***Under Construction, lots of incomplete stuff***
Summary:
I’m finally getting around to writing about my trip to Japan in January of 2009. Besides the pictures I posted on my Facebook, I never really explained everything in detail of each photo and my experience there. So here it is, broken down by each day and Pictures + Videos on each one. Keep in mind though, I’m no Photographer, so excuse the quality of the image taking 
We’ve been planning this trip for almost a year in advance. We were originally supposed to go in the Summer of 2008, however, plans changed and we decided to go early 2009. I didn’t mind since I love the cold weather and hate the heat, so January was perfect. The average temperature at the time we were in Tokyo was about 40-45F during the day and about 35~ish at night. I loved it.
Our Preparation:
Our plan was to go to Tokyo for about 11 days and to Okinawa for about 4 days. We rented a studio apartment about a month ahead of time in both Tokyo and Okinawa while we were staying there. We also rented a Japanese Cell Phone with the carrier docomo, one of the major mobile carriers in Japan before Softbank and KDDI. Packed up some warm clothes since we were going in the winter. Tokyo was pretty cold during the time and Okinawa was actually very warm, it’s usually pretty hot and humid there to begin with almost all the time and very windy. I bought a Netbook ahead of time from Newegg specifically for this trip since I knew I would be carrying it around with me and it was worth it, but I’ll get more into that later. I also brought my Laptop of course so that both me and my girlfriend will have a PC while we’re not out.
I also did LOTS and LOTS of research of almost everything before we went. I spent a few weeks just reading up on almost everything related to where we were staying, the popular districts, the trains and subways, the people, markets, manners, train station locations, maps and how to read them, the airport, exchange rate and currency, the food, apartments, the nightlife, things to do in each district and much more. Learning the train and subway system was probably the toughest, but once we actually got there and started using them, it all made sense. Plus most of the train stations had an English map or speaker. I’ll get more into this later.
A lot of you are probably wondering how much money we spent or saved up to afford all this. Actually, it was less than I expected. I live in LA, so the expenses were actually pretty similar to here. Most people say Tokyo is very expensive, however, I’m already used to living in a major city, so it wasn’t much of a difference. Our budget for this whole trip was about $5000~ for both of us. That includes the 2 Plane tickets (Singapore Airlines) running about $800 round trip to Tokyo, plus an extra $250 for the Ticket to Okinawa, about $800 for the Apartment for 11 days in Tokyo, $300 for the Apartment in Okinawa (was a cheaper place) and about $2000 for spending, food, other necessities such as the cell phone, apartment necessities, train/subway passes, taxi’s, etc… and we actually came back with about $300 (should have spent that!). We weren’t really tight on money at all, we actually spent some on a a few things for ourselves such as clothes, but we were still keeping an eye on our expenses of course.
The plane ride is about 9-11 hours depending on the direction of the wind. Honestly, it went by pretty quick for me, and I didn’t even sleep. How could I with all the turbulence? Some people can, but not I. It was actually my first Airplane flight I’ve ever taken. I’ve always wanted to go on one. 
I had my iPod and Laptop to keep me entertained and a whole season 2 of Heroes that I saved to watch during the flight. They also had enough movies to choose from on the plane, I think I watched 1 or 2, though the headphones that were provided did not reduce the Airplane’s engine noise much.
Anyway, I hope that’s enough of a summary for now. Now on to the day-by-day posts! Just click on the links below to view that day. There’s also a brief description of each Day below the link.
Arriving at Narita Airport (NRT), Japan. Finding out way in Tokyo, taking the train ride and the search for our apartment.
Exploring Shibuya, the major entertainment and fashion district. Then to Harajuku, another fashion and young generation crowd district.
When I’m not lazy, I’ll get around to finishing this up. But the 2nd trip to Japan is coming up soon, so I’ll be focusing on those first.
Day 3 – 01/19/2009
Day 4 – 01/20/2009
Day 5 – 01/21/2009
Day 6 – 01/22/2009
Day 7 – 01/23/2009
Day 8 – 01/24/2009
Day 9 – 01/25/2009
Day 10 – 01/26/2009
Day 11 – 01/27/2009
Day 12 – 01/28/2009
Day 13 – 01/29/2009
Day 14 – 01/30/2009
Day 15 – 01/31/2009
Day 16 – 02/1/2009
I have a lot more information on renting apartments, hotels, rented cell phones, train maps of the 3 major lines, tickets, districts, etc… I will post more of the stuff I researched that will greatly help while staying there towards this section of the page. If you need any information, just ask.
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http://uberdood.com Arf