Here is the newly revised Japan Trip Itinerary!

• Fly into Narita - take the Skyliner to Ueno.
• Stay at the Tokyo Green Ochanomizu for two days.
• Take the Shinkansen all the way up north to Aomori.
• Stay at Hotel Aomori for 5 days, exploring the mountains and Pacific coast. We plan on taking local trains to the coast and around the countryside.
• Take a sleeper car down the Japan Sea coast to Niigata, and a Shinkansen back to Tokyo.
• Take another Shinkansen to Osaka.
• Spend seven days, exploring Osaka, Kyoto, Nara and the surrounding area. We are renting a condo for the week (so cheap!)
• Take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo for the last week, staying at the Tokyo Green Ochanomizu again. I wanted the last portion of our trip to be relaxing and familiar (and how could I possibly skip hanging out in Akiba again.)

Exciting! We've purchased everything except the rail passes (which, alone, cost over $1100.00 USD! - but are totally worth it). I plan on bringing back some new knives and some katsuobushi and a katsuobushi kezuriki. Sandy and I have both been studying Japanese constantly, so we will be a bit more linguistically equipped this time.

Labels: Japan, vacation

posted by tangentbot @ 5:30 PM 


0 Comments Links to this post

We are in the middle of planning our return trip to Japan, which will take place in the last 3 weeks of May. So far, our itinerary is thus:

• May 10th - Fly into Narita Airport; take the Skyliner to Ueno in Tokyo and stay one night in Tokyo Green Ochanomizu (The hotel we stayed at in Oct. 2006)
• Take the Shinkansen, North to Akita - stay 5 days in the mountains.
• Take the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, and board another Shinkansen to Osaka; Stay there for a week.
• Take a train back to Tokyo and meet up with Mike Tanner (and maybe his GF) - Spend our last week in Tokyo.

It seems crazy and busy and very transity, but I love trains. This trip will let us see more of Japan then our last trip, and we intend to pack very light this time. We'll probably do all of our shopping in Tokyo our last week there, although I still intend to buy knives in Kyoto and at least 2 katsuobushi and a kezuriki in Tokyo (perhaps one of those artisan hand-crafted aluminum pots as well - I wish I could get a few donabe, but I'm afraid of them breaking).

So, that's it so far. I'm going to put a "Japan" section on my site or something - I already have plans on moving my last Japan blog, japanbot, to this website, so I might just do a "Travel in Japan" portion or something. Anything could happen, who knows‽

Labels: Japan, Shinkansen, travel, vacation

posted by tangentbot @ 11:20 AM 


0 Comments Links to this post