22nd Aug 2008
Hong Kong -> Beijing -> Japan -> Korea
Have been SUPER busy planning my trip with Wendy to Japan and Korea (in about 3 weeks). SUPER time consuming, have been browsing through 9000 sites to look for travel guides, spent 8000 hours on Google Map Japan. Last time doing something similar would be 3 years ago when I went to Greece, I think I spent 1.5 month, couple hours a day, just to plan for the 3-week trip to Greece and Turkey. It was well worth it though. Somehow it’s much harder to plan stuff for Japan, maybe because of the language barrier (even though I know Japanese though not super fluent), also because of that Japan is extremely huge, cities like Osaka, Kyoto, are enormous and I basically have to study the maps, study the recommended tourist spots, see what’s worth seeing/doing…etc, and plan our accommodations around those spots. It TAKES time….>< and since Wendy is busy at work I'm all doing it by myself, even though it is fun, it's tedious. Hopefully the trip will turn out great after all this preparation (about 50% done now). I've spent the past week trying to secure all our accommodations by reserving online, and apparently I'm kind of late in doing this since at some of the busy cities like Jeju island in South Korea already have most of the hotels fully booked for our days...also some Japanese Ryokans (Japanese homestay / temple-stay) can only be booked by fax or telephone meaning I might have to call long distance and speak some Japanese, lol.
Anyway, here is a brief look of my itinerary:
Sept
13 - 18: Hong Kong, visit family, might goto Macau to see the newly built casino resorts
19: Fly to Beijing to meet with Wendy, then off to Osaka, Japan
20: Osaka - Shopping, goto aquarium (world’s biggest or something)
21: Koyasan - going to stay at some temple Ryokan!
22: Koyasan 2nd day
23: Shirahama - Outdoor open-air onsen! (hotspring)
24: Nara - Japanese’s ancient city
25: Nara/Kobe - Kobe looks fun. See this city guide
26: Kobe
27: Kyoto - one of the most well known cities. LOTS of temples
28: Takayama - a small town in the Gifu prefecture that has really cute looking farm house that were built long ago
29: Shirakawa - similar to Takayama. We’ll get to stay at some minshuku (Japanese homestay), going to be fun!
30: Osaka - back to Osaka, maybe do some shopping then off to South Korea tomorrow
Oct
1: Seoul - South Korea’s capital. Going to meet with my Korean friend Boom probably.
2: Jeju - popular island south to Korea. Lots of great spots for sight seeing. Going to rent a car.
3: Jeju
4: Seoul
5: Back to Beijing -> Vancouver
Schedule is really tight, especially in South Korea. Not sure how it’ll turn out, but there are LOTS to see so I’ll make sure I have my new camera all equipped and ready to go.
Oh I also got an International Driver’s License today at BCAA. Costs $15 and 2 passport pictures. Not too bad I guess, which will allow me to rent a car in Korea.
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