Last month I looked at my husband and said, "We need to go on vacation."
"I agree," he told me. "Where? Vegas?"
"Maybe? I don't know. I want to do something. I need to get away from my job."
"Think they will let you go?"
"I've taken two days of leave this year and they where both in February. They better let me leave."
He looked skeptical. I couldn't blame him. Last year, when planning our Tokyo trip my boss had told me that two days in the middle of my trip might not be approved because of staffing issues. I said that I couldn't exactly fly from Tokyo back home for two days and fly back.
Conversations like that tire me out. I have co-workers that hand the boss a schedule of leave at the beginning of the year. It seems reasonable to give two or three months notice to take time off but these co-workers leave me feeling as if I do everything at the last minute.
I didn't care. I wanted to go on vacation and I was going to stomp my feet and have a tantrum if that is what it took.
Vacations where never part of my childhood. I had planned to make them part of my adulthood. Life had a habit of inserting itself into that equation and destroying my plans. This year, I wanted to go somewhere and do something new.
Our first thought wasn't new. It was to take a trip to Vegas as my husband had suggested. We really enjoyed Vegas when we went there to get married in 2007. What we were looking for was a stop gap before we went to England. My husband travels extensively for work and I have decide to start tagging along to expand my own horizons. Originally, we were going to go to England in October. Now, we were perhaps not going anywhere until the spring and I needed and wanted a break. This led to a frantic discussion and a random search on Expedia.com.
The thought was that we could do a cheap trip to Vegas for a few days. We had been to Vegas four years before to get married. We had enjoyed it and I wanted to stay atthe Venetian this time.
However, I saw an advert for cruises and I decided to see how much a cruise to Carrabian would be.
79 dollars a night!
What?
I did some more searching and sure enough, a full cruise could be as low as 70 odd dollars a night for the interior state rooms. Rooms and prices went up as the room quality went up. However, the prices were reasonable.
After a few hours of frantic searching we decided to book a cruise on Carnival to the Bahamas on the Sensation for 4 nights. And why the hell not, we went with the Grand Suite and an extended balcony while we where at it.
The frantic searching also included some visits to Cruise Critic for reviews of the cruise line, the boat, the rooms, and everything else.
It feels like a good decision.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Prep for Tokyo
The husband is still asleep beside me. At 1540hrs I woke up with a snap. It is about 0611hrs now but our time, 1540hrs is me waking up a bit late to head to work in an hour or so.
So I'm awake. As the Husband snores beside me, I'll write up yesterday's action.
Everything went pretty smoothly.
We left the house in plenty of time. We got to the airport around 1000hrs, which was the plan. Our flight was laving at 1250hrs but we wanted to make sure we had time to get a good meal. I'm glad we did.
We parked in economy and caught our buss. We made to to make lot and bus stop numbers down in our phones for later reference. The last thing we want to do is loose the car. Because the Husband was upgraded to first class we got to use the super short line at the airport. There was also a herd of boy scouts making an international flight somewhere.
As we entered the airport, a man had exited and was turning around trying to figure out which deck he wanted to get on. This TSA lady is leaving and she bellows in this horrible, bitchy SNARLY voice, "WRONG DOOR" to this poor guy. What the hell? There is almost no one around and people get confused at the airport. I have no clue if I'm using the right doors or not at Narita. They all have exclamation points and open for me so who knows.
Anyway, we grab a wonderious lunch at Fudruckers. They have just opened and the guy doesn't know how to use his credit card machine. So, I pay and give the receipt to Tim to expense later. Yay for cash.
We go to the business lounge. The guy tells Tim, "Sir, you can use the First Class Lounge" but we were meeting with some of his co-workers. This lounge system is interesting. Lots of chairs and places to charge your stuff with people hanging around trying to shove alcohol and snacks down you.
We didn't stay for long because they started boarding the plane almost an hour early. I ran and grabbed a pretzel and some lemonaid for the flight and we boarded. This was the second rude Dulles employee I've met today. Maybe it was early, maybe I wanted everyone to experience the warm excited blur I was in. He's probably just tired of herding people he can't communicate around. I dunno, but the plane is loading and this one group is hanging back and he just starts yelling at them to get moving. I think they didn't want to cut in line but I wanted to give dude a Valium.
The Husband is swept away to his little area. I find my seat and sit down. Only its not my seat. I thought that I seemed one seat back but I was in a happy buzz. So, when a guy asks me, 21B? I go... 20B... and get up to ask the kid in front of me... 20B? and he goes 19B? To ask the guy in in front of him who is the true cause of it all being one seat back and in an isle when he should have been in a row. As we are sorting ourselves, a steward goes 'Everyone needs to get seated' and the kid goes 'We're sorting it out, thanks'.
So we sit. My seat mate is a quiet Japanese man who naps most of the trip. There are a ton of kids around me, but I'll give the parents credit, they worked hard at trying to keep them quiet.
The flight wasn't bad. I was in Economy Plus so I had plenty of legroom. They fed us (nasty stuff) and gave us snacks, liquids, and such. There are TVs in the seats. I wasn't allowed to go visit the Husband but he was allowed to come back and slum. He was blocked the first time he went back for a moment until he convinced them that he did belong up there. He wound up sending me a cookie at Dinner and feeling a bit lonely. There were only three other people in first class and he discovered that he wanted to sit with me more. We're trying to arrange that on the way back and I'm not going to argue the business upgrade for me. Not that he'd listen to me again on that anyway.
We arrive at Narita. I'm excited. The flight took us up to the arctic circle and down across siberia. I really want to see a map and trace the flight path on a globe. But we are here and we get off the flight and the airport is HOT.
WTF? Its around 1530hrs, 90 degrees outside and the airport is burning up. We're all sweating by the time we reach customs. They gave us customs forms on the plane to make it all easier. We hang them over, have our index fingers scanned and a photo taken and we're done.
We're still sweating.
We stand at baggage and wait and wait and wait and none of our groups baggage shows up. Finally, a porter asks us if we were on this flight and we say yes. As we look up and down the baggage carousel we notice something down at the end.
Our bags. All taken off.
I guess becuase they had priority stickers on them.
So we collect out baggage. Collect our missing group member who took a different flight, and off we go to find out about taking the bus. Because, of our missing member we have to wait for the bus that leaves at 1750hrs. We hang around, buy some soda and stuff. I got some onigri. Rice balls are tasty. They had fish or something that was tasty inside.
The trip wasn't bad. The seats are small and we were hot and the Husband tired so some grumpyness set in. It was about two hours to the hotel with traffic and all. But we made it. We got dropped off at the hotel and checked in.
Most of the group decided to hit the sack. The Husband wanted to get food and so did I. We showed and changed. I wasn't smelly from the flight, but 2 hours in the non air conditioned airport and I was stank. I was tired but the 13 hours forward had moved me into my night schedule so I was ready to eat and go to bed. We wandered for a few blocks until it got really bright and neon.
We found a place with plastic food on display and energetic staff members moving people inside. I peeked in and saw a busy but heavenly smelling interior if you ignored the cig smoke. We decided to make the attempt. The exterior menu had enligh on it, as did hte interior. We got these big salads with beef on them and some fried chicken pieces and two sodas.
Everything was very tasty. Service was prompt. It was noisy without being irritating. We eat, were able to pay by card and headed back to the hotel.
We stopped a at convince store, found something that said Milk and had a cow on it, a box that had white grapes on it, and some cola flavored mentos.
Back to the hotel room to set up the internet, and zonk out
So I'm awake. As the Husband snores beside me, I'll write up yesterday's action.
Everything went pretty smoothly.
We left the house in plenty of time. We got to the airport around 1000hrs, which was the plan. Our flight was laving at 1250hrs but we wanted to make sure we had time to get a good meal. I'm glad we did.
We parked in economy and caught our buss. We made to to make lot and bus stop numbers down in our phones for later reference. The last thing we want to do is loose the car. Because the Husband was upgraded to first class we got to use the super short line at the airport. There was also a herd of boy scouts making an international flight somewhere.
As we entered the airport, a man had exited and was turning around trying to figure out which deck he wanted to get on. This TSA lady is leaving and she bellows in this horrible, bitchy SNARLY voice, "WRONG DOOR" to this poor guy. What the hell? There is almost no one around and people get confused at the airport. I have no clue if I'm using the right doors or not at Narita. They all have exclamation points and open for me so who knows.
Anyway, we grab a wonderious lunch at Fudruckers. They have just opened and the guy doesn't know how to use his credit card machine. So, I pay and give the receipt to Tim to expense later. Yay for cash.
We go to the business lounge. The guy tells Tim, "Sir, you can use the First Class Lounge" but we were meeting with some of his co-workers. This lounge system is interesting. Lots of chairs and places to charge your stuff with people hanging around trying to shove alcohol and snacks down you.
We didn't stay for long because they started boarding the plane almost an hour early. I ran and grabbed a pretzel and some lemonaid for the flight and we boarded. This was the second rude Dulles employee I've met today. Maybe it was early, maybe I wanted everyone to experience the warm excited blur I was in. He's probably just tired of herding people he can't communicate around. I dunno, but the plane is loading and this one group is hanging back and he just starts yelling at them to get moving. I think they didn't want to cut in line but I wanted to give dude a Valium.
The Husband is swept away to his little area. I find my seat and sit down. Only its not my seat. I thought that I seemed one seat back but I was in a happy buzz. So, when a guy asks me, 21B? I go... 20B... and get up to ask the kid in front of me... 20B? and he goes 19B? To ask the guy in in front of him who is the true cause of it all being one seat back and in an isle when he should have been in a row. As we are sorting ourselves, a steward goes 'Everyone needs to get seated' and the kid goes 'We're sorting it out, thanks'.
So we sit. My seat mate is a quiet Japanese man who naps most of the trip. There are a ton of kids around me, but I'll give the parents credit, they worked hard at trying to keep them quiet.
The flight wasn't bad. I was in Economy Plus so I had plenty of legroom. They fed us (nasty stuff) and gave us snacks, liquids, and such. There are TVs in the seats. I wasn't allowed to go visit the Husband but he was allowed to come back and slum. He was blocked the first time he went back for a moment until he convinced them that he did belong up there. He wound up sending me a cookie at Dinner and feeling a bit lonely. There were only three other people in first class and he discovered that he wanted to sit with me more. We're trying to arrange that on the way back and I'm not going to argue the business upgrade for me. Not that he'd listen to me again on that anyway.
We arrive at Narita. I'm excited. The flight took us up to the arctic circle and down across siberia. I really want to see a map and trace the flight path on a globe. But we are here and we get off the flight and the airport is HOT.
WTF? Its around 1530hrs, 90 degrees outside and the airport is burning up. We're all sweating by the time we reach customs. They gave us customs forms on the plane to make it all easier. We hang them over, have our index fingers scanned and a photo taken and we're done.
We're still sweating.
We stand at baggage and wait and wait and wait and none of our groups baggage shows up. Finally, a porter asks us if we were on this flight and we say yes. As we look up and down the baggage carousel we notice something down at the end.
Our bags. All taken off.
I guess becuase they had priority stickers on them.
So we collect out baggage. Collect our missing group member who took a different flight, and off we go to find out about taking the bus. Because, of our missing member we have to wait for the bus that leaves at 1750hrs. We hang around, buy some soda and stuff. I got some onigri. Rice balls are tasty. They had fish or something that was tasty inside.
The trip wasn't bad. The seats are small and we were hot and the Husband tired so some grumpyness set in. It was about two hours to the hotel with traffic and all. But we made it. We got dropped off at the hotel and checked in.
Most of the group decided to hit the sack. The Husband wanted to get food and so did I. We showed and changed. I wasn't smelly from the flight, but 2 hours in the non air conditioned airport and I was stank. I was tired but the 13 hours forward had moved me into my night schedule so I was ready to eat and go to bed. We wandered for a few blocks until it got really bright and neon.
We found a place with plastic food on display and energetic staff members moving people inside. I peeked in and saw a busy but heavenly smelling interior if you ignored the cig smoke. We decided to make the attempt. The exterior menu had enligh on it, as did hte interior. We got these big salads with beef on them and some fried chicken pieces and two sodas.
Everything was very tasty. Service was prompt. It was noisy without being irritating. We eat, were able to pay by card and headed back to the hotel.
We stopped a at convince store, found something that said Milk and had a cow on it, a box that had white grapes on it, and some cola flavored mentos.
Back to the hotel room to set up the internet, and zonk out
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.
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.
An Occasional Traveler
I never had a goal of traveling. It started when I was a kid and my mother would take me with her to her work conferences. I went to several parts of the US when I was in elementary school and middle school. In high school I started showing dogs and I got to travel all over the country to go to dog shows.
By the time I was in collage, I had a taste for it. I got to travel more to visit with friends and go places as a group. My school was also 1,400 miles from my house and I made that drive quite often.
I still did not have any established goals. I got to visit with friends off and on over the years but the concept that I would ever be financially secure enough to travel did not come until my late twenties.
My husband took a job that required about 25% travel. I found myself envious of him and his trips all over the planet. I wanted to see and experience these things as well. That is when the luck kicked in. I got to travel with him. It took me a bit to try it but after my first attempt, I'm trying to add a few more in.
I take photographs and I try to experience it to the fullest. I am a cautious eater at home but when I travel I try everything. I try to overcome my natural shyness and step out to experience what there is to experience. I'm trying to bring that to my daily life but its not as easy.
By the time I was in collage, I had a taste for it. I got to travel more to visit with friends and go places as a group. My school was also 1,400 miles from my house and I made that drive quite often.
I still did not have any established goals. I got to visit with friends off and on over the years but the concept that I would ever be financially secure enough to travel did not come until my late twenties.
My husband took a job that required about 25% travel. I found myself envious of him and his trips all over the planet. I wanted to see and experience these things as well. That is when the luck kicked in. I got to travel with him. It took me a bit to try it but after my first attempt, I'm trying to add a few more in.
I take photographs and I try to experience it to the fullest. I am a cautious eater at home but when I travel I try everything. I try to overcome my natural shyness and step out to experience what there is to experience. I'm trying to bring that to my daily life but its not as easy.
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