Wednesday, 2 July 2008

My Japan Travels

This year I've decided to really travel and see more of Japan and just do more "Japanese things" that I should have done years ago.

It's so easy to get stuck doing the same thing again and again, especially if you're working for a Japanese company that you could easily find yourself (like me) having lived in the country for four and a half years and only really been to Tokyo (where I live), Kyoto (only a day trip), Mt Fuji and Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea (in Chiba).

When I first came to Japan I was planning to do a big trip every three months or so to another major Japanese city or location but saving the money and getting significant time off (was at NOVA at the time) was really difficult and when I did get time off, I needed it to re-energise myself from teaching like a machine all week.

Hopefully I'll be able to break that pattern this year. With three weeks off in August (it pays to negotiate in your contract negotiation each year, trust me) and Betty, a friend of mine who I used to work with at Starbucks in Sydney coming to visit, I'm going to buy some cheap airline tickets (I don't have the patience for overnight bus trips when a one hour flight can get you to the other side of the country) and head down to Osaka, Fukuoka and possibly Sendai (where I wanted to live when I first came to Japan but have yet to actually go there!).

It'll be great to see these other cities (especially Fukuoka which I've heard so much about) and continue my Pokemon Journey and complete my Japanese Starbucks Mug Collection.

I've used several different travel websites before to make my bookings and have posted about them (it's always good to be informed of better options). A rather unique site I just found was LowFares.com which lets you type your trip into it's search engine and when you click search it opens up three different agencies of your choice in different windows at the same time so you can compare straight away! Pretty convenient, though when I searched for a trip from Tokyo to Fukuoka most of the windows only gave me one response. Hmmm... Ah, my bad, I clicked on hotels and flight combination. Haha.

Searching again this time for a flight from Narita to Osaka I'm really surprised how cheap a flight can be! About US$200! I still can't wrap my head around how much cheaper a domestic flight is in Japan compared to rail.

Are you planning any trips this year in Japan? What do you recommend? Personally I love Nikko and would love to go there again but really want to see some places I haven't been to yet first.

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Labels: japan