Originally Posted by
lsquare
A friend told me that round trip fare from Tokyo is about ¥70,000, which is just crazy. Is this true?
It doesn't seem at all crazy to me.
If you're still eligible for a JR pass, you could compare costs against regular fares by pricing your itinerary on Hyperdia:
http://www.hyperdia.com/
There are lots of threads on this forum and the budget travel forum about cheap ways to get around - buses, rail passes, air passes and the like. I suggest you search for keywords like "cheap bus" or "air pass".