i’m going to book my flight and hotel through priceline.com. but i wanted to know how much money i would need for shopping, and food/drink?
I’ll be in japan from September 20th to the 30th.
im currently in japan right now for a trip but the answer to your question varies greatly on several factors:
- what part of the country you are staying (which will affect transport/accomodations etc)
- how much your budget is
- how much money you wanna blow
- will you do impulse buying alot (everybody does that the first time they go to japan, trust me)
- the global economy by september 2009 (which affects exchange rates)
food and drinks depends on how fancy you want to eat or if you can settle for cheap food and how big your appetite is. stuff from convenience stores tend to be pretty cheap and reasonable but a bowl of ramen can cost anywhere from 500 to over 1000 yen
and shopping depends on what you want to buy: anime stuff? porn? electronics? clothes? me and mockingbird just went to akihabara together yesterday and he wanted to get a bluray player but concluded that they are too expensive to purchase and its better for him to import it from the states instead. the same can be said about computers too. netbooks or even refurbished laptops are way overpriced here. so with the rare exception of digital cameras and camcorders IMHO its better to keep your electronics purchases stateside
- what part of the country you are staying
i was looking through travelocity,expedia,orbit, and priceline for a flight plus hotel combo
which totaled 2600.00 to 2900.00 for the plane plus hotel.
not sure if thats too much or not.
i’m also going to check out indochina.com since they have group travels which hopefully may be cheaper
plus with them i would have others with me and a tour leader. - how much your budget is
maybe 1,000 dollars. is that too much? - how much money you wanna blow
not sure on this one… - will you do impulse buying alot
probably… - the global economy by september 2009 (which affects exchange rates)?
from what i remember 10.77 dollars was equal to 1,000 yen
on the exchange rate…however i don’t know what i want to buy,nor how much will it cost either?
what part of the country you are staying
i was looking to stay at a hotel in Tokyo?
honestly? if its tokyo for 10 days and taking into account that you will do impulse buying at akihabara over anime goods? 100,000yen i am afraid will not be enough; its really easy to blow 10,000yen per day if you buy anime stuff on impulse
150-200k would be a safer bet. but that said, if you ever run out of money in the middle of your trip you can always go to the nearest post office ATM and withdraw money from your home bank account. rates are reasonable (current exchange rate + 3% and every place including your credit card will charge you something at 3% extra for foreign currency anyways so u cant do anything about that in the end)
so i’d say 100,000yen cash is okay for starters but be prepared to go to a post office ATM (note: only post office ATM and certain ATMs offer withdrawals from PLUS/Cirrus bank accounts; not all do) if you need more funding; that way u dont have to exchange too much money at the beginning of the trip
so what you’re saying is i should be fine then???
cuz for one i really don’t buy anime w/o an english translation and if i don’t understand it
i won’t buy it. as for anime in general i was buying alot of it once i found peach princess online and
shophimeya.com i had over 20 games since season of sakura came out but in the past few years i been buying alot less of them…
mainly cuz i got tired of the debauchery in them like for example bible black,amorus professor cherry,discipline record of the crusade
to name a few…just too much sex in these games lately…can’t believe i just said that!!!
for the most part the games from pp are mildly enjoyable however i guess they probably might not sell as much to us americans w/o the sexual element???
am i wrong? i’m curious do the games w/o sex sell just as well as the ones with out it on pp’s site?not there are too many of them w/o the sex mind u…
i prefer a good story anymore to just a guy meets girls and is subpost to choose one to live with…
i did buy princess waltz and loved the card batttles but felt out of place with the conversations and actions between chris and akati
as i’m a guy and never knew that side of a girl growing up…
i must apologize in advance but i have trouble understanding half of your post as it has nothing to do with traveling to japan…
anyways from what i was able to extract from your post that pertains to the original topic of conversation, guess your spending wont be as chaotic as i would expect, but will you be buying artbooks or anime goods or figures and stuff like that?
anyhow, assuming that hotel is already paid in advance, 1000-dollars-ish might be okay for you, but expect to allocate a few thousand yen (i’d say 2000-3000-ish) per day for transportation and food alone.
I’d be more interested in buying souvenirs mainly things like
Clothes more so shirts and knicknacks to remind me of where
I was. Also taking lots of pictures…
then i’d say 1000usd should be okay; if for some reason you are low on funds later on you can always go to the atm to get more money as needed