My experience with Japan Railway and Train System 2024
Recently, I have been on a wonderful trip to Japan and managed to enjoy the blooming of the Cherry Blossoms. In this trip, I have decided to get the Japan Rail Pass for myself and my partner. Even though the price has risen in the last few years, I do feel that it was a worth-it investment especially if you are planning to travel between the different prefectures.
I would recommend reserving it early on the website so that you will have the necessary tickets to begin your wonderful journey in Japan. The instructions are on the website in the link as below.
Reservation only allowed during working hours
What I found interesting about the website is that there are operating hours from 4am to 11.30pm Japan local time. Before the trip, I decided to make the purchase after much research on the itinerary and it happened to be out of the operating hours. Hence, I was not able to perform any transaction at all and had to wait till the operating hours again. This intrigued me because I would have thought that websites usually will operate on 24 hours basis. Nonetheless, we managed to make the purchase online.
Types of JR Pass
Before you decide to buy a JR pass, do note that there are different kind of passes for different areas. I would recommend that you do a research on the place you want to visit before making the purchase as each of the ticket have about 5 to 7 days limited validity. Do note that you have to state your first day of usage upon purchase so it is good to have the itinerary well-planned before getting it.
If you want to find out more about the different types of pass in JR West, you can visit them in this link.
Getting the tickets
If you arrived at the Kansai airport, I would recommend that you get all your tickets in the JR ticket office. You will need to get out of the arrival hall and make your way to the train station which is approximately about 5 to 10 minutes walk. You can get it via the machines but as a first-timer, I would say it can be quite confusing so we rather go to the office to ask for it.
For most JR main offices, they usually have an English counter that is mainly catered for tourists. Be prepared to have your passport and your credit card ready as those are the requirements to validate your purchase and receive your JR pass. If you have booked a few JR passes for the trip, I would recommend getting all at once so it saves you time on the reservation of seats.
Reservation of seats on JR train
My partner and I spent a lot of time in the Kyoto station, asking for help from the station staff to help us book the ticket. First thing is to select the English version so that it is easy for you to navigate on the platform. Interestingly, the ticket machines have operating hours as well so you have to book it within the working hours.
There is an instruction video on their web page though it differs slightly in the way that we make our reservation.
The method we used was similar to the instruction provided by this webpage.
By the end of the first week in Japan, I would say we became pros in making reserved seats on JR trains. It took us less than 10 minutes to perform the booking on the machine compared to almost one hour figuring it out on the first day of the trip.
What if you got no seats?
We were very worried that we can’t get on board if we didn’t reserve tickets onboard. Actually, there are cars that allowed free-seating. So if you do not want to be pressured by the constraint of the time you booked, you can choose to take a chance on the free-seating cars.
How to figure out which platform or train to take?
What I found useful was to write in Google search of which station you want to board from and which station you wish to alight. Google is pretty good in showing you the stations need to get off and board the train at which platform.
One thing you can look is options as well as they do provide alternatives to getting to the same place. The only thing you might want to be careful is that JR pass only works for JR stations.
For example, in Nara, your JR pass will only work for JR Nara station and will not work for Kintetsu-Nara station. They are different operating companies and hence you will need to use IC card (which is like their transport card) to get into the station. Look out for JR stations as the start and the end of the journey when planning your trip. Oh yes, you can use unlimited rides so it is pretty worth it. Reservations is limited to about 6 times maximum per JR pass.
After 2 weeks using the inter-city trains, I would say that we got very good at navigating the different train systems. I hope this small little experience will help you in navigating in Japan. If you get lost, it is also part of the travelling experience. Have fun and safe travels!
