Budget Dining Japan

Traveling around Japan is in no means cheap but if you'd run out of cash or if you are low there are a few options of getting away fairly cheap concerning food. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it though. stinging too much on food since it's one of the main cultural experiences one need to explore while journeying into distant cultures and lands. So I've structured it into three different categories.

Cooking

In most cities that are bigger than a village there are your bigger grocery stores. They are in no means as large as the ones in Europe, North America or even other parts of Asia. However one can find a lots of things cheap and especially at the end of the day where a lot of fresh stuff is made available at a discount. Here one can find cheap sushi and other ready made foods like bentos for a couple of hundred yen. If you happen to have a kitchen made available to you picking up some stuff to cook can be a real money saver. Things that are cheap in japan are. Rice, Eggs, Ready made sauces, soups (like miso soup). Things that are a bit more expensive include meat, vegetables and fish.

Markets

Daily markets, fish markets and the likes is an other alternative getting cheap and nice ingredients. It usually requires a bit more out of the way transportation but the rewards are well worth it. At the fish markets one can get prime grade sashimi ready cut for 500yen which will be more than what you get in a restaurant for maybe 4-8 times the price.

Cheap Ready to Eat Food

In various small convenient stores around the country one can find little bentos, onigiris, premade cup noodles and soups. These will be your main stable if you want to live cheap on the go. bentos can go as low at 200yen and the most expensive ones usually reach 450 or so. Cup noodles can be found for 100yen at a lot of places. the 100yen stores sometimes have these. There are also the lawesons or other convenient store 100yen shops which usually carry this at 100yen prices. Here cakes, donuts and similar things can be bought at a discount as well.

Cheap Restaurants

This is maybe a tad more expensive than the convenient store food. It is much more enjoyable though and for only a moderate increase in cost the dining experience increases a lot. The cheap restaurants include gyudon chains, katsu shops, curry chains and ramen. In these restaurants one can eat from 250yen to around 800 yen. What is served is variations on dons. Something over a bowl of rice. Exempting the ramen places ofc. There are usually a range of sides one can order to the main dish as salads, soups, raw eggs and the like. Plain water is always free so one can save another 50-100yen in comparison to the convenient stores here on that. A lot of the chains are also available outside of japan. Usually they are a bit pricier than in Japan and the quality is usually a lot worse. My favorite dishes at these restaurants include.

• gyudon (beef bowl)
• oyakudon (chicken and egg over rice. in Japanese "mother an child bowl" )
• katsucurry (fried meat and curry over rice)
• ramen (ramen noodles in it's many chapes)

I usually go with a side of miso or similar soups and a nama tamago (raw egg).

Being a foodie total budget dining was is impossible for me in Japan. After all I partly go there for the food. Trying a few of these places will prove quite fun if you give then a shot though. Besides you always need to eat. =D

Japan Budget Travel

Japan is not known for being the cheapest of countries. Anyone who's been on the road for a long time knows that the travel expenses quickly adds up an constitutes a major part of ones budget. Having been more or less on the road for a year now my budget was already shoot by the time I hit Japan. Not wanting to waste the ticket to Japan as Finnair won't let you change dates or name on their tickets I decided to go anyway. For some quick cash I sold my old ski gear I bought in San Francisco a few years back (with a profit) and decided to go into credit card debit. Hopefully I'll get a new job soon huh ;)

The absolutely cheapest way to get around in Japan is hitchhiking which is a valid way to travel if you have a more flexible time schedule. For me this was not really an option as I had dates booked where I had to meet old friends. This left me with the three other options buses, trains and planes. There is also the option of renting a car but it's not really economically valid traveling alone for most of the time. From outside Japan there is the Japan air-pass, Japan Rail Pass and the Japan Buss Pass. However The Willer Express Buss Pass can be bought online from outside of Japan. http://willerexpress.com
This is the absolutely chepset way of getting around long distances for cheap. The drawback being you need to access the site from abroad. Already being in Japan I fixed this using a proxy in france to emulate me being out of the country.
I used this french free site to do it. http://www.frozenway.com/
Just use Google translate if you can't read it. It's free and easy to just follow the steps. In fact they don't ask you to verify the travelers name by means of id at the buses and although it says to print out a piece of paper you get in the mail this can be skipped too.
As the days of travel in this buss pass are not required to used consecutively it's a very very good deal. Sadly I did't find out about it until the later part of japan trip.
One thing one can consider are the night buses. If sleeping on a buss doesn't bother you also save a night accommodation here.

Traveling a region of Japan at the time can also give your purse a bit of mercy. For example the Kyushu buss pass is a very valid alternative to single tickets if one tends to travel fast and light. There are however a range of tickets available online at very discounted prices if you can muster navigation the Japanese websites.

Getting to and from the islands can't really be done by buss so I tried both the ferry and by air. By air being the cheaper option to reach Okinawa from the mainland. it's 14000 yen for the cheapest ticket by ferry and less by air. If you buy you flights in advance using the Japan air pass it's a very good deal. Otherwise use Sky mark the new Japanese budget airline for some good deals. The further ahead you book, the better the deals in general with sky mark.

Getting around on the main island of Okinawa will require a lot of local buses or hitchhiking. Here renting a car for the day can be cheaper than the buss option. From Naha to the ocean aquarium in the north and back will easily be much more expensive than renting a small car and drive around yourself.

To Hell and Beyond, Beppu

Beppu. Am ideal Japanese getaway. Beppu holds more natural hot springs than any other place in Japan. A Japanese natural hotspiring is called an onsen. One should be aware of the difference between an artificially heated bath establishment an sento and the onsen. Why? well for the sake of knowing. In most cases one cant feel or tell any difference between these two. To find a bath house look for the ゆ sign outside the door.

Getting into hot water and relaxing is definitively a favorite of mine so off to Beppu we go. The onsens are numerous and the pylons of white steams can be seen all over the mountainside. Despite being a top tourist destination prices in japan are generally not too unfair and Beppu is no exception. One can easily grab a very nice lunch or dinner without spending too much of ones hard earned coins. Getting around the area is fairly easy and buses is the more economical option. The other option is cabing it which is very feasible if you can share it on a few people.
Taking the buss can have it\s disadvantages though. Like when the buss driver ignores you per default as he cannot understand English. English is ofc the only language any foreigner can speak so auto ignore is on. This resulted in me walking my way to the hells.

Video is in Swedish

The hells are the onsen that are not for bathing in.They are purely for looking at and have their own little story. A interesting thing about these places are that they all have their little demons or devils to take care of them. Being Japan and all they are adorable and super cute.

On the brighter side of things there are plenty of onsens one can take a bath in. In fact most ryoukan or places to stay are likely to have their very own hot spring installation here. It does puzzle me though. When this abundant source of heat and energy is readily available why not harness is for geopower? Specially now with the upheaval at nuclear power in Japan. Well I do guess that could just do something about the terrible insulation most houses have first. That would certainly help to keep the heat in at least. Anyway make sure you Enjoy one of these onsens if you ever go to Beppu.