we haven't had a family holiday since our long education california trip back in 2014. we had a short london trip early 2015 but it was not full quorum then and it wasn't a holiday, so that doesn't count. after that our lives were all amira-centred so no trips for us.
seeing amira is getting easy (read: easier) to handle, i felt we can start looking out for destinations. as i was surfing around (somewhere other than london, because i'd always want to put london as the no 1 place to go to) i came across a seriously good deal on all-nippon airways (ANA). i was in the cinema when i saw the deal, and i quickly key-ed in some dates and played around and i was given a super duper price. i got a screenshot and texted hubby in the seat in front of me - decide now! so there it was...2 weeks in japan decided and approved in mere minutes in the cinema.
once i got back from the movie outing, i quickly logged in to make the japan trip a reality. it was only the early part of the year yet the flight was almost fully booked. there were one or two seats scattered but we needed seats for 6 and had to settle for the last 2 rows, middle aisle. no window seats for the boys, bet they would be bummed.
despite the location of our seats, i was quite excited to experience ANA. we had a good experience on japan airlines on our return trip from california and i was positive it would be the same. i went on youtube to watch all the uploaded ANA videos.
once the airline was sorted, i looked at hotels. that was done together with a rough itinerary. i basically knew where we were going; tokyo bay for the disneyland parks, osaka for universal studios, tokyo a few days and a nearby snow resort. the first two were easier to settle, the other two were not as easy. i booked two rooms in hotels near the three theme parks and left them to settle on other cities.
tokyo is huge. like seriously huge. its like, if i were to compare with kuala lumpur, there's the bangsar area, the jalan duta area, the bukit bintang and town areas, masjid jamek, tun razak, kl sentral areas and even wangsa maju-ish. unlike kl where tourists would generally choose accommodation in the golden triangle area, for tokyo you can choose to stay anywhere because everywhere is connectable. so where do we stay, in this huge city, so that we its not too far from tokyo station (where we'll arrive from osaka) and not too far from a station that directly connects us to narita (as tokyo is our last stop) and near halal eateries and near many tokyo attractions. i went from shiba park area to tsukiji area to ueno. i would change accommodation when i learn about new areas.
next was the ski resort. there were many in japan. but i wanted near tokyo. after doing as detailed research as i could, i decided on karuizawa. everything was nearby in karuizawa. firstly it was only just a little over an hour train ride from tokyo station. it had a snow resort just off the main train station and a huge outlet. a three-day trip there would be just nice. this would change nearer the actual trip as someone, no names mentioned, would have a football match scheduled on the second day we were supposed to be in karuizawa.
so two months of research, air travel sorted, accommodation booked and the itinerary was settled. i still had roughly six months to the actual trip, i was happy with the major details and concentrated on the smaller details. time for me to look at theme parks - opening hours, activities, routes (inside the theme parks), entrance fees, maps, eateries, baby rooms. i love this. its like putting myself there before being there.
and then, while in my googling-zone, one quiet afternoon, i came across visit a city website (visitacity.com). oh my god, this is such a wonderful site. because of the size of the city and the fact that most info were in japanese or at least in translated english which is not easily understood, to have this site to help prepare a two or three day tourist schedule for you is wonderful. it has info of the places we wanted to visit, timing between one place to another, routes. we had only two days in tokyo and i wanted to make the most out of them.
so...theme parks, snow park, shopping and tokyo tourist activities done. we still had months so i closed the japan file and put it aside, to be looked at nearer the travel date.
generally, nearer the date, i didnt change much. but i made a huge accommodation overhaul. because i booked hotels to be paid upon check-in / check-out, the actual amount to be paid depended on the current exchange rate. yen went up a lot over the few months and i ended up having to pay double the amount when i booked. and it ended up being triple the airfare cost. which is way above budget. so i sat down. back to square one.
this time instead of booking and agoda and expedia. i looked at airbnb. its further away from the theme parks but better location for tokyo and best of all, i managed to cut down 2/3s of the cost. now everything was within budget and i'm happy. however, i need to mentally prepare for staying in apartments compared to hotels. hotels would be easier to get to, with the availability of transport from stations (narita or tokyo or osaka stations) while airbnb apartments would require reading instructions from the owner - a bit daunting when you don't know the area. hotels would be right smack in the tourist spots compared to apartments which would be slightly off tracks. and what i was worried about most was that all apartments came with huge warning of noise pollution - no noise after 10pm. the boys scream, i scream, how do we get around this? but apartments, we can cook ourselves (food is super costly) we can fit everyone in one place (we had to book 3 rooms at certain hotels), there's dryer facilities (yeay). its cost saving but it takes work, that's how i would put the apartment vs hotels choice.
after i was happy with the cost-cutting and apartment hunting, i concentrated on tickets - theme park entrance tickets and jr pass tickets and passmo cards. there were many jr passes available - regional pass and national pass. since we were taking the train up to osaka, we had to purchase the national pass. regional pass would only take us up to tokyo surrounding area (in our case, karuizawa) from tokyo. jr pass had to be purchased before leaving for japan as its not available in japan - its mainly for tourists. we bought the 7-day pass and planned to use them extensively. jr pass vouchers were delivered to our door within 4 days - fast and efficient service. once we reach japan we had to go to a japan rail office to convert the voucher to passes, after which we will be able to take the trains and, if required, book seats for our rail travels.
a week before the trip (a week into the school holidays) we took the boys for winter clothing & shoes shopping. then i went on food shopping - boxed food for us and frozen baby food for amira. and then it was our long, long 'to-do' nagging session with the boys, primarily, don't make noise in the apartments. really, that scared us quite a whole lot.
in between the shopping trips, i also had to print and prepare our travel file. since i'm the only one who knows our itinerary in great detail, i needed a file for everyone else to refer to.
and then the packing. i was estimating 2 bags - 1 large and 1 medium. then came food, so it became 1 large, 1 medium and 1 small. the small luggage was for the food stock and amira's snacks and formula. i'm pretty proud of myself because each bag was less than 20kg - good listing and even better sticking to the list on my part *pats own back*
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