Japan - Almost there!!
 

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for all the help you've given me in planning our trip. We leave in about 35 hours!!

I'm kinda nervous because I haven't even begun to pack yet. I've had to work the last 17 days in a row (today will be 18) and for the last 6 days, I've been working 11+ hour days. I just wish I felt more prepared (silly to say since I've been working on this for MONTHS), but I'm sure it will all work out and we'll have a great time.

Thanks again and I hope I can provide a trip report when we return that will prove to be of help and interest to others.

Judy

ok, have a good trip. you know if you wait until the last second to pack then packing only takes a second!

Waiting until the last minute to pack is exactly how I do it. Then I don't agonize over what to bring, and I bring less.

have a great time! can't wait for your trip report.

Oh the envy!! Have fun and be sure to post your trip report for us to enjoy.

9 more hours! Just need to go through and organize all my research materials. At least I'm all packed (except for my research folders).

Whew! Sleep on an air-conditioned plane -- sounds heavenly right now. :-)

"See" everyone when we get back!

Judy

Have a great time!

Aloha!

I missed out on this thread as I have had out of town house guests this week. But I wanted to add my best wishes to jlaughs for her trip (even if she doesn't see it til she gets back). Maybe the current CA heat wave got her ready for the summer heat in Japan. Hopefully jlaughs made it to the fireworks in Asakusa last night (or whenever, time change totally boggles me) and made it to some hotel somewhere with her luggage either with her or showing up later! Seriously, I hope she can relax now and rely on her planning and have a great trip.

Welcome back, Judy. Have fun unpacking and get some rest. Let us hear about your trip when you get a chance (and let us know how that luggage got to the Conrad on the first night, we have bets going on that one). Did you feel prepared enough to be able to enjoy it? I hope (and think) the answer is yes!

Hi emd (and everyone else),

Made it back yesterday, just in time to miss the madness at LAX and other airports because of the recent attempted terrorism. News reports show the crowds (and lines) of people at LAX.

I will definitely be putting together some type of trip report, but just thought I'd answer a couple of quick questions. The weather in Santa Monica before we left definitely helped prepare us for Japan weather. We even thought the weather in Santa Monica had been worse than the weather in Tokyo for the first couple of days, but that might have just been because my BF's apartment is not air-conditioned and my office is not air-conditioned, so the heat and humidity was pretty miserable.

We arrived in Japan earlier than our scheduled 3:55p. We touched down at 3:28p, went through Customs, got our luggage, bought our bus tickets, activated our JR pass, made reservations for our return JR N'EX trip and still had to wait a bit for the next scheduled bus to the Conrad at 5:25p. We made it to the Conrad (sorry, I didn't write down how long it took) and left our luggage. We got directions to the Shimbashi station and confirmed which subway line to take to Asakusa. Everything up to this point was very easy. When we got to the station, however, we were a bit lost as we didn't understand the layout and that we had to go downstairs to find the Asakusa line subway platform. The BTS skytrain in Bangkok is so simplistic in comparison (each station is just that station with only 2 ways to go), that I was unprepared for the Japanese subway system even though I'd tried to do research beforehand. Then, once we got to Asakusa, we had no idea which exit to take (this continued to be confusing our entire trip at almost every subway station we stopped at), so we just followed the crowd. Asakusa was, as expected, PACKED! We were able to watch the fireworks with a little obstruction from a building. Even though we didn't get there from the beginning, the fireworks seemed to go on for quite awhile. We were already in the process of trying to make our way out of the crowd where we were packed in when the fireworks ended. It was definitely an experience. I had expected there to be more of a "festival" atmosphere with maybe some food booths and such, but we didn't see anything like this. It could be that we just weren't in the right area since we never did make it to Sumida Park.

After the fireworks ended, we made it to our hotel fairly easily, checked in and went out again to look around. Our hotel was just a few steps away and on the same side of the street as Kaminarimon, so we ended up walking down and around Nakamise dori. We actually did quite a bit of wandering and there were still plenty of people around. We finally stopped to eat at a Pepper Lunch using a vending machine to order our food. We shared an order of something that was kinda like fried rice with corn, peas and carrots in the middle surrounded by thin slices of beef that cooked on the stone plate it was served on. The food stayed very hot because of this plate. We got back to our room around 11:30p and took showers. I rinsed out my pants since I'd planned to wear them the next day again, wrote a bit in my journal and was in bed by about 12:45a.

Although many people warned me about not planning to do too much our first night because of exhaustion, I was pretty confident that my BF and I would be fine. Based on our own experiences of traveling to other Asian countries, I knew that we both react the same way upon arrival. We're "wired" and ready to explore. So, we hit the ground running and it all worked out great for us.

Well, will report more in my actual trip report and will probably repeat day 1 again for continuity. I must warn, however, that I did not keep as meticulous notes for the remainder of the trip as I did in the beginning and I didn't even take cursory notes the last 3 days. So, I will try to get to my report soon while my memory is still somewhat fresh.

Thanks for everyone's help beforehand and I hope that my experiences will help others with their future trip planning.

Judy

So, who won the bet?

Judy

Still sleeping a lot, so haven't finished unpacking but I've got to get my act together by Monday so I can get back to work. I don't officially go back to work until August 28, but I've moved offices so I need to go and unpack all my boxes and get organized.

Judy, just a gentle nudge to let you know that we would love to see more about your trip when you get time to post...

Thanks for the nudge, emd. I haven't forgotten. I don't know why, but I've kinda been procrastinating a bit on this. Maybe because I took so many pictures, the "job" seems a little daunting. I finished going through all 1348 pictures I took (but I just remembered tonight that I took some still shots with my camcorder so I need to transfer those pictures from that memory card to my computer as well). I've culled it down to 900, but that's still a heck of a lot of pictures. Yikes!!

I actually just started working on my personal trip journal last night. Once I'm done, I will probably just cut and paste the text here.

I promise I WILL post a report!! Sorry it's taking me awhile.

Judy

how's the report coming, judy?
i keep checking to see if you've posted. maybe you can just do a shorter recap for us instead of a big longer report?

We don't need pictures, maybe just a shortened trip report as emd suggested. I did mine right away as I did not take notes and didn't want to forget.

Hi emd and everyone else,

I really am so sorry that my report is taking so long. Believe me, I haven't forgotten. Since returning to work, I've been working a minimum of 11-hr day everyday plus weekends. When I get home, I work on my report and pictures until about midnight and I'm still only on day 4.

I feel very guilty for not having posted anything yet after all the help I received. I will try to get something up next weekend even if, as you say, it's just a condensed version.

Please know that I truly do appreciate all the help I received and don't interpret my delay in posting a report as a lack of appreciation.

Judy

oh no, it's not that, we are just japan junkies and want the fix! It's been awhile since we've had any kind of trip report. ms_go posted her trip pictures in mid-July, but we haven't had a trip report in a longer time...