jimmy spako wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2024 10:53 am I am not tapped into restaurants here at all beyond the family go-to's, but I would recommend you hit up the north end of Sonnenallee just below Hermannplatz to sample the Syrian (and wider Middle Eastern) diaspora. There are also some nice Arab fried chicken places down on Karl-Marx-Strasse.

Turkish grill fare and the like is ubiquitous and often great too. There must also be decent Korean, Vietnamese etc, if you look.
Places for Eastern European fare, food of the Caucasus (Georgian,etc.) have popped up more over the past decade, maybe something to Google.

I would imagine you can do traditional German better in Munich, maybe best to save that for the Bavarian part of your trip.

Owen wrote: Wed May 08, 2024 10:09 am I am joining the party and headed to Japan at the end of October for two weeks.

Is there an Android friendly version of something like the Suica app for the rail system? If not, is it better to buy a pass before, get it there, any pros or cons? I am kind of fixated on this as it's the only thing I feel I dont have a great handle on.

I am planning to buy a fun Japanese Fender or a Japanese Les Paul style guitar while there, probably a good idea to plan to ship it home?

Wood Goblin wrote: Wed May 08, 2024 10:18 am

Owen wrote: Wed May 08, 2024 10:09 am I am joining the party and headed to Japan at the end of October for two weeks.

Is there an Android friendly version of something like the Suica app for the rail system? If not, is it better to buy a pass before, get it there, any pros or cons? I am kind of fixated on this as it's the only thing I feel I dont have a great handle on.

I am planning to buy a fun Japanese Fender or a Japanese Les Paul style guitar while there, probably a good idea to plan to ship it home?

We didn’t use any apps while we were there but found traveling just fine without them. You don’t really order a Japan Rail Pass before traveling, per se. Rather, you order a voucher, which you redeem when you get there. (I would highly, highly recommend ordering this now!) We redeemed ours at the airport the day we arrived. It was simple, and the wait in line was only about 20 minutes. Basically, you give them the voucher, they ask you what day you’d like to activate the pass, and then they give you the pass. Don’t lose the pass, though, because you can’t get a new one.

The pass works on most (but not all) inter-city trains. We never encountered one where it didn’t work. It also works on some commuter trains in Tokyo and Kyoto. For subways, we just bought tickets at the machines. It seems so intimidating until you actually do it, at which point you realize it’s easy as pie.

I’d recommend making seat reservations for the bullet trains. You can do that at the ticket machines; just have your Rail Pass and passports handy, as you’ll need to enter information from them. When we’d arrive at a new city, we’d just make the reservations for our departure before we left the train station.

Loved Japan.