Although almost everyone has studied some English in school, not everyone is able to converse in English. If you are having trouble making yourself understood you can try writing it down. English pronunciation and intonation can be difficult to understand for Japanese speakers. It is also helpful to print out any travel details you have planned. If the pages contain English and Japanese characters it's even better! Be careful, there are some train station in Japan with the same or similar names. Make sure you are understood by giving people as much detail as possible. Our closest station is "Kamishiro" in Hakuba, Nagano (Hakuba is the name of the town, and Nagano is the prefecture). Here http://www.digi-promotion.com/tokyo-info/info-eigo-list.html is a site with some handy phrases Read More ...

Here are a few to get you started. http://www.jnto.go.jp/ http://www.japantravelinfo.com/top/index.php Read More ...

Hyperderia and Jorudan are sites for checking train schedules, routes, and fares.

It might be diffiult to find out when express trains are departing with the above sites so I highly recommend you call the JR English Travel Helpline at 050-2016-1603 (to call from overseas drop the first zero and add the country code, 81 for all your travel questions. Read More ...

You have a lot of options. Here is a great video to show you how easy the public transportation system is in Japan. Read More ...

Sure!

Here's a selection of out Flickr galleries, you can also view this at Flickr Read More ...