Passport Living – Travel for Life

Cherry Blossoms!

If you’ve been reading our plans, you know that our upcoming trip to Japan is being planned to coincide with the blooming of the cherry blossoms (sakura).  Predicting when the sakura will bloom can be iffy; weather plays a large part.  Well, the Cherry Blossom Forecast is out, and it looks like most of our trip is timed perfectly. Most destinations we will be smack dab in the middle of prime viewing. Only Tokyo will we be arriving just a little late.  We expected that, and we should still catch the tail end of the blossoms (We actually like it at the end of the blooming because the petals fall like snow).

Here is the link to the forecast

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Japan Itinerary Changes

Well, our trip has changed shape a bit from the last time we posted.  Kelley was researching train travel times between some of our destinations and a few days were a little too train-heavy.  We had to make a difficult decision-cut out Yakushima, an island off the southern tip of Kyushu.  Our original trip had us there for three nights; this trip we would only have been able to do two. It would have been rushed to do everything we wanted.  And, the ferry and then train to Yufuin would have been ungodly long.  We would only have a day to relax and then another long train to Kyoto.  It was hard because we really want to go to Yakushima, but I think that will have to wait until we have more time to spend there.  We can fly there from Tokyo so it will definitely be doable even if we don’t want to go through Kyushu again.

Anyway, a few other changes are evident as well.  We have been flip-flopping between Beppu and Yufuin for a while (Yufuin is smaller and more tasteful while Beppu is larger and tackier) but decided on Beppu partially because of train times (Yufuin is an hour out of the way) and partially because we decided to embrace the cheese.  We like laughing at tacky things.  We had to fill the two nights left from Yakushima so we added a night in Takachiho, which has a lovely gorge and nightly performances at a shrine.  We also decided to add a night to Kyoto.  We realized there was still a lot of things to see that we didn’t get to on our honeymoon, and we also didn’t want too many one night stays on this trip.

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Japan Travel Tips

Thought I’d add a few tips for planning a trip to Japan.  I’ll be adding to this as time goes on.

Booking hotels: japanican.com This website is run by the reputable JTB travel agency.  They have the most options for off the beaten path places (ie not Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, etc.) for an English website and have both hotels and ryokan (traditional Japanese inn).  Some hotels you will need to prepay, although there is no charge for cancellation.  The prices also seem better than on some other sites.

Train Travel:  The Japan Rail Pass is a must if you will be traveling around by train.  A one-week pass pays for itself with one Tokyo-Kyoto roundtrip, so any extra traveling is a bonus.  You must purchase the pass before you arrive in Japan; you will receive a voucher that you will exchange for the pass at a rail office in Japan.  There are many ways to purchase one, but on-line I have found the best is Kintetsu Travel.  They do not charge any extra fees on top of the pass cost (you could buy a pass from AAA, but you’ll pay way too much).  See kinetsu.com for details.

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Japan Here We Come!

Well, it is official:  we are going to Japan.  Weszt finally got vacation approval so we bought our airline tickets.  Kelley has been monitoring ticket prices for some time now, and so far we have been a bit disappointed.  We figured it would be cheaper to fly from the west coast (Portland) than the east coast (Orlando).  Unfortunately, that has not been the case.  We did discover priceline.com had the flights we wanted for $811 per person, while on delta, expedia, et al they fluctuated from $929 to $1280 any given day.  The flights are on Delta, and they are nonstop!  We are very excited about that.  This flight should be much easier than the previous two to Japan.

Anyways, back to the trip.  It will be just over two weeks and is basically a modified version of the trip we planned to take in 2008 but had to cancel. That trip was three weeks, so we cut the island of Shikoku and are sticking to Kyushu.  Tokyo is a given and Weszt wanted one night in Kyoto since we were there on our honeymoon.   Here is the tentative plan:

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Change of Plans

In the final minutes of preparation, we decided to pass on the Grand Canyon this time so that Kelley could recover from a cold. We’re still traveling, but will be visiting Sedona, Arizona and one other, to-be-determined destination instead. We’re disappointed for certain, but we’re going to make the most of it. Again we’re shown that flexibility and adaptability are important parts of travel plans.

Update: Took 18 hours of airports, flights, and car rides but we’re finally in Sedona. Kelley is feeling better so we’re going to eat some breakfast and figure out what we’re up for today.