Wow, erm, not sure where to start...
Before we left, we purchased a copy of Lonely Planet Japan, their Japanese phrase book and also their Hiking in Japan plus a few other Japanese travelling books, maybe £50 for them all. A big travelling Gelert rucksack £50 down from £100. Hard wearing shoes for hiking and farm work £30. Business cards cost £22 for about 200. £20 on small gifts. Ghibli tickets £9 each and 21 day Rail Pass £228 each. £460 for return flights, this was a good deal but a long flight, travelled with Sri Lanka Airlines, 10 hours from UK to Sri Lanka, 18 hours in Sri Lanka, 1 Hour from Sri Lanka to Male, 45 mins in Male and then 9 hours to Tokyo. NIGHTMARE!!! Plus travel insurance which I can't remember the price of. WWOOF membership cost $55, they didn't do it in £'s.
We booked all our hostels/hotels before we left and paid 10% up front, the remaining amount came out of our travelling money.
For the full prices of each place we stayed, look at my diary and go to the end where I have all the information and prices for each one. There are also a lists of websites we used too for purchasing travel needs etc.
When we went out, we had saved around about £4000; about £300 was in cash, the rest was in accounts which we transferred to pay off our credit card which we used to withdraw money with. We were going for so long; we did not want to take all the money in cash and had to pay the charges from withdrawing in a foreign country!! The big problem was, because the economy crashed once we were out there, we went from getting 200 yen to the pound, down to below 150 yen, therefore, losing a quarter of our savings, i.e. £1000. We still made do and ended up eating big instant noodle pots as one of our daily meals to cut down costs.
Erm, think that is about it. Don't know what the exchange rate is from £'s to where you are from.
It was an expensive trip but an adventure that we will never forget!! Worth every penny!!
Can't think of anything else right now; message back if you need to know something different.
