Low long can you legally stay in Japan?

If your an US citizen the official word is: ( cited from State Department)

ENTRY / EXIT REQUIREMENTS: A valid passport and an onward/return ticket are required for tourist/business "visa free" stays of up to 90 days.  Passports must be valid for the intended period of stay in Japan.   Americans cannot work on a 90-day "visa free" entry.  As a general rule, "visa free" entry status may not be changed to another visa status without departing and then re-entering Japan with the appropriate visa, such as a spouse, work or study visa.

This is common knowledge but what if you leave Japan after a 89 day stay then come back at a later date say a week later can you be there another 90 days? Is that valid? I called the Consulate in San Francisco to find out...

The answer I got is:

"They can't officially comment on what is legal that is for the immigration office to decide. You can ask once you get there."

Not a good answer IMHO. So I did some searching online and got some answers. It seems to depend on two things:

1. There seems to be a unofficial policy of 180days total (many people from Korea seem to be able to come and go quite frequently with no problems where they stay a week a month as a korean tour guide)
2. It really depends on the impression of you the immigration officer gets (if you look like your just trying to stay permanently in Japan on a visa free they will reject you.. or if you look like your going there for a job)   

So what did I get out of this exercise? Try and plan the Lap around Japan to finish in 3 months or plan to split it up into multiple trips. Maybe I will go to japan for a month, bike around Kyushu and then head out to Australia for a few weeks then head back into Japan for rest of the 3 months? I don't think they have a Visa stamp that has variable days.Anyway some thing to think about if your not a citizen of Japan.

Information gathering: MAPPLE

The 1st step is to get a detailed map of Japan. Now you probably could use google maps to plan but while your on the road you may not have internet access so next best thing is these books. Touring Mapple series Map is updated every year and its been written for motorcycle touring but if your planning on biking in japan its is a great guide. There are 7 in the series and each book covers an island or a section.

The sections are:

• Kyushu/Okinawa - 九州沖縄
  
• Chugoku/Shikoku - 中国・四国
  
• Kansai - 関西
  
• Chubu/Hokuriku -中部北陸
  
• Kantou - 関東
  
• Touhoku - 東北
  
• Hokkaido - 北海道
  

The books go for about 1600 yen. The cheapest way to get them is to order them through your local Japanese book store. If there aren't any near by my next suggestion is to purchase them through Amazon japan. Click on the links above to go amazon directly. But be warned they do charge an arm and a leg to ship to USA. Typically you will pay double the retail price. On the positive side you will get them in 2 days. (next day air is the only option..the sea shipping option is no longer available unfortunately)

There is an Touring Mapple "R". The difference that I can figure out is the physical size of the books themselves. They are the same as the normal version but they are printed to the typical photobook /map books you see in the states. I personally like the smaller size (approx 6"x8") of the normal version better.

What makes these books great is that if you can read Japanese they have a lot of useful info in them. They have campgrounds and hotels marked off, they tell you where the hot springs are and also mark off which routes are more scenic or congested with traffic. They also got some interesting tid bits of info like this tunnel is known by locals to be haunted.

About the maps themselves:

• Mostly the scale is 1: 140,000 (so 1" = 3 Km = 2 miles)
• Major city area are scaled to 1:50,000
• There are Ferry route info
• The Map Key is extensive (will save that for another post)

Anyway thats it for now. too much info to sort through!

Post up more info later on the maps.

Why am I'm doing this?

Why Am i doing this? I've always wanted to bike around Japan and visit every nook and cranny but with a job and all never could take more than a few weeks off at a time. Now its looking more and more likely that I will be laid off.. (Although I think I've been saying that for the past year or so) Anyway rather than sulking about loosing my job I'm actually looking forward to it and planning out what I'm going to do. So in a way this blog will be a live journal if you will of:

1. documentation of my planning / prep (so that if others want to try something similar they can)
2. Once on the trip The blog will be a trip documentation tool

Anyway this is more or less a test right now to see if this Blog is easy enough to use for now.