General Comments

Planning

I spent many months planning the trip.  Once I had worked out the best times for the cherry blossom, and booked the flights I then planned the itinerary. Again I have to thank all of the bloggers for both Vietnam and Japan that gave me so many ideas and advice on the best places to visit in our limited time.

Transport

In Vietnam as we were only in Hanoi and Hoi An we only used taxis which I booked through the respective hotels. Probably cost a bit more but they were reliable and you knew the cost was fixed.

In Japan we used public transport and bullet trains.

Bullet trains or Shinkansen, were the best way to get between the larger cities in Japan that we visited. As part of my planning I had intended to  use bullet trains a lot. Not only because they were the fastest and cheapest way to get long distances between cities but also we were in Japan so of course we would use them. However as I started reading up on them I found that as of October 2023 the price had increased hugely  with a 14 day pass going from around 240 GBP to 406 GBP. Using one of the many calculators it soon became apparent that a 14 day pass was not worth it for us but rescheduling a few things and not starting my JR Pass on day 1 I was able to work out that a 7 day pass used in our middle days was a viable option if only by a small amount. With further work it may have been cheaper not to take the full pass and use some of the other  local ticket options like JR West Pass. However I liked the stress free options that the full pass gave us if we had missed trains or wanted to change our plans. In retrospect we did neither of those things but having the JR Pass just became part of the Japan holiday experience.

For other transport options in Japan we used an IC Card. This is a card that you charge with money at counters or machines (which like many vending machines in Japan only take cash) and then tap in and out on train gates or buses, much like an Oyster card in London. Digital versions on your phone are available on iPhones but only on Androids that have been purchased in Japan. We used the SUICA card, which we picked up in the JR East office at Narita Airport when we were validating our JR Pass. There had been a concern around a lack of cards due to chip shortages but we had no trouble getting ours at the airport.

The IC cards not only cover all our transport including private trains and buses in Fukui but can be used for purchasing many things including items at convenience stores or museum entries.

One invaluable item was Google Maps. I was constantly blown away by the information returned for transport options and the fact that it seems to have access into every transport system in the world in real time (although not South Korea my daughter informs me). We were able to see all of our local transport connections, timings and cost and even telling us which carriage to be on for fastest exit from the station. However one area that Google let us down a bit was trying to navigate around and out of Japanese super stations, like Shinjuku or Tokyo, where the multiple levels seemed to confuse it. In that case I would recommend finding from Google where you want to go and then following the signs which are all in English as well as Japanese.