Pulled the Trigger
I booked the flights for my birthday trip to Japan last night. The price is surprisingly low, at only 500 quid return via Air France, changing in Paris Charles de Gaulle. It's costing me a lot more than the absolute cheapest flight at £393 but that was offered by Turkish Airlines, changing in Instanbul and adding up to about 17 hours bum-in-seat for the two legs which is a couple of hours more than I think I'd be comfortable with. The AF flight I chose operates via Haneda airport, a first for me as I've always landed at Narita up till now. The 6:00 a.m. arrival suggests I'll be hitting the Yamanote line at rush-hour...
I'm not going to spend a month in Japan this time around as I was originally planning but it's still going to be a bit over three weeks in total, centred around eating tanjoubi (birthday) ramen (noodles) in Onomichi (Heaven on earth) on May 18th. Buying a JR pass is next, it's likely to be a 14-day pass but I could fit a 21-day pass into my stay. The extra cost over the 14-day pass, about 13,000 yen isn't that much given the way I abuse JR passes -- if I did two more overnight trips on the Sunrise Seto in the extra seven days then that would save me the cost of two nights in a hotel. Have to think about it but there's no rush, I won't be buying one for a few weeks yet.
I'm not going to spend a month in Japan this time around as I was originally planning but it's still going to be a bit over three weeks in total, centred around eating tanjoubi (birthday) ramen (noodles) in Onomichi (Heaven on earth) on May 18th. Buying a JR pass is next, it's likely to be a 14-day pass but I could fit a 21-day pass into my stay. The extra cost over the 14-day pass, about 13,000 yen isn't that much given the way I abuse JR passes -- if I did two more overnight trips on the Sunrise Seto in the extra seven days then that would save me the cost of two nights in a hotel. Have to think about it but there's no rush, I won't be buying one for a few weeks yet.