Planning My Japan Trip

After my month in Thailand and my move into self employment it has felt like I have done lots of travelling which has been amazing! However, I did make a promise to myself, that at the end of every contract (client engagement), I would take a month off to travel. Despite my frequent travel with work/socially up to now, this is really my first time delivering on my promise to myself.

During my time at Hexcel, I had been toying with potential destinations as I expected to take some time off after that contract expired. However, due to the ComputaCenter contract popping up, and the fact I had travelled lots that year, I skipped and kept planning for the next opportunity.

My initial ideas were Japan/Korea or South America. After some research from friends who had been to South America, they seemed to think a month would not be enough to explore the continent. As I looked deeper into Japan/South Korea, it was clear I would not be doing Japan justice unless I spent the entire month there. So there it was, I had decided on Japan and now just had to wait until my Vegas trip to get the required Air Miles to fly for free (apart from the tax which you have to pay).

I had decided I did not want to renew my contract ending on 31st July quite early and informed the client in around February/March. On the 16th April 2015, I had finally snapped up my flights and my dates were set for the 5th August – 5th September 2015.

Now my flights were booked it was time to full on plan! I admit that I did not do this the way a normal person would, decide what they wanted to see/do then plan a route. I basically went on Trip Advisor and stole some routes but adjusted them to the amount of time I wanted to spend at each place. There was a lot of tweaking initially and some late changes (this week) but I had the skeleton of my trip sorted pretty early to be honest.

So here is my final itinerary;

Aug

6 Tokyo 7 Tokyo 8 Tokyo 9 Tokyo – Nagoya 10 Nagoya (Kyoto day trip) 11 Nagoya – Takayama 12 Takayama – Shirakawago – Kanazawa 13 Kanazawa – Osaka 14 Osaka (Nara) 15 Osaka (Himeji/Kobe) 16 Osaka 17 Osaka 18 Koya – Overnight 19 Osaka 20 Osaka flying to Miyako 21 -26 Miyako Island 27 Miyako Island – Osaka 28 Osaka – Hiroshima 29 Hiroshima (Miyajima) 30 Hiroshima – Kumamoto 31 Kumamoto – Shimabara

Sept

1 Shimabara – Nagasaki 2 Nagasaki 3 Nagasaki – Tokyo 4 Tokyo 5 Tokyo – UK

It’s hard to say what parts I am looking forward to the most, Tokyo of course to experience the madness but Osaka is meant to be incredible, Kyoto is meant to be beautiful and I am looking forward to flying to and chilling out on the Miyakojima (island) beaches for a week!

Next up was to book hotels for each stop as I had heard it is notoriously difficult to get last minute accommodation in Japan at a decent price. I thought I would do mostly book now, pay later for flexibility but wanted to tie down the first few stays on my travels. The only bookings of real note are my first nights in Tokyo being in a Capsule Hotel and my stay in Koyasan being in a traditional Ryokan.

Now, I had to work out what I was going to fill my time up at all these places. I had been watching loads of YouTube videos throughout so I had some idea but I wanted to get a definitive list. So that was what I spent my time on, I have no idea whether the list of places is achievable in the time I am there but still… I have a list of things I would like to do at each destination.

That is where I am at the moment, there is still a lot to do and only 43 days left before I go. These are some of the things I have left to sort;

  • Work out order for places to visit/see and work out how to get there
  • Japan Rail Pass – this has to be bought from abroad and gets you across the country on the Shinkansen (Bullet Trains)
  • Learn some basic Japanese

Normally I do not condone this level of planning for a trip, I say be spontaneous! However, with the lack of English speaking/English signage out there and the fact I cover so much ground and want to see so much, it would be foolish not to plan it meticulously. I will not be going crazy and planning where to eat though, apart from Kobe, I am pretty excited about having a Kobe beef dinner.

I will be updating this as I go along on my travels as I will be taking my laptop and iPad. Even if nobody reads it, it will be good for me to look back on because apart from photos, it is hard to remember everything when moving from place to place.

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