So a friend and I are going to Japan next year and have never ever been so I apologize for any stupid questions here.
We live in New Zealand.
- How long before leaving for Japan should we buy our JR passes?
- Do we activate them when we get to Japan? How do we activate them?
- We will be getting 21 day passes, in this 21 days can we use our passes as much as we like? We will be exploring a lot.
- for other trains besides the bullet trains, are there indications if they are a JR train? I was informed JR passes only work for JR bullets and normal trains/ferries.
- How do you buy normal tickets for trains and buses if they're not JR?
Thanks for any help and I'm so sorry these are silly questions! (=