All of the cities in Japan have their own unique vibes; the hustle bustle of Tokyo, the tranquility of Kyoto, the serene Hiroshima, and so on. Aside of those different characteristics, there is a similarity that we can see from all cities: the existence of shrines and temples.

Wherever you go in Japan, you will always run into shrines or temples. It is always crowded with the locals to pray, either for ordinary praying ritual or festive praying during special celebration. Shrine and temple might look similar, but actually they belong to different beliefs. Shrine belongs to Shinto religious tradition (worship the deities) and can be identified with the torii⛩ at the entrance, while temple belongs to Buddhist religious tradition (worship the Buddha) which will have a big gate called sanmon.

Torii gate to Kamado Shrine, Dazaifu, Fukuoka (Upper pic). Sanmon gate to Senso-ji Temple, Asakusa, Tokyo (Lower pic)

Lucky for us tourist, even if we don't have the same belief as the Japanese, the shrines and temples welcome us to pay a visit!
Here are some quick guides on what we can do as a tourist in Japanese shrines and temples. By knowing the do and don'ts, we can have better experience during the visit, blend in with the locals, and most importantly, respect the sacred atmosphere there!

Upon our entrance, we will be welcomed by Temizuya, a water pavilion. The pavilion has a clean running water and a ladle to scoop the water. The water is used for ritual to purify the body and mind prior further entering and (for the believer) meeting the deity / Buddha.
Tourists are very welcomed (and recommended) to also follow the rituals:

- Hold the ladle with our right hand, scoop the water (we only scoop once, so fill up your ladle)

- Pour the water on our left hand

- Move the ladle to our left hand, then pour it to our right hand

- Move the ladle back to our right hand

- Pour the remaining water to our cupped left hand and rinse our mouth (don’t touch the ladle with our mouth)

This steps and hand might look trivial, but it is crucial to follow and is a part of culture that we better respect. Additional information, take note that the water is not for drink no matter how thirsty you are!

Once you've done, don’t go away. Take the chance to cover yourself with the smoke. This is a symbol of healing and purifying: our body part that being covered by the smoke will be healed. Wave the smoke to yourself and pat in everywhere: your head, your body, your hand and your foot.
If we don’t want to buy the incense, we can still join the crowd and stand around the incense burner (like what I did😂). But be aware that our clothes will be smell like smoke, so bring an extra clothes if necessary😉 

In other places, like Senso-ji Temple, we need to shake a shaker with numbered sticks inside, see the number written on the stick that comes out from the shaker, and take the fortune paper from the numbered shelf.
Throughout my visit in Japan, I think I've collected at least one Omikuji in every temple or shrine that I visited. I just love the excitement to see what's written on the paper! Luckily, all of the fortune written on my Omikuji were positive. If our fortune wasn't favorable, we can always tie up the Omikuji on the spots prepared in the shrines or temples and leave the bad luck there.
Many big shrines and temples in Japan already provide Omikuji in several languages to cater international tourists' needs. However, keep in mind that in some places the Omikuji only available in Japanese only. In that case, prepare your Google Translate apps!

Don't left the shrines or temples empty handed; bring home Japanese lucky charm or Omamori!
Omamori is a Japanese amulet that believed to guide or protect the carrier. Different shrines/temples could sell different designs of Omamori, but the purpose/blessings are usually around success, health, wealth, education, relationship, etc. We can select ranges of colorful Omamori displayed on the table available in the Omamori booth inside shrines/temples. The price usually starts from 500 yen and some can cost up to 10,000 yen!
Omamori can also be a unique souvenir for our relatives; but make sure we buy the right Omamori that suits their needs/desire!

Can you guess, what's my top to-do-list when I knew I will be going to Japan?

Visit a neko cafe!!!

As all we know, Japan are very popular with its animal cafes: dog, cats, rabbits, owl, hedgehog, even snake! For each type of animal, there are lots of brands/shop we can choose from, including the neko cafe or cat cafe. Therefore, prior to my arrival in Japan, I googled all available cat cafes in the cities I'll be visiting. After comparing the facilities + prices from the available cat cafes, my choice fell on cat cafe named Cat Cafe MoCHA.

Actually, most of the cat cafes are offering the same thing: cute cats and free flow drink (with fee, of course). However, I chose Cat Cafe MoCha because it has several branches in all over famous districts in Japan (9 branches in Tokyo and 5 in outside Tokyo). With the many branches, for me it was easier to fit in the visit into my schedule. They also have website with information in English which was very useful to understand the location, facilities, and the occurred fee(s). Oh, they also list out the cats lineups for all their branches!

Travel independently is always enjoyable for most people because we can design the trip as per our liking: the destinations, the durations, the culinary choices... it's an endless opportunity to discover our fun way to travel. That's why on mid 2018, when my mum and I were planning to visit Japan on November to enjoy the autumn, we decided to plan everything by ourselves and explore the places by our own. I remember how I was so excited to experience all the fun in Japan!
BUT! Before the fun, extra effort is always needed to make the fun into reality which is the preparation. From June to October 2018, I was drowned in preparation to make sure we have a pleasant trip. Preparing a trip could be overwhelming especially for a place that we have never visit before. In this post, I would like to share my ultimate guideline in preparing my Japan trip for all of you who are in the middle of crafting your pleasurable vacation!

The Big Plan
Before you do anything, decide on:
- Your travelling durations: A week? Ten days? Two weeks? Double check with your company’s annual leave balance (lol), the visa regulations of your visit duration (usually max 14 weeks), and definitely, your budget
- Your preference: When can you go? What season do you want to experience? Decide on your date availability with buffer period to allow flexibility with the flight ticket booking
- Your travelling flow: What's the first and the last city of your trip? What other city will you visit throughout the trip?
This big plan is really important to proceed with the next point, which are...

Flight ticket, Visa and Lodging
Once we decided on when and which city to go, it’s time to hunt for the flight ticket. In booking a flight ticket, it’s important to have buffer period for your availability. I booked my ticket during travel fair on August for the travelling on November. My final booked departure date was actually adjusted by 1 week earlier compared to the original plan. This allowed me to get the price almost 60 percent off of my original date’s price!

If you still need visa, go submit your application. This was my first time using Indonesian e-passport and use the visa waiver facility offered. We still need to submit application at the Japan embassy to activate the facility, but the process is easy and fast (I received mine after 2 days).

For lodging, since I went in pair, we booked hotel instead of airbnb. My ultimate rules in choosing hotel are the station nearby and the room size. Nearest station should have escalator/lift from platform to the street level because we will bring our luggages by ourselves… no one wants to drag the heavy luggages through stairs, anyone? And hotels in Japan are well known for the compact size, so make sure the room size is OK for you and your belongings (can you open your luggages in a 9 meter square room?). Don’t simply book a room due to the cheap price; read all the details and reviews from previous visitors in Agoda!

The smallest room we booked throughout the journey because all other hotels were sold out due to long weekend in Japan

Itinerary
Many people love to travel spontaneously without plan, but for me I love to wake up and know exactly where am I heading to. If I’m travelling to a more familiar country like Singapore, I simply note down the name of places I want to visit every day, the easiest access to get there, and will just explore further once I got there. However, for new places like Japan, I tend to be more detailed by also adding what to see, what to do, what to buy and obviously what to eat in the area at that particular day. By having a detailed daily itinerary, it helps me to make sure I can cover all the places that I want to go and also allocate my time properly in each place. Of course on the D-day, I might not strictly following the schedule (which is the beauty of independent travelling!). However, the itinerary will give me the ideal picture of how I will spend the day.

Look at how many PDFs I've downloaded to craft my itinerary

For travelling to Japan, I credit my findings of famous places and the hidden gems to all websites/blogs that listed in Google for every Japan related keywords that I type. My frequently visited websites are:
- Hyperdia.com for train route and timetable search
- All JR Line official websites (I downloaded all their shinkansen route to double check the train number, route, and time) and the local train official websites
- Japan-guide.com for destinations detail
- The destination’s official websites to see the area maps (to plan what I want to see there)
- Google Maps to know the walking durations

Tickets
Done with all the destinations you want to visit, do more browsing to know the bus/train/ferry ticket to reach there and also the entrance ticket. Many tickets (especially transportation) have special pass available only for tourist, so know your needs and buy the one that fits. Take note on required actions needed to allow you enter the place/board the transportation if you booked it online or the ticket booth location if you bought it on the spot.
One of the most well known train ticket for tourists is the Japan Rail Pass which I will cover further in a separate post. It is like a magic pass that allows you to unlimitedly hop on and off on JR Line trains for a designated period of time (7 days, 14 days, 21 days). Bear in mind that travelling to Japan for 14 days doesn’t simply mean that you need the 14 days JR Pass! Do extensive browsing of your destinations, whether it can be reached with JR Line trains or the local trains are more convenient to be used. For my case, I travel for 2 weeks, but I only booked the 7 days JR Pass and activate it in the 5th days when I wanted to travel from Tokyo to Osaka. So what did I use before I activate the JR Pass? I use Tokyo’s local subway 3 days pass with the super reasonable price!

Internet
Last but not least, Google and Google Maps are your best friends in Japan and you need internet to access them! So never forget to buy internet access for your phone, it can be a portable Wi-Fi or sim card. Portable Wi-Fi is nice because we can share it with multiple devices, but we will have extra weight and extra device to be charged during the night. On top of that, if you booked the portable Wi-Fi in Japan, you need to make sure you can return it to the designated place.

In my case, I arrived in Tokyo Haneda and departed from Fukuoka (Hakata); meaning I couldn't return the device to airport in Tokyo. Therefore, I decided to use SIM card instead. I booked mine through Klook.com and bought the 8 days unlimited SIM card (used it for the first 8 days) and 8 days 3GB (for the rest 6 days). Despite of the limitation of only one device can enjoy the internet connection, my SIM card experience for 14 days was smooth. It was also much cheaper (S$ 46) compared to if I use portable Wi-Fi (S$ 137) booked from Klook as well. The only thing I needed to make sure throughout the trip was to stay close with my mum to not let anyone get lost ;)

So those are my 5 things that I prepare for my Japan trip which also applicable to any destinations! Hope this list is useful for you in preparing your upcoming Japan trip, maybe for this Spring?🌸 And while you're drafting your next itinerary, I will be drafting the upcoming posts about my mesmerizing days in Japan: from Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukuoka.

Hope to see you in those posts! xx