During my recent 2 week trip to Japan, my family bought the Japan Rail Pass (also known as the JR Pass) for unlimited travel on the JR lines over 7 days.
How to purchase your JR Pass
The JR Pass must be purchased before your arrival in Japan because it is not sold inside Japan itself. We bought ours from HIS Travel in Singapore which, according to my parents' research, provided the most competitive pricing.
We received the Exchange Order for a Japan Rail Pass from HIS Travel and were told to exchange for our JR Pass upon reaching Haneda Airport. The Exchange Order looks like this:
Exchange for your JR Pass
When we reached Haneda Airport, we found the JR Office and exchanged for our JR Pass. You will have to fill in a form separately before the staff can process your exchange. Everything was done quickly and efficiently, in typical courteous Japanese fashion. The actual JR Pass looks like this:
When you exchange for your JR Pass, you can stipulate the starting date for your Pass. If you purchase the 7 days JR Pass like I did, your end date will be 7 days from the starting date.
How to use your JR Pass
When using the JR Pass, you have to enter the station via the manned gates. Thankfully it is not too difficult to find the manned gates and generally each exit has a manned gate at the side. Simply show your JR Pass to the staff and walk through the gate.
Your JR Pass is valid on the JR lines and the Shinkansen (only the Hikari and Kodama bullet trains). The JR Pass is only truly worth it if you intend to use the Shinkansen heavily to make day trips to other cities. We stayed in Osaka for 5 days and made numerous trips to the nearby cities. Check out the timetable if you would like to know the specific timings of the Shinkansen.
Reserve seats
You will find that most websites advise that there is no need to reserve seats on the Shinkansen but being the typical Singaporean that I am, I left nothing to fate. We made it a point to reserve our seats on the Shinkansen each morning so that we were guaranteed seats in the reservation-only carriages. Then we went for breakfast and waited leisurely for our bullet train. We drank so many Starbucks on those mornings that my brother managed to collect all the Japanese Starbucks cards.
We rode the Shinkansen at least twice a day and reserving slightly ahead of the scheduled departure time worked for us all times but once. For our bullet train ride from Osaka to Tokyo, we tried to reserve our seats about an hour ahead of the scheduled departure time and was informed that the bullet train was almost full! Eventually the staff managed to find seats for us but we were all separated and sitting in awkward middle seats. I was sitting between an elderly couple, both of whom were very sweet and nice.
How to use your JR Pass from Tokyo to Osaka
From Haneda Airport, we took the monorail to Hamamatsucho, then the JR Yamanote to Shinagawa. We boarded the Shinkansen at Shinagawa and reached Osaka almost 4 hours later. Suffice to say that we were so tired!
Where to go using your JR Pass from Osaka
From Osaka, we went to Kyoto, Nara, and Nagoya. I will share my detailed itinerary soon (when I finally get around to blogging).
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