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  • Couple of thoughts,

    Good choice of time of year to cycle there, generally warm in the day and not humid - there are much tougher times to be touring there!

    Food's pretty cheap in Japan when eating out at casual restaurants like izakaya, ramen etc so unless you're really out in the wild or keeping a tight budget then don't forget to look around and eat out.

    Otherwise, what type of food would you be cooking on a camping stove generally? Konbini are everywhere and have a pretty good selection of ready and almost-ready to eat meals but you might have to find larger supermarkets if you're looking for a selection of raw ingredients to cook with and these places can be a bit harder to navigate.

    Beer - if you like beer then not all beer is equal in Japan - you've got proper beer - bīru (I'm a fan of Yebisu personally), and then 'beer-taste' alchohol - happoshu, and shin janru.

    You can tell by the price which ones are 'real' and which are less-real. There's a number of alchohol-free beers around now too you can often find a few in the shops (I think Kirin Free is pretty decent).

    I guess you're gonna get all your equipment before heading off (that would make sense!), but Montbell in Japan is a great shop should you need anything extra. And Soto make great stoves (much cheaper in Japan).

    If it's flat in Japan then generally it's also super built-up, intersections, traffic lights, traffic. I'm not a huge fan but I can also see it would be fun at first to see it all.. but personally I'd plan the route to stay near waterways, canals, rivers there. There's generally some embankment with cycle paths or roads with fewer/no traffic lights that follow these.

    The countryside and hills are fantastic, really beautiful, just be careful again with the route as the hills can be super steep if you venture off the main routes. Still, if you do then there's lots of lovely stuff in the hills, temples, shrines and all that. If you do start to head deeper into mountains or backroads just make sure you can navigate out again in case of road closures - earthquakes, rock slides and collapsed roads are all things I've had to route out of (or walk through).

    If you find yourself in enough trouble that you need to hop on a train to get somewhere then be aware you need to pack your bike away in a bag (essentially covering up the wheels/cranks/dirty bits. This could be something like the Montbell Rinko Bag which packs down tight, or at worst just lots of bin bags.

    Cash - keep cash on you. You won't be able to get out from every cash machine either, but at the airport and certain banks and larger post-offices. Cash is used everywhere and you'll need it on the road too for the drink machines.

    I'd get a SIM card at the airport. Much easier to deal with than a separate hub (did that one time and it's just a pain to keep one other thing on you and charged up). You can also get them on Amazon.co.jp which could be cheaper but you'd need to get it delivered somewhere.

  • Very useful advice thank you. I think I need to do a bit of route planning tbh, to avoid these very busy roads. Should be a fun couple of evenings... I am also planning to do a bunch of shopping in jp, might definitely get the montbell rinko bag + soto stove...

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