Saturday 13 March 2010

Adventure progress report [Originally posted 13 Mar 2010]

Well, my Rail Pass arrived, which is the first physical evidence of this whole thing starting to happen... Quite exciting :)  I'm trying not to think of how much this thing costs...

  Exciting!
I've also managed to get a ticket for the Studio Ghibli museum in Mitaka on the 9th April which should be awesome :)

Each morning I've been reading more of the Rough Guide to Japan and marking down places that I'd like to visit. So far I've got places like Nagoya (for its robot museum and good noodles - tebasaki) Togakushi (Ninja museum!)  then Kanbayashi-Onsen to see the snow monkeys, if they're still around...

I really want to get some time in Kyoto as it sounds fascinating but accomodation might be really difficult. It's quite near Nara and Kobe, but neither of those are worth spending more than a few hours in by the looks of it. I think three days in Kyoto would be about right but when? Going to have a look at hostels this afternoon and see what's available...

~aFx

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Adventuring East [Originally posted 03 March 2010]

So, what I was alluding to before was that:

I am GOING TO JAPAN soon!

In fact, I'm going in just over a month. I can't wait to be over there, to be immersed in such an alien environment...  It's going to be ridiculous. I learned a little Japanese last year when I went on a beginner's language course, and I'm trying to cover the basics again with this massively Eighties video course I've found.
At the moment, it's looking like I'm going to be spending about 5 days in Tokyo. After which I'll move south west and check out various cities and places along the rail routes until reaching Hiroshima where a friend of mine has been teaching English for a while.

For Tokyo, I've already got accomodation sorted for staying in Asakusa for the first few days. I think I should try and move location to the West of the city for the last couple of days there as I want to check out Shinjuku, Roppongi and then Harajuku on the Sunday.

From the next Monday...  I've not decided yet.

There are a few things I want to do, such as:
  • Visit Kobe for some ridiculous beef 
  • See Kyoto
  • Do the whole cherry-blossom-festival thing
  • Poke around Akihabara
  • Visit the Studio Ghibli Museum! (Just applied for a ticket)
  • See the Tsukiji Fish Market while jetlagged all to hell
  • See a castle or two
  • Make Okonomiyaki!
  • Visit Osaka
  • Visit the Peace Park in Hiroshima
  • Get dragged to some Karaoke
  • Take lots and lots of pictures (hey, turnabout is fair play, right?)
I'm going to be blogging while I'm over there to stay sane and to keep photographs and experiences in order. Really looking forward to it, though the prospect of travelling around by myself is quite daunting.
More to follow once I've worked out where I'm going!

 ~aFx