I'm Going to Japan!!!

One of my ultimate dreams is coming true! This April, I will be visiting Japan for the first time in my life. Tokyo has been my #1 place that I want to visit for a long time now. With my love of anime (yes, I'm still watching new shows... Tamako Market and Kotoura-san are my faves right now), ramen, and technology, Tokyo is a mold of some of my all-time favorite things. On top of that, Lost in Translation is one of my favorite films ever and I can never get enough of seeing those neon signs and bustling crosswalks.

Since I've been working so hard and haven't had a real vacation in years, Bethany agreed to let me go to Japan for a week by myself. I haven't traveled solo since my Germany days, but I'm still quite excited for it. Of course, I'd prefer if my family could go, but the kids would be difficult to travel with and Bethany is only slightly interested in Japan. They can all go with me another time.

I will be spending 8 days, 7 nights in Tokyo, but I'll be taking a day trip to Kyoto on one of those days and a half-day in Yokohama on another. I debated whether or not I should just stay in Tokyo the entire time since there's already so much to see, but I think that if I didn't take the opportunity to visit Kyoto, I would regret it. The bullet train takes almost three hours to get there, so it'll be a long day.

In Tokyo, my main focus is going to be on viewing the cherry blossoms trees. I purposefully booked my trip to coincide with the average full blooming of the sakura trees, and early forecasts show that the flowers will come out spot-on this year. I'll be taking my Canon 5D Mark II everywhere, so you can be certain that there will be some amazing shots of this season. On top of that, the main places I want to visit are Shinjuku, Akihabara, Shibuya, Tsukiji Fish Market, Ginza, Harajuku, Asakusa, Ikebukuro, and the Rainbow Bridge. Hopefully, I'll have enough time to see those, but there's always a lot more.

I reserved my plane tickets back in mid-December and decided to pay slightly extra to fly ANA on the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Well, I guess things don't always go as planned, but I'm not too worried. Most folks still say that the 787 is pretty safe and I expect that it'll be ungrounded before my trip. If not, ANA has been using the 777 in its place for their non-stop Seattle to Tokyo route.

I booked my hotel a couple weeks ago. The search for a perfect hotel was long as there are so many places to stay in Tokyo. My main concerns were price, location, distance from subway or train station, no curfew, and must have a private bathroom. That excluded hostels immediately. Plus, I've been there, done that, so I feel like I much too old to enjoy hostels anymore. I ended up finding a hotel that met my requirements in the Akasaka area, which if you looked at a map of metropolitan Tokyo, is pretty much right in the middle of all the major sights. Plus free wired Internet and Japanese and Western-style breakfast. Bonus.

As you know, I love to share my experiences and travel, so you can be sure to watch for updates here during my trip. If you are a friend on Facebook, I plan on uploading pictures in real-time on there from my phone for all to see. If you are not a friend, but would like to see these pictures somehow, I will also be posting these pictures up on Twitter, which you don't need to follow or subscribe to if you want to see my posts. Then, either at the end of each day, or when I get back from my trip, I will write up daily posts for each day of my travel with the super nice pictures. I can't wait!