What I Did On My Summer Vacation

My Trip To Tokyo

Intro

After spending my first week of vacation time doing absolutely nothing, and facing the possibility that the remaining two weeks due to me this year would be filled with the same, I decided in June that I would travel to Japan. Due to the current state of instability at my workplace, I also decided it would be prudent to take that vacation time as soon as possible. September is normally forbidden as it is a busy time for us. I wasn't going to wait 'til October so August it was.

I don't know how good Priceline.com, Orbitz, and those other sites are with other destinations, but I don't recommend them for a trip to Japan. Check them just to be certain, but you can find better deals in the newspaper. I went with JBTI. Their prices were the lowest I found for the time I was going (mid-August). It was still expensive. About $900. including tax. September would've been drastically lower, but like I said, that was out of the question. Still, it was hundreds of dollars less than the websites mentioned above.

I e-mailed Hiroaki Ogawa, to let 'im know I was coming. Hiro was a drummer in a band I shared with Asa James, Electrick Jam or E-Jam for short. He went back to Japan about three years ago, and invited us to stop by. We maintained some e-mail contact, but I hadn't heard from him in a few months, so I wasn't sure he was still reachable at that address. I hadn't heard anything back for like three weeks or so. I figured I had the wrong address. I was still going, but I would've preferred to see Hiro again, and make use of his guidance.

At some point I started to make use of a computer program, Power Japanese and a television series I taped several years ago called Lets Learn Japanese to get into the language. I've made quite a few attempts at learning Japanese in the past which always ended with me slacking off and eventually stopping completely. I didn't have much time but I was determined to learn what I could. I started with Let's Learn Japanese and would sometimes alternate with time on the program, Power Japanese. I knew a few words I picked up here and there. I've watched quite a bit of Anime and live action Japanese films over the last 30 years, avoiding English language dubs when possible (until fairly recently that wasn't often), and opting for Japanese language with subtitles. Still, I paid more attention to the subtitles than to the words I was hearing, but I did pick up a small number of things. After a while I concentrated mostly on Power Japanese, successfully learning the Hiragana symbols and a few phrases. It wasn't much but it would have to do. I had some hope that English was a somewhat popular language there.

I did hear back from Hiro, and we corresponded back and forth over the finer points of the trip. Am I staying in Tokyo? Seeing the countryside? How long? When? etc.

Much of what I read about traveling in Japan involves getting a rail pass. This would allow me to travel freely on a single ticket, and would be necessary if I was planning on seeing a lot of the country. I waited until the last minute to decide I would stay in the general Tokyo area, which would save me like $320 (for a one week pass). I was on a budget.

Hiro arranged for me to stay four days at his place, once I bought the plane tickets and confirmed the length of my visit (aug. 13th - aug 21st 'bout nine days). I arranged hotel accommodations thru mytrip.net (I believe I started with Hotbot.com, but was routed to mytrip). Through them I found affordable hotels. I was staying with Hiro the night of my arrival, two days on the weekend, and the night before my flight out. So for hotels, I had four days total, split into two 2 day stays. Since the days would be split like that, I chose two hotels, one a Japanese style ryokan, the other a westernized hotel. The one thing I wanted out of both was affordability and computer access so I could e-mail folks at home. I was able to get both.

I had considered "capsule" hotels, where one is offered a coffin sized compartment to stay the night, but my budget wasn't that tight.

My passport was another issue to take care of. I'm going to spare the details on this. Let's just say I got it done the Friday prior to my flight that Monday, and leave it at that. If you're planning a trip abroad. GET YOUR PASSPORT EARLY!!!! All other preparations were made. For some reason I brought my guitar, but never took it out of it's case on the entire trip.

The following is a day by day account of my summer vacation based partially on notes, and my often faulty recollection...

Or you could just skip all that and look at the pictures...