Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Thirty One Days and Counting

First and foremost today's post is regarding the fact that I have just booked us a visit to the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. I am really excited about this. It is a 75 minute tour and we had to apply for permission to do it. It's apparently all done in Japanese but they have English information cards. We're going on Tuesday, October 30 at 1:30pm. The details of how to do this are on this site.

Second point is to mention we've booked our flightline to get the heck to the airport. Seems it's cheaper to get picked up at one location so we're all meeting at one place for that. The flightline will be picking us up at 5:45am. Should be fun.

As final note as of today it is 31 days to go and counting. I really can't wait.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Japan - A World of Links

Second post for the Japan trip includes a series of links I've used for research.

First a couple general japan links.

One that I started with is Japan-Guide which is an English page of information about Japan that appears to be done outside of Japan. It has a lot of good links and it's been the basis for any of my rail travel information for the day trips we are going to take, such as how long it will take to get to a place and how.

Second I very recently found Japan's National Tourist Information Site which is also filled with a lot of very useful information. Between the two you can find out about just about any city, area, landmark or attraction. I highly recommend this link.

Third I am going to link to The Japan Rail Site which is an item that only people outside of Japan can buy. If you are a resident of Japan you cannot use it. This item allows you to purchase a 7, 14 or 21 day pass that can be used on almost all of the Japan Rail system. This excludes the fastest of the Shinkansen, bullet trains, but is overall a very good deal if you are going to use their rail system at all. We are purchasing 7 day passes and intend on 2 rail trips outside of Tokyo though the areas in question have not been sealed in blood yet. By the by, I have already ordered my voucher and it will be arriving to my house on September 14.

Following up the Japan Rail site I need to mention the Hyperdia-timetable site as it is very useful for finding scheduling information for trains. If you have both your beginning and ending points and a date and preferred time it will pretty much give you your best train options.

Next in no particular order are a bunch of sites that represent areas I've researched like Tokyo which we obviously will be visiting but also places we may want to visit: a site about Tokyo and a site about Yokohama and a site about Nagoya and a site about Kanazawa and a site about Kyoto and a site about Matsushima and a site about Himeji. We are not going to visit all of these places but I have presented them to the group for consideration as destinations. I also did quick research on Kobe and Nara but they are very distant or more of the same as Tokyo. I think my own hopes are to see Himeji Castle which is an old and very well maintained castle that is seen in movies such as Kagemusha. I am then torn between Nagoya and Kanazawa. Both provide very interesting things in very different veins. Matsushima would be very nice but it is going to be colder by then so the coast to the north may not be the best place to go in the first couple weeks of November.

For some nightlife links I have found the Metropolis Japan site which has some links to clubs and bars and even concert type events. It is basically a periodical with articles as well as other useful information all geared towards the expat or visitor. One site that I found interesting though I can't recall where I found it was Ninja Akasaka mainly because it looks odd. Japan has a lot of themed bars and I am sure we will be visiting a few, but who can resist 400 yen happy hours at Gas Panic Bar?

I know that it looks like a lot of links already but I've amassed even more than these. However the post is already getting excessive so I am going to stop here.

More will be coming soon.

Thanks
Tom