plans

a few days ago, all i knew was that i was 98% sure i was going to japan this spring. now, i have most of the trip blocked out in a schedule and the flights and hotels are booked. hooray! (it was really hard to find hotels that had availability on the dates we wanted, especially in kyoto. granted, we are going at pretty much the busiest time of year. keep that in mind if you plan on going to japan during cherry blossom season. book waaaaay in advance.)

Day 0 – Tuesday, March 31
fly to Japan
13:40pm ….

Day 1 – Wednesday, April 1
….15:35
arrive at Haneda airport
pick up JR passes
check in to hotel - Celestine Hotel (Shiba)

Day 2 – Thursday, April 2
asakua http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3004.html
sky tree http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3064.html
open everyday 8:00-22:00 3090 yen
ueno http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3019.html
shitamachi museum – closed M, open 9:30-16:30 300 yen
national museum closed M, open 9:30-17:00 620yen
ameyoko http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3012.html

Day 3 – Friday, April 3
take shinkansen to kamakura and back
daibutsu
temples – hasedera, engakuji, kenchoji
shrines – hachimangu

Day 4 – Saturday, April 4
shibuya http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3007.html (dogenzaka, center gai, tokyu)

Day 5 – Sunday, April 5
harajuku http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3006.html
yoyogi http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3034_002.html closes at 20:00
meiji http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3002.html closes at sunset - inner garden 9-16:00 500 yen

Day 6 – Monday, April 6
yokohama http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2156.html
chinatown http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3201.html 
ramen museum http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3202.html
open everyday 11-22:00 300 yen

Day 7 – Tuesday, April 7
akihabara http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3003.html
edo-tokyo museum http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3070.html
closed M, open 9:30-17:30 (19:30 on sat) 600 yen
kokugikan http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3022.html 
closed W, open 10-16:30

Day 8 – Wednesday, April 8
ghibli museum http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3041.html
closed tues, open 10-18:00 – purchase tickets in advance from JTB (with JR passes)

Day 9 – Thursday, April 9
check out of hotel
take shinkansen to Kyoto http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2158.html 
check into hotel - Hotel Boston Plaza Kusatsu
shopping in kyoto station
ginkakuji
ryoanji
byodoin

Day 10 – Friday, April 10
fushimi inari taisha
gion
higashiyama
yasaka shrine
maruyama park

Day 11 – Saturday, April 11
take shinkansen back to tokyo
check in to hotel - Ginza Grand Hotel

Day 12 – Sunday, April 12
imperial palace http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3017.html
closed M & F, open 9-16:30 - book tickets online
tokyo station http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3037.html 
ginza http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3005.html 
kabukiza – single act ticket available at window on the day
http://blog.gaijinpot.com/kabukiza-theater-tickets/

Day 13 – Monday, April 13
take train to nikko
check in to hotel - Nikko Station Hotel Classic‏
toshogu http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3801.html
open everyday 8-17:00  1300 yen

Day 14 – Tuesday, April 14
nikko edomura http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3879.html 
closed W, open 9-17:00  4700 yen
take train back to Tokyo
check in to hotel - Royal Park Hotel The Haneda‏

Day 15 – Wednesday, April 15
check out of hotel
shopping at airport
fly home 17:40-16:40


71 days to go!

pocari sweat

my first purchase ever out of a japanese vending machine was a bottle of pocari sweat at narita airport.

hmm, what to buy?

to me, at that point, it was kind of a thing. japan is known for it's abundance of vending machines and for the bizarre and wonderful things stocked within them. pocari sweat was also known to me, years before setting foot in the country. i can't even remember where i first heard of it (possibly youtube vloggers, possibly from jlist) but the drink has it's own notoriety online. 

the things we gaijin consider unusual become almost legendary. now, i guess because it's not new to me, i can't fathom what about pocari sweat is unusual. i think it's due to the name? idk. what's funny about sweat? maybe we think, 'ewwwww, sweat, gross. i don't want to drink sweat.' i was telling hubby the other day that people think it's funny because maybe they think it's a misspelling of sweet. (not sure about the truth of that...) when you know what it actually is, the name makes total sense. from what i understand, it's a sports drink. like gatorade. to replenish what your body loses when you sweat. (wikipedia here.) 

while in japan, i drank a few of them. but i really got to know pocari when i was in hong kong for a month in 2013 for school (there's a blog for that.) and discovered the REAL beauty of this somewhat soft drink. if you drink a whole can after a night of heavy drinking (BEFORE passing out), you drastically diminish your odds of having a hangover the next day. i swear by it. i bought it by the litre and there was always a giant bottle of it to be found in our mini-fridge.

on our second evening in hong kong
- note the can in my hand and how intoxicated i appear
(and i felt completely fine the next day)

they should really start selling it in regular grocery stores here. just saying. (you can buy it at asian markets like t&t or probably oceans or in chinatown.)

here's an example of one of those youtube videos (obviously not the one i would have seen, being this one was uploaded after i was in japan - but you get the idea). he's grossed out at first, because of the name. 

if you ask me, this drink is a win. and you can base that solely on the hangover-reducing qualities. taste-wise...? uh, it's okay. not something to drink for pure refreshment. but really, how good does gatorade taste? ...exactly.

now that i think about is ~ calpis sounds much funnier. and tastes much better. 

hiragana & katakana

i don't know if i'm going to have roaming turned on when i go to japan. i assume not, but JUST IN CASE, wouldn't it be helpful for me to have some japanese at my fingertips? yes. so this is for me and my own use:

あ い う え お        ア イ ウ エ  オ

か き く け こ        カ キ ク ケ コ

さ し す せ そ        サ シ ス セ ソ

た ち つ て と        タ チ ツ テ ト

な に ぬ ね の        ナ ニ ヌ ネ ノ

は ひ ふ へ ほ        ハ ヒ フ ヘ ホ

ま み む め も        マ ミ ム メ モ

や       ゆ      よ        ヤ      ユ     ヨ

ら り る れ ろ        ラ リ ル レ ロ

わ                  を        ワ             ヲ

ん                  ン

が ぎ ぐ げ ご        ガ ギ グ ゲ ゴ

ざ じ ず ぜ ぞ        ザ ジ ズ ゼ ゾ

だ            で ど        ダ            デ ド

ば び ぶ べ ぼ        バ ビ ブ ベ ボ

ぱ ぴ ぷ ぺ ぽ        パ ピ プ ペ ポ

ゃゅょ っ           ャュョ ッ ー ァィゥェォ

travel phrases

this is a list of phrases i had ready to go last time... not sure how helpful they will be this time considering i have forgotten 95% of the japanese i learned. :(  these aren't the phrases you would think - like, where is the washroom? or how much does this cost? apparently, 5 years ago, these are the phrases i wanted to remember.

i don't know. - shirimasen.
i forgot. - wasuremashita.
please repeat that. - mou ichido onegaishimasu.
please show me ~ . -  ~ o mitte kudasai.
let's have a drink together. - ippai nomimashou.
i'm staying at a hotel. - hoteru ni tomarimasu.
jason cannot speak japanese. - jason san wa nihongo ga/o (hanasu koto ga) dekimasen.
i want to buy souveniers before i go home. - (kanada he) kaeru mae ni omiyage o kaitai desu.
we got married 8 years ago. - (watashitachi wa) hachi nen mae ni kekkonshimashita.
can i take pictures here? - koko ni shashin o totte mo ii desu ka?
i'm full. - onaka ga ippai desu.
i'm hungry. - onaka ga sukimashita.
i'm thirsty. - nodo ga kawakimashia.
may i take your order? - gochuumon wa.
excuse me, can you take our picture? - sumimasen ga, sashin o isshoni totte kudasai.
sorry, but could you take one more? - aa, sumimasen ga, mou ichido totte kudasai.
(right before eating) - itadakimasu.
(when done eating) - gochisousamadeshita.

accommodations

now is the time when i have to start looking into places to stay in japan. we'll definitely be in both tokyo and kyoto again, but since we haven't narrowed down if we adding other stops and which those might be (nikko? nara? etc.), i haven't even started with those yet.

i saw a video about a group of themed hostels in tokyo from a girl i subscribe to on youtube who lives in japan. she only highlights the one she stayed at (obviously) - the ninja one - but they also have samurai, kabuki, origami, labratory, and "world" themes ones. they look so cool! and the prices are pretty good.
but hubby said "shared bathroom? no way." so that kiboshed that. but if you're headed to japan and aren't afraid of shared facilities, check it out. www.khaosan-tokyo.com




another cheaper option are the business hotels. meant for business men who don't live in the area but are attending late night company parties and meetings, i guess. they are often VERY cramped, but at least have the privacy that hostels and economy hotels lack.
this list has a few, as well as some other options http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2012/feb/01/10-best-budget-hotels-tokyo

and for the extremely budget conscious, check out this list of options (mcdonald's? really?) http://blog.gaijinpot.com/cheap-accommodation-in-japan

i have a feeling the husband is NOT going to go for any of those options. he mentioned just staying at the same place we did last time - the prince park tower hotel in hamamatsucho. it was pretty expensive... but hey, he's paying. whatever. it was also supernice, so i would not complain. 

as for kyoto~ last time was stayed at the hotel granvia. again, supernice... superexpensive.

it was great. connected to the kyoto station. very convenient. but... not helpful for anyone who doesn't want to spend a shitton. i gotta work on that to come up with some more affordable options (whether we go that route or not ourselves, it's helpful info for other people who may be looking at this to help plan their own trips) so i'll get back to you on that later. 


a lot of stuff i know about japan - these little tidbits i become obsessed with - are usually things i hear about from documentaries. one (of the thousands) of these things i saw on a doc and am enchanted by are machiya. otherwise, townhouses. these would be the really old, street front homes. generally one would think of kyoto for this type of home. there was a lot of them being renovated in recent years and i just found out that someone has turned some into guest homes. sweet! 

so, this may be an option too. 
http://www.kyoto-machiya.com/eng/ 
i have yet to show it to my husband so we'll see how that goes. it looks amazing. *fingers crossed*

going back

i didn't think i'd ever get to use this blog again, but guess what? hubby and i are going back to japan!! i could not be more excited.

this time, we've decided to time it to see the cherry blossoms. that's something that was on my original must-do list, but we couldn't make it work. only problem is that the planning time is more rushed. we are aiming to go for the end of march/early april. i've got a lot of work to do. like last time, i'm unemployed, so i've got the time. i've just been... in a funk. extreme laziness is the main symptom. better get started now.

my only ideas this time around, so far are:

hanami (cherry blossom viewing party crashing - ueno park?)

revisiting some of the same places as last time - wandering akihabara, tokyo station, fushimi inari taisha

ghibli museum (missed it last time - best to buy tickets at the same time as getting the JR pass because they sell out) 

more temples and shrines

gundam cafe

imperial palace

and maybe head out to nikko or kamakura~

edo wonderland

daibutsu

things i want to buy:

toilet slippers

uwabaki

eco powder for used cooking oil (katamete-pon)

bull dog sauce

heated toilet seat?

wagashi

konpeito

i love how i wrote out precise instructions on obtaining an exchange order for the JR pass. i was doing it to help out other people (even though no one reads this blog), but as it turns out, i helped myself. there is no way i would have remembered all that. i just hope the process hasn't changed in 5 years. (has it really been that long?!)

i'm still trying to update the days from my first trip... i SWEAR, i will stay on top of it this time around. even if it's just point form with pictures, i WILL post something every day when we're there again.

a long story about nothing much in particular

i don't, by any stretch of the imagination, consider myself a blogger... and yet i have 2 blogs (2.5 really since i have a 3rd which was supposed to replace this one). i told my friend in a facebook message that i hadn't written a post for a long time and that maybe i should. so~ maybe i should. 

i haven't yet decided what i'm going to write about so i'll be making that up as i go. and since this is supposed to be a japanese-themed blog, i suppose i should stay in that area. 

~~~~~
i must admit something. i'm a fan of morning musume (and much of the other crap thrust out into the world of j-pop from under the hello!project umbrella). it's a guilty pleasure. it's just so.... pop-py. so singable. so danceable. and so damn cute with their sickly sweet and innocent lyrics. but something just now occured to me tonight why i might like them. ...or perhaps it's just my snobishness trying to find deeper meaning in the otherwise meaningless and therefore embarrassing delight i feel when i listen to them (the most played on my i-tunes ...other than weezer, of course!)

please bear with me as i digress for a moment~ 

at the end of the school year, several parents give teachers gifts. i was very happy to receive several myself. one of my kid's parents gave me a $25 i-tunes card.

anyone who knows me knows i'm an avid and shamless pirate but i was still happy nonetheless because there are songs you just can't download off torrents from time to time. so, almost right away, i added the card to my account and purchased the cars 2 theme "you might think" by weezer and something by lady gaga. i still had $22.72 left on the card. two days later, i went back into the i-tunes store not to buy something but just to look up what a certain song that i didn't have in my own personal collection sounded like. i noticed that my balance was now at 74 cents. wtf?! so i went to my history and somehow, i figured, someone had hacked my account and purchased some weird app and installation thingy totaling the difference. i was pissed. i ended up writing to support, changing my password, etc. (luckily, my credit card info wasn't on the account ~although i remembered putting it in...) anyway~ a very nice guy from i-tunes made an exception for me and reinstated the money and also gave me 5 free song credits! (yay him ~ made my day.) 

so, slightly back on topic~

tonight, i stumbled across rivers cuomo's website (http://riverscuomo.com/) which i never knew existed and was perusing the discography section (actually, the entire website thoroughly, but only the discography part is relevant to this account) and i came across a few songs he had collaborated on with other artists that i was previously unaware of. (normally, i would have known since i was a frequent reader of weezerpedia... but it's been down for several months.) 

since the incident with the i-tunes theft, i have been nervous about the same thing happening again, however unlikely. i thought it would be wise to use it up as soon as possible so every now and then, i go on to see if anything new has been released from weezer or if there is something new in the north american music scene that i actually like. no such luck usually. (as previously mentioned, i mostly listen to japanese music, much of which is only available on japan i-tunes.) so, after learning about these songs, i logged in and bought 5 songs featuring rivers cuomo with my free credits. that was all i could find. 

i still have that $22.72 to use up and still feel uneasy about it but i don't want to buy something for no reason. i was even going to buy some foo fighters stuff (husband and i just went to their concert on tuesday ~ it was pretty awesome!) but i could easily find that on torrents if my husband didn't already have it, which he does. 

on rivers' page, it mentioned he will be releasing a japanese language album (i'm so excited about it! he previews on of the songs on his youtube account and i LOVE it. check it out.) and it will be titled the kumamoto kid.

i thought i would type in kumamoto into the i-tunes search to see what would turn up. i already knew i wouldn't find anything of rivers but i didn't know what the name is in reference to so i thought i'd see if anything came up. (i looked it up on wikipedia too. it's a city in kyushu. ...maybe that's where his wife is from?)

when you search kumamoto, there are some apps and podcasts to do with the city. i scrolled down to the songs section and the very first one listed is called songs of kumamoto and the album it's from is what piqued my interest. it's called traditional folk songs of japan. i clicked on it, selected the first song and hit preview all.

that's what i'm listening to as i've been writing this.

and now back to my original point...

immediately what struck me was how the background singers chanting-style singing sounded exactly like what morning musume frequently does in their music. so, maybe tsunku writes songs with a little more substance than what i previously thought? ne? shh. just let me think that so i don't feel like a brainless idiot.

another thing i found interesting was that the very first song on the 2-disc album is called soran bushi. when i listened to it, i found a similarity to the melody of the para para song odore! soran by the group soran happies.

judging by the name, it's probably no mistake. i learn things about japan by looking them up online. not always the most reputable but the best option i have. i thought i had read that odore meant dance and i just assumed that the soran part was taken from the name of the group. never thought to check it out. after i heard the song, i decided to look it up again. apparently, whatever i had read (or my own mind) had mixed up odore with odori. as in bon odori~ a type of dance. denshi jisho informs me that odore is an insulting way of saying you in the hyougo banshu dialect (whatever that is). and soran only refers to that particular song which wikipedia says is one of the most famous traditional songs in japan, originally sung by the fisherman of hokkaido. it's also frequently sung along with bon odori... so i was wrong... but sort of right.

when i heard the similarity between the songs, i wasn't imagining it. i was thinking i was really clever knowing that the modern pop song was referencing an old traditional song... silly me. all the japanese kids probably got that right away.

anyway, i learned something.

now my only problem is, do i buy just that song or the whole album. my card doesn't cover the whole $24.99. what to do?...