Entry tags:

anitarowland, japan, travel

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto
About 10 hours from my writing this Anita and I will be leaving these shores for Japan. We are going for the World SF Convention in Yokohama (first time for Japan) and a week of general tourism after.

Our itinerary:

• Tue Aug 28: Depart Seattle
• Wed Aug 29: Arrive and check into the InterContinental Grand Yokohama hotel
• Thu Aug 30 to Mon Sep 3: World SF Convention with some Yokohama tourism and a possible day trip to Kamakura
• Tue Sep 4: Explore Tokyo
• Wed Sep 5: Travel to Kyoto
• Thu Sep 6 to Fri Sep 7: Explore Kyoto
• Sat Sep 8: Travel back to Tokyo
• Sun Sep 9 to Mon Sep 10: Day trips from Tokyo (Nikko) and more Tokyo tourism
• Tue Sep 11: Travel back to Seattle, arriving before we leave thanks to the magic of the International date line

Yes, this is going to be one busy vacation. We have been looking forward to this trip for a long time and, even though we will barely scratch the surface of Japan, we want to do as much as we can.

In Kyoto we will stay in a Minshuku Ryokan; not quite the full traditional Ryokan experience, but certainly not a Western hotel. In Tokyo on the return leg we will stay in a hotel modeled after modern Japanese apartments, with a kitchen and even a Washer/Dryer. During our tourism days we plan on mixing one or two morning guided tours with a lot of self-guided wandering around, hopefully including a few sights not on the usual tourist itinerary. For example, if possible on the second Sunday there I want to go to the bridge at Harajuku where Cosplayers hang out to have their pictures taken.

While in Japan we plan on updating our blogs and uploading tons of images to our Flickr streams. (Mine, Anita's.) So you can follow along from home if you want to.

We have also rented a cell phone in Japan which has a local USA number. Japan number is 090-3696-6909. USA number is 213-412-3978.

See you on the flip side!