Japan Update

Aaron’s passport arrived on Monday, at which point we faxed in our order for Ghibli Museum tickets to the JTB (Japan Travel Bureau) office in Manhattan. According to Maiko-san, they were overnighted to us today, so we should have them in hand tomorrow. And that’s the last piece of the pre-planning puzzle to fall into place.

Aaron and I still need to figure out a more detailed itinerary, but we do have our trip roughly sketched out:

Tuesday:
Leave Detroit Airport 2pm local time

Wednesday:
Arrive Narita Airport 4pm local time
Two-hour limo bus to hotel
Dinner (in hotel?)
Commence jet-lag

Thursday:
Dynamic Tokyo Tour
– Tokyo Tower: check out the observatory and the kitchy souvenir shops
– Tea Ceremony at Happo-en Garden
– Lunch at Chinzanzo Restaurant
– Driveby of the National Diet Building
– Photo-op at the Imperial Palace Plaza
– 40-minute cruise up the Sumida River to Asakusa
– Asakusa Kannon Temple
– Nakamise Dori (Avenue) shopping area
– Drive through Ginza shopping district

After tour: dinner somewhere, then watch Japanese TV in the hotel?

Friday:*
Akihabara!
– Super Potato (collectibles)
– Maid Cafe (lunch or snackies?)
– Kaitenzushi (conveyor belt sushi – lunch or dinner?)
– Hell, we’ll probably visit just about every store there…

Saturday:
Sanja Matsuri in Asakusa – the third largest festival in Japan!
Check out the shops and the festival/parade
Overnight stay in the Ryokan Asakusa Shigetsu

Sunday:*
Nakano Broadway – a giant otaku mall in Nakano
Maybe check out the Harajuku girls?

Monday:
Ghibli Museum in Mitaka

Tuesday:
Breakfast, check-out
Limo-bus back to Narita Airport
Depart Tokyo around 4pm local time
Arrive in Detroit around 2pm local time, same day

We still have to fit in a few more definite things, like the Ramen Museum south of Tokyo, and we still need to be sure we have everything marked in our handy-dandy bi-lingual Tokyo atlas. We obviously have some more time to fill in, and the asterisks on Friday and Sunday mean that we might swap our Akiba and Nakano days around, since we’ll be closer to Akiba after spending the night in Asakusa, anyway.

Oh, and as a cute illustration, allow me to show you our neighborhood-for-a-week:


Distance from Tokyo Prince Hotel to the nearest 7-11: one-third of a mile.

Let me know if you don’t know WTF I’m talking about with some of our itinerary… it’s getting late, and I’m getting lazy with the linkage. 🙂

OMFG Japan! *head asplodes*

6 thoughts on Japan Update

Comments are closed.

  1. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!

    although, your thursday “watch TV???” will probably actually be “crash HARD and sleep until wednesday.” 😀

    I cant wait for you to see sebun-erebun. (ikibu’un!! (i think) – you’ll hear the jingle on TV. all the time.) there’s like huge steamer pans of liquidy squid tentacles you can go in and enjoy. also beware the super-fishy rice triangles 😀

    you’ll get what i mean when you see them.

  2. If you’re crunched for time, Nakano and the Ghibli museum are not that far from each other and are on the same trainline.

    Also – the Tokyo skyline is really impressive at night. You should really either go to Ikeburo and hit the Night Sky Bar or else return to the Tokyo Tower at night. During the day the view is just kind of “meh” but at night it’s super-impressive.

    Plus I bet there are other nearer convenience stores to your hotel – I mean – it’s Japan!

  3. Nakano and the Ghibli museum are not that far from each other and are on the same trainline.

    Hey, good point. Hadn’t thought of that. The Ghibli Museum should only take, what, two hours to see everything? That leaves a good part of the day to do Nakano Broadway after lunch.

    Sheryl: We’re totally expecting to be jet-lagged all to hell during the entire tour. That’s one reason why we planned to be carted around for our first full day there. 🙂