Japan is one of the country i wanted to visit after Seoul, South Korea. Even though i am not a hardcore otaku aka anime fan, i've always wanted to experience the place itself. Initially, i planned for a trip to Australia with my sisters but we decided to lower down the budget and picked any Asian country instead.
Alhamdulillah last week i've given the chance to explore 4 main cities in Japan; Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe and Okayama. It may sounds weird that Tokyo is not in the list but this time we wanted to be away from the skyscrapers. My trip was seriously super hectic and busy. And honestly, 7 days 6 night spent here was not enough for us to visit all the major highlight in the 4 cities.
Too bad it is not really our luck this time, we went to Japan during the summer which we missed quite a lot of opportunity especially the Sakura Bloom and snow skiing. The purpose of me writing this down is to help any muslims who would love to visit Japan. So...here are several guides that might help you in future if you ever planned a trip to japan one day :-)
What to prepare beforehand?
1) Homestay/Hotel
Make sure you book depending on your budget and number of people in the trip. I travelled with my fam with a total of 6 person, so we decided to go for homestay instead of hotel. I suggest to book your hotel using any of certified travel web. As for us, we booked our hotel via
AirBNB which cost us approximately 51825 yen ((RM2000)) for 7 days 6 night.
The homestay is located in the middle of Naniwa-ku and very near to Tennoji Zoo and Shinsekai. It wasnt really a good start on the first day, very tiring as we have to carry our own 10kg bag changing train stations and climbing up the stairs. Thank god the local people there are super friendly and guide us home :')
Although it is very small and compact, which for tall people might be quite uncomfortable with the low ceiling especially the toilet, i really think it is super comfy for us to sleep at the end of the tiring day.
The towels and toiletries are all included EXCEPT FOR IRON&IRONING BOARD. So it is highly recommended to bring your own travel iron if u came to japan especially for us malay girls. Believe it or not, I travel with non-ironed tudung for 2 days guys --' before mum decided to buy us one at a nearest electrical store.
2. Pocket Wifi
Absolutely essentials throughout the journey I shall say. Japan do have free wifi almost at all places but it is more convenient to have your own. As for us, the homestay provide a pocket wifi in the package. We will need it to find which train you should ride, nearest halal food station or attractions.
Because honestly, the train system here is quite confusing compared to Singapore based on my experience. Singapore are a smaller city so they dont really have much train line. In Japan, they have like almost 6 to 7 different train service under different companies. (and ofcourse different price as well) So by having a wifi pocket, u can easily access every places in Japan without confusion XD
3. Train pass
It is not really necessary to prepare the train pass before the trip as they do have a walk-in counter whenever u want to the ride the train. But for my trip, we bought the unlimited train pass through Japan Travel Bureau in AEON Shah Alam.
4) Food Supply
WAAAAAAAJJIIIIIBBBB or you will end up starving in the middle of your trip, i meant it guys. At one point, we are so hungry that we have to find food with trusted ingredient eventhough they dont have a legit japan halal logo such as croissant bread and plain rice :') Bring as much halal food from home as possible because halal restaurant are only available in certain places which some of it u have to access via train ride. It will also cut down your budget because food in japan is extremely expensive. The cheapest food course for a person is 1000 yen ((rm39)). Kalau sehari makan 5 kali, times with 7 days of your stay. 39 x 5 x 7 = RM1365 spent just for food. wassalam XD
Overall, Japan is not really a muslim friendly country but it is not that hard to survive there. In certain places such as Kobe, they do have a mosque and quite a number of halal restaurant and yes again, with expensive prices.
One thing i really amazed is how disciplined the Japanese are. Highest salute for them.1 -> They literally stand still in the Smoking Zone and even throw the cigarette in the place provided. No offence but we cant witness that kind of discipline smokers in our country, to be very realistic.
2 -> Not even a tiny trash in the train. YES, NOT EVEN ONE. 3 -> extremely clean public toilet. i swear. 4 -> waiting in line to ride the train no matter how hectic the station is. 5 -> polite and humble public workers. Common situation we encountered in our country, some workers in restaurant or cashier throwing tantrums at the end of the day due to stress and workload. but in Japan, they will greet us all the time no matter who you are.
I am not belittling my own country but
their attitude is something we have to ponder about.
and yeap, I will be explaining more in detail regarding how i survive as a muslim in Japan in future post following the consequences :-)
enough with the super long intro, here is what i do on the first day;
We departed from Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 4 AM. Our flight (Air Axia X) is at 7AM and it took us 6 hours and 15 minutes to arrive. There is a slight weather disturbance up there which scares me but alhamdulillah we safely arrive at Kansai International Aiport around 3 PM more or less.
They have a very pretty and clean prayer room for us muslims to pray at the aiport. So its not a problem for us.
At first we thought of having simple dinner before searching for our homestay but we saw a halal certified restaurant at the airport! *Tears of joy*
This is the turning point where i decided not to eat any japanese food anymore haha. I ordered soba with tempura but only managed to eat half of it because only god knows how pelik the taste is T__T
On our way to the train station, we saw a group of teenagers with high end expensive DSLR waiting at the international arrival gate. guess what people, EXO was heading to Osaka that time as well for SMTOWN in Osaka. and when i arrived hotel around 10.30 pm, i scrolled through my twitter timeline and i saw NCT Kansai Airport preview 💩 CAN U IMAGINE HOW FRUSTRATED I AM THAT DAY. So near yet so far. *cries a river*
Cut that crap off, it took us almost 3 hours to our hotel which supposed to be only less that an hour. When we scanned our railway pass, we saw an announcement on the LED board says that there was a human damage accident. All train service in the respective line are suspended. with a confusing face, we asked the train master in english what are we supposed to do. i think he dont understand us or something and not to make it complicated, we are given a free ride for JR WEST train for free that night haha
Our homestay is only 10 steps away from Ebisucho Station which makes it very practical and worth the pay. However, funny story; we arrived the station at night on our first day and we weren't familiar with the road WHICH MAKES US literally walked around Naniwa-ku including Den Den Town just to find the hotel XD (700m away from the station man, just imagine)
and that mark my first day in japan XD nothing much because we are saving energy for the next day :-) please anticipate the next post soon ^^
regards,
sara
