The Plan for Japan

Well, speaking of planning holidays. We just made it back from Zambia and had decided it’d be great to have a couple of beers with some of our friends from Brisbane who we hadn’t seen for a while. It was an exciting time, going out and purchasing something other than Mosi or Simba, the ability to buy wine which wasn’t topped up with a bit of grape juice by the lovely Shoprite staff, choice of a couple or restaurants, goodness, madness. Well anyhow’s 20 minutes after our friends met at our place and after we had absorbed the alcohol out of one or two of my beers, one of the friends announced that he was going to Japan skiing. We’ve been waiting for years for someone to mention skiing in Japan so we can seize the opportunity and invite ourselves. Unfortunately for him and his partner that left them doing only the nicest thing but calling our bluff by suggesting it would be great if we joined them. Typically drunk conversations like this are forgotten the next day, however this time we were serious and flights were booked, much to the surprise of even Lena.

Booking the flights was no drama so we checked prices and availability and then the real drama began, the accommodation. Maybe because we’ve travelled in many cheap places which have plenty of available hotels/ hostels/ somethings we don’t expect to find ourselves anything but spoilt for choice. This however was not the case for Nozawa Onsen, this place was booked out months ahead. It must be because it’s a special little place that only the snazzy people in the skiing niche know about. Refreshing Expedia didn’t yield much benefit and the only places left were some average looking Ryokans which both Lena and I had no idea about except that they looked small. A Ryokan (inn) for those who don’t know (which includes us) is a traditional Japanese style accommodation for travellers. This sounds quite nice really except when you get to the part about communal showers. This is just something that I haven’t quite grown up enough to accept, maybe it’s being Australian, maybe it’s being a simpleton, maybe I don’t care what it is because it just seems a bit strange. So that left us with a few hard choices, cheap, questionable accommodation or remaining in Australia for yet again another missed chance to go skiing in Japan. Thankfully however my friend came to the party, while a little surprised that the drunken conversation wasn’t just that, he stepped up and called the hotel he was staying at in Nozawa Onsen, as he, being a Japanite understood that the hotel would respond far better that calling would yield better results than responding to emails/ online requests. Amazingly enough, after a call they rummaged up a spare room in two halves (so we’d have to change during our stay) and we were saved from the more cultural experience (I’m sure it’s healthy and good for you on a psychological level).

Flights to my surprise were cheapest through QANTAS, this was probably because we were going to break our trip into several segments Brisbane to Tokyo (Narita), Tokyo (Haneda) to Hong Kong (while not with QANTAS or covered in this section then Hong Kong to Almaty in Kazakhstan) then Hong Kong to Brisbane. Apparently this is three segment leg operated at some relatively high discount by QANTAS. So if you’re keen to see those three spots then it might be worthwhile having a look. However there is a catch which we found out – you can’t change a flight yourself in the QANTAS club/ frequent flier site unlike other return flights, this caused a little concern when we decided to extend our holiday a bit to make the most of being in Japan.

Our conclusion for our travel was that we would take roughly 5 days before skiing to spend some time in Tokyo (which we would return to after skiing), Hiroshima and Kyoto (possibly also Osaka, but as I’m writing this on the Shinkensen which is awesome  we have not quite decided yet). This is definitely quick, it would be nice to spend more time here but the reality is it’s not cheap as we paid through the nose for the Nozawa Onsen hotel, rail passes from JTB travel and a prepaid data sim from eConnect 3GB which we thought was enough data for two weeks. This meant that without even moving far we’d already set the holiday costs at about $3500AUD.

We decided against leaving bookings open on this trip and finding our way when we arrived. I always get the feeling that big places have a bigger opportunity of stepping into the wrong place when you don’t have a booking. Maybe next time….

We booked in Shinjuku at Shin Okubo Sekitei for the first night in Tokyo as we decided that trying to zip straight to Hiroshima on our first evening after a long flight might’ve been a bit ambitious. While the connections exist there is also not much margin for error. The QANTAS flights arrive at 18:00 at Narita, you would need to go straight to the JR exchange and get your real JR passes, then, with passes in hand you would need to organise and catch the next possible bullet train and prepare for a 5+ hour journey. When we did arrive at Tokyo Narita airport there was huge line at the JR exchange office and this would’ve taken at least an hour to clear (if not many hours), to get from the airport straight to you destination on the first night would need to be well organised. Unless you’re after an overnight slower train or something then going straight from Tokyo Narita airport to Hiroshima would be optimistic at best.

Our next destination was Hiroshima, K’s House for one night. This is a hostel, and we’re fans of booking private rooms in hostels. People are friendly there and you are pretty much guaranteed to bump into other travellers who might give you some ideas and inspiration. We only have a day in the city, but we both really wanted to do a little war tourism and we figured the Shinkensens could get us around quickly enough to make it alright.

Kyoto was next, and after much deliberation we decided to stay at the Capsule Ryokan for four nights. Ryokan you say, didn’t we just say we were cagey about them, you’re right but apparently this one has private toilets and bathrooms and it’s nice. We shall soon see….

Address at Nozawa Onsen for six nights. This was skiing and pre-ordained by friends who know much more than we do about Japan.

Mystays at Asakusa-bashi also pre-ordained by better people, but I’m sure we’d probably pick it if we were in the mood for some electricery at Akihabara.

That said, planning done.

We’ll cover the other tricky details for getting a VISA to Kazakhstan and hotel / ski accommodation booking in the Kazakhstan category.