the time, or else I wouldn't still be doing it.

Last edited by activeaero (2011 November 14, 7:07 am)

Tzadeck wrote:

Tl, dr.

And anyway, what I did read has a childish tone.  Do we need to get emotional over an argument about the merits of checked luggage?

No we don't, which is why I'm surprised people who have no experience traveling in such a manner felt so defensive about someone making the suggestion, even when I clearly stated there were exceptions for trips when you would want to carry large items, etc.

But at the same time I'm not going to let people try to make a case with anecdotal "evidence" and senseless claims by picking out specific points to expand upon in an unrealistic manner because they apparently feel threatened by the notion that someone would provide the tip that people often overlook that you can easily wash some of your clothes on a trip if need be lol.

Tzadeck wrote:

And anyway, what I did read has a childish tone.  Do we need to get emotional over an argument about the merits of checked luggage?

I guess you could say...

someone's carrying emotional baggage.


(honestly that was the longest reply i ever read regarding people's preference for luggage. ><)

Back to the original question... double-check the quantities of fluids you are carrying. I put all of them (except my antiperspirant and toothbrush/toothpaste) into my checked luggage. You'll lose that big tube of gel if it's too big and in your carry-on.

I haven't locked any luggage to/from Japan. I also have dispensed with the secret passport money-belts and just keep it in a ziplock bag.

Also, watch out when bringing food BACK to the US. Avoid fresh foods (sorry) and meat or meat-filled items. One trick is to write, in big bold marker, the expiration date of the curry roux packages you are bringing back. If the writing JUST HAPPENS to overwrite the "肉" (meat) or "鶏" (chicken meat) kanji, then the Customs officials can't find it against their "meat kanji" cheat sheet and you can pass through. I've had Japanese friends lose lots of great food because they look at them very closely, not so much as US citizens returning, but you can't be too careful.

Don't forget that most coldpacks also count as "fluids" so you can't bring them frozen in carry-on to keep foods cold.

On trips with students, as a chaperone I bring a big self-addressed envelope with postage. In case someone has brought a non-carryon-able knife or something, I can mail it back to myself, on the student's behalf, instead of getting out of the long security queue just to find an envelope and mail an item.

And don't forget to have a good time in Japan!

I probably wouldn't have even replied to that post if it wasn't for the tone talking down to everyone like they're idiots if they've ever checked in a suitcase (followed by a ton of "haha" and "lololol" in the replies to emphasize that tone). Some people like to travel in more comfort or leave options open for shopping etc etc.

Consider other people's situations and preferences. Checking one suitcase is not the same as bringing three steamer trunks full of everything you own.

@dtcamero:
I don't want to google the name of the place since I'm at work and they probably wouldn't like me searching for love hotels I think the name was Balian Islands or something. The gf found it.. Room was huge, there was a metric shit-ton of name-brand amenities and more at the counter if you wanted it, massage chairs, cavernous bath, private outdoor hot tub you can check out (free if unoccupied), big canopied bed, etc etc. They also let you leave and come back (not possible at most love hotels), have free bikes you can borrow, etc. Unfortunately it's not a nationwide chain (I stayed once in Yokohama and once in Shinjuku/Kabikicho). They have cheaper rooms that are smaller etc but the amenities & extras are the same. Awesome place. Just make sure you make a reservation.

Typically I just google the city name + love hotel and eventually find a love hotel review site for the area. I stayed in a pretty awesome place in Fukui before too that had all you can eat delivery food included in the price, was super cheap (like 4000yen) and was pretty stylish. It doesn't compare to the resort though (15,000yen, but everywhere is more expensive in Tokyo. The same place was 7000yen in Yokohama).

Last edited by Jarvik7 (2011 November 14, 8:42 pm)