Tokyo, 2010

I went to Tokyo in 2010. I started to blog about it but I got so caught up in the travel that I stopped writing. Fortunately, I took a few thousand photographs and it is one of the highlights of my life.

I am going to try to catch up on that recount before I chart my next trip which is a cruise to the Bahamas in two and a half weeks. After that, I am hoping to take a jaunt to Hong Kong in November (2011) and in the spring go to England.

Anyway, this is about Tokyo planning. I was ecstatic to go to Tokyo. I love Asian culture and I love Japan. I'd spent the last two years slowing learning to read Japanese. I'm still illiterate because I can interperte the symbols but I barely know any words yet. My self teaching wasn't bad but I decided to pair it with the Rosetta stone to increase my comprehension. We will see how that goes.

As for planning for Tokyo:
I'm an obsessive planner. I admit it. My co-workers are probably tired of me. Some chuckle at me. Whatever, I can't help myself.

However, I have not locked myself down into a tight itinerary of going here and going there and seeing this and seeing that. I have things I want to do and things I want to see. However, I don't have this planned for Monday and that for Tuesday.

Planning has helped a lot. I'm the unofficial trip coordinator now. I've been hunting down vegetarian alternatives for one of the Husband's co-workers and finding out about beer tours and clubbing for others.

The planning turned out to be important for more then my obsessive soul. Things are different and it is very easy to make assumptions about other places based off of what you know as 'normal' for home. Not having traveled internationally before, I am spastic about checking things.

This allowed me to find out that an assumed method of transportation, taxi cabs, was a bad move to take from the hotel.

Narita Airport is 60 miles outside of Tokyo. A taxi ride averages 2-300 USD. Ouch.

The alternative, the Limousine bus is a big plush charter bus that costs 30 dollars, drops us off in front of the hotel and has wifi. We are not taking the train because of bags. We are not packing super light because we are there for 18 days and not changing hotels.

Our hotel is the Courtyard Marriott Ginza. The Husband is a Marriott member and this trip may knock him from Gold to Platinum status.

Courtyard Marriott Ginza: http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/tyocy-courtyard-tokyo-ginza-hotel/

How I planned.

Lets start with resources:

http://www.japan-guide.com
http://www.japan-guide.com
http://www.virtualtourist.com/
http://www.bento.com
http://shibuya246.com
http://www.chowhound.com

Making Life easier while I'm in Japan:

This is the Suica prepaid metro access card. We plan to use the trains a lot. This way we just have to fill it a few times and we're set to run around all of the subway trains. This is not for trains outside of the city. However, the website can help you with cheap alternatives for travelers as well.
http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/pass/suica.html

This is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to and from the hotel. The trains are faster but this picks us up at the terminal and drops us off at the hotel. You have to see if your hotel is on their list. If not, and you want to use them, find a hotel close to your own.
http://www.limousinebus.co.jp/en/

This is a city wide wifi connection that we are going to try out. This will let us use our phones (Spring Evo running Android) instead of renting them. The Husband has a Blackberry from work that will work in Japan.
http://300.wi2.co.jp/en/area/bus/

The Phone:
We run android and we have a ton of apps to help life.

Translation apps, language apps, map apps, photo apps, gps apps, talk over wifi apps, etc. Just remember, when you select your applications make sure that they can function without a cell signal or without needing to access the web for their information.