I'm writing this entry at the Frankfurt's airport, more specifically at Hausmann's restaurant. Flight from Helsinki to Frankfurt went smoothly. Weather good and no big bumps on the way. So now part one of the trip is over. Now I have to kill some 4 hours waiting for next flight that takes me all the way to the Narita!
At Hausmann I ate breakfast called Toast eggs benedict which was toasted bread with poached organic eggs with green green aparagus, hollandaise sauce and crispy bacon. Added to this Tropical inferno smoothie with kiwi, banana, pineapple juice and passion fruit juice. All very good. Pictures to follow but I'm not sure where I put the cable to connect camera and computer. I hope I didn't leave it to home! Alternatively it's very well hidden at my hand luggage or maybe I put it to main luggage? If I forgot I'll just have to buy one at Japan.
Anyway now I'm off to check stores around here and then head toward the port where I'll be continuing my travel. Next post will probably happen sometimes tomorrow when I have reached my home. Hopefully with cable so that I could upload some pictures!
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Ready, set...
...And tomorrow morning GO!
Final preparations are well on their way. I just need to go to bank, maybe buy couple more souvenirs to take with me, finalize packing and most of all go sleep early. Then I'm all ready to go. Early to sleep is pretty important as the plane leaves 6.35AM and I need to go to the airport, preferably without particular rush. So I'll be waking up VERY early...Brings memories of last time I went outside Finland when flights left very early too. Though at least this time departure time plays to my advantage due to the resulting arrival time as I definitely prefer to arrive early to give me ample time to find my way around Tokyo...
Luckily the company renting apartment has very clear looking guide on how to get from Shinjuku station to their office with some pictures too. Needless to say I have that printed to take along. Unfortunately from there to my apartment located in different special ward(ward being practically like city of it's own. Tokyo is more like 23 finnish cities merged together...) I'm on my own. They will NOT accompany me(well guess that would require more workers if they would escort everybody to their apartment) so while they will probably give me some guidance I'm still going to do the navigating there on my own.
First day will most definitely be the hardest. I wonder if I have much time to check the neighbourhood? Not planning any long trips for sure but little walkabouts around the block could be handy to familiarize myself to the place. Also learning the route to and from the station inside out is definitely on my lists to do in the first 2 days!
As my nerves have been on the edge so to speak in the last few days from the excitement I have been trying to listen all sorts of soothing songs. This is one of my new favourites. Sound of rain is pretty pleasant(provided you aren't IN the rain) and the shakuhachi flute has kind of an eerie sound.
Final preparations are well on their way. I just need to go to bank, maybe buy couple more souvenirs to take with me, finalize packing and most of all go sleep early. Then I'm all ready to go. Early to sleep is pretty important as the plane leaves 6.35AM and I need to go to the airport, preferably without particular rush. So I'll be waking up VERY early...Brings memories of last time I went outside Finland when flights left very early too. Though at least this time departure time plays to my advantage due to the resulting arrival time as I definitely prefer to arrive early to give me ample time to find my way around Tokyo...
Luckily the company renting apartment has very clear looking guide on how to get from Shinjuku station to their office with some pictures too. Needless to say I have that printed to take along. Unfortunately from there to my apartment located in different special ward(ward being practically like city of it's own. Tokyo is more like 23 finnish cities merged together...) I'm on my own. They will NOT accompany me(well guess that would require more workers if they would escort everybody to their apartment) so while they will probably give me some guidance I'm still going to do the navigating there on my own.
First day will most definitely be the hardest. I wonder if I have much time to check the neighbourhood? Not planning any long trips for sure but little walkabouts around the block could be handy to familiarize myself to the place. Also learning the route to and from the station inside out is definitely on my lists to do in the first 2 days!
As my nerves have been on the edge so to speak in the last few days from the excitement I have been trying to listen all sorts of soothing songs. This is one of my new favourites. Sound of rain is pretty pleasant(provided you aren't IN the rain) and the shakuhachi flute has kind of an eerie sound.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Trip of a lifetime
As I write it's almost exactly 7 days to when plane will take off from Frankfurt towward Narita airport in Japan. My extended holiday trip to Japan is so close I can smell it!
I'll be posting hopefully at regular intervals here of my experiences in the land of the rising sun. Interesting places I have visited, strange(but hopefully tasty) food I'll be tasting and how my attempts to communicate with locals in their native language is going.
Language wise I have prepared for the trip by studying the language now for 2 years. Actually come to think of the liftoff day marks the 2nd anniversary from the day I decided to start studying Japan. Kind of appropriate though completely accidental! Still far from fluent but maybe it's bit of help.
I will be living mostly in Tokyo in rented shared apartment. On same floor 8 rooms(possibly 2 per room though I expect mostly one per room) with communal kitchen, shower, toilets etc. Bit crowded but then again I don't plan to spend that much time in my room apart from the nights. All I know about neighbours is that they are all non-japanese as the company specializes to renting for foreigners.
Departure is on 28.2 and due to time zones, long flights and exchanging flights at German I'll be arriving to Tokyo around 8AM local time 1st of March. Time zones will actually benefit me going there as I can take my night sleep while in the plane and arrive freshly slept. Luckily I found out during my exchange student year in England that I can sleep quite easily on the airplanes. Very boring so easy to fall asleep out of boredom(and exhaustion!).
Schedelude at Japan will be hectic to begin with. Far from taking it easy I'll be doing bit of exploring straight off the bat. First day primary goals is obviously locate the room renting companys headquarters for signing contract and receiving keys. The next step will be to actually locate the apartment in different ward from the companys HQ. Navigating in Japan is the one part of the trip I'm not particulary thrilled about. Navigating in unknown place in Finland is tough enough but at least we have street names. In Japan even that cannot be counted on and of course it's bigger place. LOT bigger. Like double the population of Finland within Tokyo alone. And of course in whole Japan crammed to area not much larger than Finland of which about 30% is not unhabitable mountains live over 20 times Finlands population. The numbers makes my head spin just trying to think about it!
2nd day will be learning local areas and getting around in Tokyo. Reasonably quiet day but then on 3rd I'll be visiting nearby place called Katsuura. 3rd of March is day when there's event called Hinamatsuri(Girl's day) in Japan when ornamental doll's representing the Emperor, the Empress, their attendants and musicians dressed in Heian period court dressed. The event is nationwide but the Katsuura is particulary well known and since the event is one of the few festivals of any type apart from Hanami(cherry blossom viewing) held when I'm in Japan it went fairly quickly to list of events to check.
Original plan/dream was to visit Okinawa somewhere early March but after looking at prices the flights seemed rather expensive and with hotel prices included started to feel like it might not be that good idea. Especially as whole vacation would still be early so kind of risky to spend lots of money early up. Rest of vacation could be spent with rather tight budget! So in the end I decided to abandon that plan and bought second one week JR-pass instead. That's lot cheaper alternative and gives me more time to visit different parts of the main island. With JR-pass I can travel in JR trains(barring certain shinkansen lines) for free(or rather the price of the pass) so by avoiding private lines I can travel quite a lot for affordable price. Biggest issue will be sleeping as going back to Tokyo might not be viable in the longest trips as even with Shinkansen travel times will be long! However for shorter trips I'll be returning to Tokyo as much as possible. For longer trips I just have to make sure I visit places of interest in most efficient manner.
List of places I would like to visit is quite long, indeed longer than I have any hopes of visiting this trip, and I'm sure I have missed quite a few worthwhile places but can't see them all. I just have to hope I can visit Japan again in future. But here's list of some places I would like to visit:
Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum. One of the worlds 3 great dinosaurus museums according to wikipedia. When I ran into this tidbit I knew from the get-go where to go. Unfortunately that requires non-shinkansen train use as well so going there is going to take long time.
Kakunodate Which is small town in northern part of main island known for well preserved samurai houses.Lake Towada is also located nearby.
There's number of castles in Japan from which I'm looking to visit a few atleast. For example Okayama castle looks like good candinate as is Hiroshima castle which would be very close when I'll go to see the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.
Historical village Shirakawa-gou is one of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Kyoto is place full of interesting spots and I'll be meeting japanese person there so hopefully he can show me around to the best ones. But with him or on my own Temple of golden pavilion and the silver ones are rather obvious ones. Indeed Kyouto is filled with temples of one type of another. Nearby is also Lake Biwa.
Kairaku park nearby Tokyo is one of the more famous parks in Japan and location is quite near Tokyo which is good.
Besides these there's still plenty but listing them all would make the blog triple the length! As said above I have 2 JR passes. The shorter one I'll be using early March(probably 8-14) to make sure I have free time when the Sakura season starts. Once the Sakura season is over I'll be using the longer pass in April. This will be when I'll be visiting northern parts of Japan as the temperatures should be tad less colder there. Tokyo temperatures looks to be quite pleasant for me during March but for example Yamagata north still has below zero for average low.
But I think this is quite enough for first post. More posts will follow when I actually have arrived to Japan.
I'll be posting hopefully at regular intervals here of my experiences in the land of the rising sun. Interesting places I have visited, strange(but hopefully tasty) food I'll be tasting and how my attempts to communicate with locals in their native language is going.
Language wise I have prepared for the trip by studying the language now for 2 years. Actually come to think of the liftoff day marks the 2nd anniversary from the day I decided to start studying Japan. Kind of appropriate though completely accidental! Still far from fluent but maybe it's bit of help.
I will be living mostly in Tokyo in rented shared apartment. On same floor 8 rooms(possibly 2 per room though I expect mostly one per room) with communal kitchen, shower, toilets etc. Bit crowded but then again I don't plan to spend that much time in my room apart from the nights. All I know about neighbours is that they are all non-japanese as the company specializes to renting for foreigners.
Departure is on 28.2 and due to time zones, long flights and exchanging flights at German I'll be arriving to Tokyo around 8AM local time 1st of March. Time zones will actually benefit me going there as I can take my night sleep while in the plane and arrive freshly slept. Luckily I found out during my exchange student year in England that I can sleep quite easily on the airplanes. Very boring so easy to fall asleep out of boredom(and exhaustion!).
Schedelude at Japan will be hectic to begin with. Far from taking it easy I'll be doing bit of exploring straight off the bat. First day primary goals is obviously locate the room renting companys headquarters for signing contract and receiving keys. The next step will be to actually locate the apartment in different ward from the companys HQ. Navigating in Japan is the one part of the trip I'm not particulary thrilled about. Navigating in unknown place in Finland is tough enough but at least we have street names. In Japan even that cannot be counted on and of course it's bigger place. LOT bigger. Like double the population of Finland within Tokyo alone. And of course in whole Japan crammed to area not much larger than Finland of which about 30% is not unhabitable mountains live over 20 times Finlands population. The numbers makes my head spin just trying to think about it!
2nd day will be learning local areas and getting around in Tokyo. Reasonably quiet day but then on 3rd I'll be visiting nearby place called Katsuura. 3rd of March is day when there's event called Hinamatsuri(Girl's day) in Japan when ornamental doll's representing the Emperor, the Empress, their attendants and musicians dressed in Heian period court dressed. The event is nationwide but the Katsuura is particulary well known and since the event is one of the few festivals of any type apart from Hanami(cherry blossom viewing) held when I'm in Japan it went fairly quickly to list of events to check.
Original plan/dream was to visit Okinawa somewhere early March but after looking at prices the flights seemed rather expensive and with hotel prices included started to feel like it might not be that good idea. Especially as whole vacation would still be early so kind of risky to spend lots of money early up. Rest of vacation could be spent with rather tight budget! So in the end I decided to abandon that plan and bought second one week JR-pass instead. That's lot cheaper alternative and gives me more time to visit different parts of the main island. With JR-pass I can travel in JR trains(barring certain shinkansen lines) for free(or rather the price of the pass) so by avoiding private lines I can travel quite a lot for affordable price. Biggest issue will be sleeping as going back to Tokyo might not be viable in the longest trips as even with Shinkansen travel times will be long! However for shorter trips I'll be returning to Tokyo as much as possible. For longer trips I just have to make sure I visit places of interest in most efficient manner.
List of places I would like to visit is quite long, indeed longer than I have any hopes of visiting this trip, and I'm sure I have missed quite a few worthwhile places but can't see them all. I just have to hope I can visit Japan again in future. But here's list of some places I would like to visit:
Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum. One of the worlds 3 great dinosaurus museums according to wikipedia. When I ran into this tidbit I knew from the get-go where to go. Unfortunately that requires non-shinkansen train use as well so going there is going to take long time.
Kakunodate Which is small town in northern part of main island known for well preserved samurai houses.Lake Towada is also located nearby.
There's number of castles in Japan from which I'm looking to visit a few atleast. For example Okayama castle looks like good candinate as is Hiroshima castle which would be very close when I'll go to see the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.
Historical village Shirakawa-gou is one of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Kyoto is place full of interesting spots and I'll be meeting japanese person there so hopefully he can show me around to the best ones. But with him or on my own Temple of golden pavilion and the silver ones are rather obvious ones. Indeed Kyouto is filled with temples of one type of another. Nearby is also Lake Biwa.
Kairaku park nearby Tokyo is one of the more famous parks in Japan and location is quite near Tokyo which is good.
Besides these there's still plenty but listing them all would make the blog triple the length! As said above I have 2 JR passes. The shorter one I'll be using early March(probably 8-14) to make sure I have free time when the Sakura season starts. Once the Sakura season is over I'll be using the longer pass in April. This will be when I'll be visiting northern parts of Japan as the temperatures should be tad less colder there. Tokyo temperatures looks to be quite pleasant for me during March but for example Yamagata north still has below zero for average low.
But I think this is quite enough for first post. More posts will follow when I actually have arrived to Japan.
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