This spring, we took our first vacation in over a year. R and I have both wanted to travel to different countries and experience different cultures. Europe was out because it’s so expensive and worse, we couldn’t agree on what countries we wanted to visit in a trip of 2 weeks After much discussion, we chose to go to Japan. R has been fascinated with the country and it’s been one of the top countries on his list to visit. I didn’t have much of an opinion one way or another, so finally that’s where decided to go.

We booked our tickets and sent out the obligatory “On vacation” emails at work. We had to decide which parts of Japan to visit and hunt for hotel accommodation that’s decent but won’t break the bank. We scoured the internet for good deals, we sent off dozens of emails and filled out a ton of forms. We got responses and some of the hotels or ryokans want us to send credit card info. We’re not going to do it by email so we decided to call them. We made the phone calls and lo! there’s our first sign that Japan is a country where (surprise, surprise) English is not spoken by everyone! It finally sinks in that we’re going to have to learn atleast a little bit of Japanese to get by. So, we load up on the Lonely Planet guidebook and phrasebook. The other interesting thing we learned was that most of the hotels we’d picked wanted to be paid in cash, when we got there – the credit card was just to guarantee the reservation. Japan has a reputation as a very high-tech country and they have hotels that don’t accept credit cards ?? Wow! Anyway, a couple flips through our guidebook informed us that most establishments in Japan deal in cash.

Now it’s time to apply for a visa – India is not one of those countries that Japan (or most other countries) welcomes visitors from, without a visa. The visa process is very straight-forward, though – takes an hour one morning to submit the application at the Japanese consulate and one hour a couple days later to pick up our passports.

We were going to spend a total of 11 days in Tokyo, Kyoto, Hakone and Koyasan. We were super-excited and couldn’t stop planning what to do. I was paranoid about planning our entire stay, day by day, since I was a little nervous about being in a country where I don’t understand or speak the language and wanted to as prepared as possible. So, we ended up printing 30 pages worth of train schedules, directions and places to visit !