First off, I must admit that I originally wanted to make these updates as daily as possible and for that, I do apologize.

So as some of my readers know, I am currently planning yet another return trip back to Japan. I’ve hinted to my mom that my friends and I were “going to Asia” next year, but I have this inkling that she’ll want Vanessa and I to go back to the Philippines… to which I would’ve replied, “It’s not safe there.”

But I digress. This post is all about my dream of bringing some of my closest friends with me to Japan.

Flying The (Not So Cheap) Skies

So what happens usually when you start planning things like a trip?

Well, what I normally do is check the airfare first. To me, the airfare is something that will make or break that person’s ability to join the trip. It has to be by far the single most expensive purchase that a traveler would do before they even plan accommodations and they haven’t even left the country! It should be noted however that once the airfare has been saved up, purchased, and seats reserved that the actual trip itself is now officially underway for that person.

For our group of six, we looked into an approximate date that we wanted to travel that was equivalent to next year’s date. Often airlines and aggregate sites only have a year or even several months’ worth of airline ticket data and we had to lock in our travel dates for next year Locking travel dates is crucial because it allows everyone to be on the same page in terms of planning. No one wants surprises, especially if you’re planning to take a week off of work. In our case, we locked our travel dates around Memorial Day weekend so we looked at prices heading to Japan on Memorial Day weekend this year returning two Mondays after. This weird schedule gives us one additional day to stay in Japan, thanks to Memorial Day being a paid holiday.

Our original locked dates were in mid-June, which mimicked a previous itinerary that I had used for Vanessa’s graduation trip last year. The trouble with that schedule is that mid-June is the start of the rainy season in Japan and, if you look at any guide book, you’ll learn that June has one of the highest rainfall percentage in the entire year. Needless to say, it rained almost all the time during that trip. There was, however, a huge concern with moving the trip date forward and that was the cost. If we were to move the trip forward, it better be comparable to the cost when going during mid-June.

Thankfully, traveling during Memorial Day weekend versus mid-June was slightly more affordable… by $5. Great, an even bigger incentive to travel earlier!

But wait! When I originally quoted our airfare I only entered in myself and Vanessa for the trip and not everyone else. So imagine my surprise when I finally told SideStep.com (my aggregate of choice) that I’ll be traveling with six other companions. I’ll let the results below do the talking here.

The following screenshot was taken when I was looking for only two passengers for the trip:

Airfare’s reasonable. When Vanessa and I took this trip last year, we paid $30 more than what it’s showing right now. Definitely a steal. Okay, it’s time to include everyone in this equation.

The following screenshot was taken when I was looking for six passengers for the same trip:

Wait, what just happened here? I could’ve sworn I saw Asiana Airlines for ~$1050 a mere two minutes ago… so why is our airfare up by $400 all of a sudden?

Well here’s the dirty secret of airline aggregate sites: They don’t aggregate everything. Airlines typically only let aggregate sites see what other travel agents are seeing. You see, the way it works is that the reason why travel agents can get a huge cut off of your trip is because they pre-purchase seats from airlines. The same goes with aggregate sites. In this case, SideStep.com had purchased two seats on those flights and showed it to you so that they can get a kickback from the purchase. For each sale, the site that sold the ticket then go back to SideStep and share the profits based on a predetermined basis.

So that’s not good… we’re back to square one and we’re quite unsure how much the airfare would cost right?

Not necessarily.

Thanks to SideStep.com, we know when we entered only two people that Asiana Airlines has the lowest airfare headed to Japan. We need only to go to Asiana Airlines’ websites and plug in the information that SideStep.com wouldn’t display.

The following screenshot was taken when we plugged in all the information into Asiana Airlines’ website:
Now that’s more like it. And their site even told me how much everything would cost altogether and even itemized the exact flights that I’d be taking on this trip! Good job, Asiana!

So if there’s anything you should take from this, is that start small when looking for flights and when things disappear when you get a bigger group, just head to the airline’s official page and see what they have for you! Seeing as how the trip’s not gonna be for another year, I’m gonna cancel this order before I accidentally purchase it.

Next time, I’ll go over choosing the right hotel(s) for our trip in the hopes that it helps you learn how to plan your future vacations!

Let’s preface this video first: The Japan trip lasted for 1 week, which was split between Kyoto and Tokyo. As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been to Japan a total of 2 times prior to this trip but, in actuality, that was only in Tokyo. This was my first time in Kyoto and had absolutely no idea what to expect from the public transportation there. Tokyo’s public transportation within its different wards left something to be desired (I walked most of the time) but the subway system and Yamanote line made it bearable.

I quickly learned that Kyoto was, in fact, a tourist town with well marked streets and locales that made it easier to navigate than Tokyo. I felt that it was similar to Paris in such a way that all the attractions were scattered around the city. Bus travel was definitely better than Tokyo, in my opinion.

After staying in Kyoto for a good 3 days, we headed off to Tokyo via Shinkansen (aka “Bullet Trian”) and that took about a couple of hours to get to. We met a friend of mine, Junichi, at Shimbashi station and had dinner at a Korean BBQ place somewhere around those parts to kick off our Tokyo stay. Needless to say, it was packed with a ton of “first-times” that it made the trip special for me even though I’ve been to the country multiple times.

The video that you’re about to see was created using iMovie ‘08 on my Macbook Pro, with all the footage being captured by a Panasonic HDC-SD5 camcorder which uses a SD-HC card to store all of its data. I’ll talk more about how that worked out in a later post, but know that there were tons of footage that we’re still sifting through.

I’ve been to Japan 3 times in my life - once when I was 5 during my uncle and aunt’s honeymoon, another time when I graduated from college, and another time in 2008 with my girlfriend.

Now I’m not going to pretend that I know Japanese, because I don’t, but there are certain things when you go to Japan that you shouldn’t assume… like clear liquids in vending machines are automatically water. *Buzz*! Wrong. In fact, there’s a myriad of things it could be.

I learned this during the trip when I graduated from college. I was so thirsty one day that I decided to get water from the vending machine. I picked the drink with the fanciest see-through liquid I can find, not noticing the 0 cal label on the side, and succumbed into buying it. I quickly realized after taking a huge swig of the thing that it wasn’t water at all - it was, in fact, some variant on Gatorade that was so sweet that I had to buy water to wash it down. Yes, I’m not a big fan of Gatorade sadly.

So if you’re dehydrated at a train station in Japan or as soon as you touch down from the plane, look for the word “water” placed on the bottle or can itself. I know that it’s quite an overwhelming feeling being in a foreign country, but this is a difference of looking for that one special word that’s going to make all the difference when you drink it. After all, no one likes it when they have absolutely no idea what they’re eating or drinking!

Bonjour!

Kumusta!

Hello!

If you somehow don’t know those languages, you’ve probably stumbled upon something you might not fully understand or, if you believe that music, movies, books, gadgets, and games have a language of their own… maybe a small bit.

Welcome to my blog! My name’s Alex and I go by EternityInBlack on the Internets. As a few of you know, I work as a web developer during the week and during weekends host a bunch of shows for Games and ME, a podcast network dedicated to all things gaming.

So why is this here if I already have a site where I can talk about games? Shouldn’t Games and ME be the outlet for that kind of crap?

Well I figured that there are things that we set out to do for Games and ME that would just clash with what I personally believe in. My goal with this blog is to provide my readers with reviews from an actual user and not a critic… and the way I figured that would work for you, the reader, is if you think that you agree with me about 99% of what I like and don’t like, chances are you might agree with my thoughts. But I’m not expecting that, which is why our amazing comments system is here and ready for you to post your thoughts on.

Also, I intend to talk about things that I got that AREN’T games like Flip MinoHDs, Blu-ray movies and the like. As you can see, Games and ME just isn’t the right outlet for these sorts of things.

But, you say, how can I figure out what you like? I’ve answered that in my special About section on this site. I describe certain things that I fancy for each of the things I intend to talk about and a handy guide to how I would rate each object. I use a scale of 1-5 stars… no fancy math here.

If you’re not interested in reviews of anything, I’ll have them too. But realize that I’m only one man and, while I’ll try to post as often as I can, I’m not going to try and mimic what other publications are doing already (and better, if I may add).

In closing, I’m going to leave you with a video from one of my favorite geek troubadours, (of which there are only 2 thus far, Geoff Smith and) Jonathan Coulton about… Ikea.

Oh, and Happy New Year to all!