This last month has been an ulcer-inducing and heart-wrenching episode in my life. The first thing that happened was that I saw cheap tickets to Japan online. Originally, we planned to visit Europe fourth quarter of this year. However, as my grandma was diagnosed with cancer, we decided that my mom should take care of her. So, she couldn't go. So, we thought that perhaps we should go somewhere else, and save this trip for when my mom could go with us. Thus, I would check periodically online for cheap tickets. Whenever I found some, I would check with my brother to see if he was ok with the destination. So, about a month ago, I found a deal for plane tickets to Japan for almost $900 per person, flying in September. Thus, I will be spending my birthday in Japan.
Then, came the planning. I had not been that excited about going to Japan. However, during this month, planning the trip has really got me excited. Visiting Japan had always been on my bucket list. However, because of the language barrier, the apparent high cost of living, and just general discomfort with stepping outside of my comfort zone, I always thought that this trip would be in the distant future. Thinking about where to go and what to do was when it hit me that I would finally be able to do all the things I had been wanting to do as far back as middle school, when I was first exposed to Jpop and anime.
For the preparations, we bought JR Passes for both of us, which give us unlimited travel on the railway system operated by the JR Group, which pretty much cover all of Japan (the only place I was interested in which was not covered by JR was Okinawa). Partly because we bought this pass, we also tailored our itinerary to make full use of it, because, well, it wasn't cheap (a bit more than $300 per person). So, I looked at all the cities in Japan, and picked the ones I thought were interesting.
Then, I booked the hotels, alternating between 3-star hotels and 1- to 2-star hostels. I also threw in a 4-star hot spring hotel for the highlight of the trip in the middle. On average, I targetted $60 per night. We'll be experiencing so much different stuff.
Then, I found the trains we could take. During this step, it became clear that our plan was overly ambitious, and that we wouldn't be able to get to all the places we wanted to. This was when some of the places were trimmed from the list.
Then, I found places we could eat (targetted $60 per day), and made a list of souvenirs to bring back. Altogether, our expected budget is around 4-5k (between me and my brother). And... I'm still looking forward to this trip. That's where the good news ends (except for my Grandma being diagnosed with cancer, everything else so far has been good).
Now, for the bad news: the company I work for got acquired, the Justice Department decided that we would have too large of a market share, so it couldn't happen as is, our group got sold to a separate company to appease the Justice Department, and then my team got disbanded, effective next week. Yup.
I guess I can let this sink in while I'm running around in Japan.
