Things have been a bit hectic for me over the past week. My roommate is going back to Japan and asked me if I wanted to come along. She works for Air Canada and gets a special employee rate. It's really inexpensive. So, even though I had next to no warning, I jumped at the chance.
The first thing I did was to see if I could get the time off work. It turns out my boss is actually going on a boat cruise the same week, so that wasn't good. One fellow employee, Sam, agreed to fill in for me for the week making my deliveries. So that worked out.
Next I had to try to figure out what I was going to do in Japan. We were flying into Tokyo and, originally, I was thinking about spending the whole seven days there. But, since I had already gone to Japan in 2007 and spent 5 or 6 days in Tokyo, I thought it would be nice to see some other places.
In that same trip I also visited Osaka and Kyoto. At the library I found some guide books and I discovered there were a number of nice looking temples in Nara (which is in the same general area as Osaka and Kyoto). So I decided to split my time between Tokyo and there.
Next I had to find accommodations. My roommate mentioned it was a national holiday in Japan (Labour Thanksgiving Day) on the last Sunday of our stay (November 23rd). So a lot of places would be booked and finding transportation might be hard.
I managed to book a bed in a capsule hotel in Shinjuku, Tokyo for the night of the 22nd and 23rd on Hotels.com. I proceeded to book a relatively inexpensive hotel room in Nara for the 20th and 21st.
Next would be arranging transportation between Tokyo and Nara (and back). The least expensive way would be by overnight bus. My roommate sent me some links to some Japanese bus companies. Not all of them were in English though. So she had to help me out with booking.
Our concerns with things being busy because of the national holiday were well founded. We couldn't find a return trip on Friday night (the beginning of the holiday weekend). So she suggested I return to Tokyo a day earlier. I agreed because 2 days (and one night) in Nara should be enough to see seven temples.
Where I ran into trouble was trying to revise my accommodations. I tried to do it on-line on the Hotels.com website, but it didn't work. So I called the 1-800 number and spoke to a customer service representative.
She seemed to be able to make the changes. I was sent an e-mail confirmation that I was only booked for one night. But, when I checked my account on-line it hadn't changed, so I called back the next day. The second customer service rep had similar difficulties in trying to cancel the second night. She assured me that they would refund the amount for the second night on my VISA card. So, hopefully, it all works out.
The last thing I had to do was buy some Japanese Yen. My mom was going to do it for me, but waited too long. The local branch needed three business days to get the money in. So I went with a money exchange company another friend recommended. They're actually giving me a better rate than my bank.
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