Welcome to the May 2025 newsletter.

Firstly we would like to thank all those who have subscribed to our newsletter in the past few weeks.

We hope that we can help you with the planning of your first or next trip to Japan whether you want to Explore Japan by Train, Explore Japan's Railways or a bit of both.

This newsletter has a distinct Chiba theme, which although adjacent to tokyo, apart from Tokyo Disneyland (yes it is in Chiba not Tokyo) and Narita Airport / Narita City, is not so well known to inbound tourists.

TS Japan Rail's Turner was featured on NHK World's Japanology Plus series on 8th Many 2025.

The program, presented by Peter Barakan, a fellow Englishman who has been in Japan for 50 years, looks at Japanese Life and Culture.

For this edition Barakan and Turner travelled on the Kominato Railway in the heart of Chiba prefecture, discussing Turner's love of Japanese trains.

You can watch the program at any time on the NHK World's website https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/shows/2032335/

Continuing the Chiba theme, we have just published an article on four interesting railways in Chiba Prefecture that we believe will be of interest to general tourists as well as railway enthusiasts

In April we published the second article on Understanding the Japan Rail Network.

For many people, particularly those from countries where public transport is not so developed, The Japan Rail Network looks Complicated and Confusing.

In this article we explain some of the main points and why after a short while most people will change the "Complicated and Confusing" to "Comprehensive and Convenient"

We are always looking at ways to make our two websites more useful and easy to use for our clients, prospective clients and followers.

We have recently done such a refresh. Please take a look when you have a moment.

In particular we have improved our Travel Resources Page including the following:

• Links to the JR Train booking (English sites)

We recommend our clients to use these sites where ever possible rather than the third party sites (e.g. Klook). The reason is simple - it is cheaper (at least in Japan Yen terms) as there is no commission. In fact in some cases you can get tickets at a cheaper fare than the regular fare. (BTW if you have to use a third party site Klook charges less than most other third party sites around 10% rather than 25%~30% some other sites charge).

• JR Rail Passes

We strongly recommend visitors to Japan, whose itineraries are such that it is worthwhile to use a JR Rail Pass or a JR Regional Rail Pass that they buy these through the "official" website. Reason is simple, you can book seats on shinkansen and Limited Express trains immediately upon purchase, you do not have to wait until you get to Japan as you do when you purchase through a reseller. And nowadays the price is the same as buying through a reseller. Information on the travel Resources Page.

• Links to Local Tourist Information sites

Want to get off the beaten path or just want to find some different places in the big cities or to find out about events etc...The best information is usually the local information. We have compiled a database on a regional basis of local tourist information sites (note we are always research places and train journeys so this database will be continually epanding).

You can get to our Travel Resources Page by clicking on the image below.

We have also added more FAQs on our FAQ page