Important JR Pass Question

actually i was planning on starting mine earlier in the day, and activating mine weeks in advance. to explain:

- ill wake up early in hakodate on 8/8 and travel to hachinohe, then tokyo, then narita

- ill meet him at the airport in the afternoon because thats when he arrives. i will have been here for two months

- we'll activate his at the airport and take the NAX back to the hotel, or perhaps wait until the next day and pay for NAX in cash

- the next morning we use our passes to go to osaka for two days, and while in osaka we might take a side trip to hiroshima or kyoto

- on the 11th we'll return to tokyo and stay there, using the pass on main JR lines still the 14th when we fly out

so i guess im effectively getting one more day and 7 hours of train travel out of my pass, but were both saving money...

Just thought I'd add my two pence worth,

"You must purchase an Exchange Order from an authorized sales office or agent before you come to Japan."

Uma, the bit about purchasing your XO before you enter Japan just means that no Authorised Sales agents are permitted to operate inside Japan, you are reading too much into it!

JR Staff will check 3 things:
1) you have a temporary visitor stamp
2) you are the person named on the pass (they will photocopy your passport)
3) The pass was issued less than 3 months ago (this IS written on the pass http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/JRRailPass-Exchange...)

And although JR have a rep for being strict, once when I was there i was behind some american soldier at the exchange counter, from what i gathered he had a military visa, but in the end they gave him a jrpass anyway!

As for jrpass.com, they are an agency of Kintetsu and are head and shoulders above anywhere else i've bought an XO from.

in short, to the original poster... don't worry you will be fine!