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by lhl 1023 days ago
Sadly due to semiconductor shortage, physical Suica cards are very hard to come by atm: https://www.timeout.com/tokyo/news/sale-of-pasmo-and-suica-c...

FWIW I've been using Suica on a Japanese Garmin smart watch and refilling it with Google Pay on an international card without too many problems (and before that with Apple Pay with the same card on iPhone/Apple Watch), although there are probably some gotchas (Apple Pay at POS seems to be pretty hit and miss for in Tokyo and I've never figured out why).
2 comments
a_t48 1023 days ago
Oh wow, that sucks. Glad I was able to get one when I was there in March. Tourists can still use https://www.jreast.co.jp/multi/en/welcomesuica/welcomesuica.... though it seemed like a worse deal than a regular card when I was there.
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nicolas314 1023 days ago
Outside of Tokyo you can still easily get one of the other regional IC cards [1]. They can now all be used everywhere in Japan including the Tokyo subway, provided you don't start travel in one region and end it in another.

[1] https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2359_003.html

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lobochrome 1023 days ago
I have a EU Garmin - is there a way to get Suica?!
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lhl 1023 days ago
The Japanese IC systems all use FeliCa, which not all devices support. I believe Garmin only has it enabled (unsure if this is licensing or hardware) in their East Asian models (Hong Kong's Octopus cards also FeliCa).

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FeliCa

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIFARE

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