If you’re thinking about taking your kids to Japan, here are a few clerical odds and ends that may be helpful.
### Get a PASMO card
Some cities are blessed multiple train lines. Tokyo has multiple train _systems,_ each of which has multiple lines. There’s the Tokyo Metro lines, the Toei lines, the JR lines, the Keisei lines, and some idiosyncratic stuff like the rubber-tired Yurikamome line. And the pricing is incomprehensible. You don’t care about this, right? Just want to get on whatever train goes to your destination?
Good, then get a PASMO. It’s a smart card that lets you ride basically any train or bus in the Tokyo region. Adults can buy them at a machine; for a kid, you need to bring the kid to a JR ticket office and fill out a simple form. There is also another card called Suica, which works just as well; I have no idea where you buy it, and “PASMO” is more fun to say.
Kids get a personalized card. Iris will be mad that I told you that they wrote IRIS AUNSTER on her card. Close enough. We loved using our PASMOs. You just hold it hear a blue card reader at the station gate and the gate flips open. Iris never got tired of this. Me neither. It made us feel like total professionals.
There are lots of other travel card options, like day passes and Metro-only passes and the like. Forget it. Get the PASMO.
### Sucka MCs
Japan is a cash-oriented society. Most places don’t accept credit cards. We exchanged some dollars for yen at our local Chase branch before leaving; I think we bought 50,000 yen (about $600). The exchange rate was terrible, of course, but it was worth it not to have to worry about figuring out the Japanese ATM situation right away.
All 7-Elevens in Japan have ATMs. Unfortunately, our card didn’t work at them, and my understanding is that Mastercard-logo ATM cards won’t work there in general. If you happen to have a Visa-logo ATM card, bring it. (In my capacity as a personal finance columnist, I have had many people recommend the Charles Schwab Investor Checking card for this purpose; I will try it on our next trip abroad and let you know.) We ended up with ATM success at the post office. There are a lot of post office branches; obviously they don’t keep 7-Eleven hours.
It’s safe to carry a lot of cash in Japan, and I recommend it, especially if you’re traveling with a kid (or with me) and don’t want to find yourself hungry, cashless, and with no idea where to find the nearest usable ATM.
### How much cash, then?
We budgeted $175 a day in spending money for the two of us, to cover meals, souvenirs, and entrance fees (mostly meals), but not transportation or lodging. This turned out to be a perfect amount.
### Get squishy
You’ve probably seen photos or videos of people being pushed onto Japanese trains by professional people-pushers. We only once got on an overcrowded train; it was the Yamanote line during rush hour. It was pretty sweet.
### Where to chill
My biggest worry before the trip was that Iris and I would be out doing stuff and getting overstimulated by blinking lights all day and wouldn’t be able to find anywhere to just sit down and relax and read a book for a while. No worries. There are coffeehouses everywhere–Starbucks, pre-Starbucks-era Japanese places, and Starbucks competitors. Also Mister Donut. Japan loves kids; no one ever made us feel like we were overstaying our welcome.
### Does not compute
We found wi-fi to be very rare. Don’t count on finding it when you need it. We bought some international wireless data (100MB) before leaving, and that worked out well.
### What to read
A few books and web sites we found helpful:
* [Sunnypages.jp](http://www.sunnypages.jp/) is an online Tokyo entertainment directory. It’s not updated often enough, but it led us to some good restaurants.
* [Squeamish About Sushi](http://www.amazon.com/dp/080483301X/?tag=mamstesgrubshack) and other books by Betty Reynolds. These are awesome illustrated guides to Japanese food and culture. Great to read with kids before the trip, although they do contain a bit of adult content which will probably fly over your kids’ heads. (There, that should sell a few copies, right?)
* [What’s What in Japanese Restaurants](http://www.amazon.com/dp/4770020864/?tag=mamstesgrubshack). Will help you identify what type of restaurant you’re looking at and what to order there.
* [Tokyo City Atlas](http://www.amazon.com/dp/4770025033/?tag=mamstesgrubshack). If you don’t carry this, you will never come back.
We read a few popular guidebooks, but we mostly knew where we wanted to go before the trip and stuck to that. If you want to be more spontaneous than us, try the [Frommer’s guide](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470537647/?tag=mamstesgrubshack).
What am I leaving out? Ask and I’ll be happy to answer.
There’s some deal with ATM and credit cards that I believe in most developed nations except the US and Canada, you have to have a chip in the card which is supposed to aid with fraud prevention (but which I believe has already been shown to be a weak effort).
EMV cards (the chip cards) are more popular in Europe than in Asia. There are some RFID cards in Japan (like Mastercard Paypass, which I occasionally get to use here in Seattle), and some cell phone payments, but cash is king.
Canada has a really cool debit card system, incidentally.
I see you used the PASMO card in Tokyo (I agree — that’s a fun name!). When you traveled outside Tokyo, did you purchase individual tickets or a train/lodging package?
Also, how did you go about learning sufficient Japanese? If you learned from a Japanese friend, do you have additional suggestions?
Hi, Bonnie. We did get a train-lodging package for our side trip to Kyoto through Japanican.com. I priced it out against the JR pass and individual tickets, and it was a good deal. If we’d wanted to take more than one long-distance train trip, the JR pass would have been better.
I took two quarters of weekly Japanese classes through my local university extension (Experimental College at University of Washington). It was good enough that I could make myself understood, but I couldn’t usually understand what other people were saying. Iris took Japanese after school, which was more games than actual language study. We carried the Lonely Planet phrasebook, which was very helpful.
Next time I will really try to learn more Japanese.
Best,
Matthew
I went to Japan last month and planned to use cash everywhere, but things were getting tight near the end of the trip. I was surprised that everywhere I asked if I could use my credit card, I could! This surprised my Japanese friends, particularly when it worked in the grocery store. The only trick was that the cashiers will ask how many payments you want to make. I dunno — some Japanese credit card system thing I don’t understand. The correct answer to make your card work as we’re used to in the US is “one”. Which was helpful, since I know no Japanese, but could anticipate the question and hold up a finger.