I looked at my calendar this week and realized - only two more months in Japan! So I finally took the time to decide which places I really want to see in Japan, and wrote down how much time I want to spend at each place. As it turns out, I have just enough time to see everything that I want! (or at least the top priority stuff... I guess you could spend years traveling in Japan and still discover new things) Lucky I made the list this week and didn't delay it any further... *phew*
There are a couple of day or weekend trips left in the Kansai area and western Honshu, mainly Hiroshima, Koya-san, Ise, Himeji - and several visits to Kyoto. I'll do these smaller trips on all the weekends when I'm not on one of my three bigger trips.
For the three bigger trips, I bought a couple of plane tickets yesterday, so most of the dates are fixed. I'll use trains for two of the six journeys, so I still have some flexibility to change or adjust my plans. Buying the plane tickets was very convenient (like many things in Japan... just thinking about the delivery service, for example). The three airlines that I checked all have reservation websites in English. The only data they ask for are name, age and sex - they require neither passport numbers nor addresses, like European airlines seem to do. Payment was equally painless - you can either use a credit card or pay cash in a convenience store. I know how to use a credit card, so I chose the convenience store option to see how it works.
Basically, the convenience store has a multimedia terminal where you can pay for all kinds of things - for example prepaid phone cards and all kinds of tickets. So you use either the flight date, flight number, your name and reservation number (for ANA flights), or the company code and order number (for Skymark flights), and enter them into the terminal. The terminal then prints some kind of application slip which you take to the cashier to pay. After paying, you get a receipt which states your flight data and confirms payment. They say that I'll have to show this receipt at the airport. Well, I'll see how that works out :-)
So, the first of the three trips will take me to Kyushu next week. I'll first visit Aso-san and do some hiking, and then spend a couple of days in Nagasaki. I'm very curious to see the atomic bomb memorials in Nagasaki. From what I've heard, it can be pretty hard and depressing, especially if you're there on your own. I'll let you know how it was once I have first-hand experience.
On the second trip - and I'm really looking forward to this one - I will visit the Ryukyu islands, with Okinawa and Yaeyama being my main destinations. I'll go there at the beginning of April. Sun... Warmth... Nature... I can't wait to get there!
And finally, the third trip will take me to Tokyo! I'll also visit some places around Tokyo, like Nikko and Hakone, and some places that are (more or less) on the way between Osaka and Tokyo. I hope I can squeeze in a day of hiking in the Japan Alps, too. I'll go there just before I leave Japan, at the end of April and beginning of May.
So, now that you know my plans, feel free to poke me when I get behind blogging about any of these trips! :-)
