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Old May 8, 2013 | 8:55 am
  #3  
ksandness
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota,USA
Programs: UA, NW
Posts: 3,752
Your trip totals twelve days. If you rearrange your itinerary so that you can spend the first few days in Tokyo, validate your rail pass voucher, then take your trips to Kyoto and Hiroshima, return to Tokyo, and use the still-valid pass to visit your friends in Tochigi. This is especially recommended if your friends in Tochigi live near a Shinkansen route.

For your time in Tokyo, get a Suica+N'EX roundtrip ticket. (This will work for you, since your trip is less than 14 days.) You will receive roundtrip fare on the Narita Express and a Suica debit card loaded with 1500 yen, which is good for about seven rides on any of the local transit options you are likely to need: JR train, subway, buses, private rail lines.

The JR Pass is NOT valid on the subways, buses, or private rail lines, and I've found that the subways are actually more convenient for getting to the famous sites than the JR lines are.

If your Suica runs out, you can add value to it at any train or subway stations, and it's good for ten years.
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