Sotong the Researcher

Too many places to go, too little time and money.

After buying the nation-wide JR pass, there is a temptation to go to more places. To assess whether the wish could be turned into reality, some work must be done.

Internet is my best friend. First, I needed ideas on where to go. Trip Advisor was honestly, not helpful. But credit goes to it for introducing me to Japan-Guide.com. So were random online sites. Then I chanced upon 背包客栈, a Taiwanese travel forum. Tips, suggestions, itinerary, more questions asked by forumers than you can think of, what a pearl! It benefits the lazy sotong when the Taiwanese love Japan so much!

At first, I went to the English version of the website if there was, but it didn't take long for me to find that the English version was severely lacking in content compared to the native version. It wasn't long before I gave up and relied on Google Toolbar to translate the page from Japanese to English. Things still came out weird most of the time, but it's better than nothing. This exercise helped me to brush up my Japanese by a wee bit too. When I was planning Taiwan last year, I thought reading pages of traditional Chinese was bad. Try dumps of Japanese now! Indigestion! But stared at it long enough and I managed to recognize a few common words to leave out the translation! Window's Japanese input was a great help too.

There are a few websites that can help to plan your route all over Japan, across different methods of transportation and different railway companies. Hyperdia is very helpful for people who really would like to see the alphabet only. But later, I thought I had better note down the kanji names of the the stations as they are bigger on signs and thus easier to spot. Jorudan is in Japanese and also idiot-proof after I learned to use Hyperdia. It could even convert the romanji (the romanticized Japanese) into Japanese as I typed. Cool! But I'm not sure how well it works for buses because I try to avoid them. Find out for yourself!

$$$ considerations. Is that place too expensive to visit? Is it still worth it if we only visited for half a day or less? Do we want to see something there, or just want to be there? How badly do we want to have this thing to justify going specially for it? A consolation is I believe my choice of accommodation has helped to shave a good portion off the potential expenditure and we could spend it on a few luxuries, like FOOD!

Like Taiwan, all the hotels I considered did not require a deposit. This gives travelers more leeway, but I'll still try my best to be a responsible guest.

I didn't bother to plan the must-eat for each place we are going. Read that it's unlikely to locate a specific place on the first try, so I shall not waste my time.

Told my sister to plan the Ninja Museum day since she was the one who wanted to go... but I think I had better plan anyway. Later lost in Iga not fun.

Overall difficulty level: Hard!

Straighten-A-Sotong Part I

Sotong's doctor suggested that she see an orthopedic specialist to straighten her back. When he ”suggests”, it means that he wants me to do it. Ok, go lor. Got an appointment at Took Their Savings Hospital.

Deceit For Comfort

Although my flight was at 9.50pm, I had to be at the airport 2hrs earlier and probably do some last minute preparations in the afternoon. If we wanted to save the deadly 35% peak hour cab surcharge, it would make more sense to take leave from work for at least the afternoon. Moreover, would I still be in the mood to work?

I could afford 1 more day of leave, but recently, my boss came up with a new rule that one cannot be away from work for more than 2 weeks and I have already busted the limit by being away for 15 days. I think I got away with it because I got my leave approve before this new rule. So now how?

MC! Shift a doctor's appointment to that day!

Luck was on my side. I do have appointments that fall on Tuesdays. But the other criteria to be met was that there must be an available morning slot.

No luck with my first choice. Singapore is a nation of people with eye problems.

Struck gold with my second (and last) choice! Looking forward to my 1-day working week!

Life-saving Shopping

The Japanese government had just intervened to rein in the yen with a hyper-growth disorder. That was something to calm down the nerves frayed from witnessing the yen approaching the roof since we confirmed our holiday.

Good time to buy JR pass!

I sprang into action, because I had little information regarding where to buy and all... had been sitting on it! Thanks to M, I learned that JTB sold in yen (and then I heard that the exchange rate was pegged to USD and not SGD) while others are tour agencies which fixed a price in SGD for the whole week. NTA offered home delivery, but it was not keeping up with the rate. Otherwise, the service would be rather attractive. In this case, buying from JTB would be wiser.

If we could pay in yen, we could save a sum from the JPY -> USD -> SGD conversion. Called up JTB to enquire... and of course that was just a pipe dream. Haha they also not stupid lah.

The rate held on into the weekend. Our 7-day ordinary JR pass cost S$448 for Y28,300, meaning a rate of 1.5830. Not bad already.

Next, coldwear shopping at Uniqlo, Daiso and Coldwear. Helps the tropical sotong from freezing, not exaggerating at all!


Tried to change money, but seems like moneychangers don't stock much yen. Good lor, help to prevent locals from going on shopping sprees. Eventually we succeeded, before the yen went on a rocket ride again.

Now to hope the rate doesn't improve until after we return... just to make ourselves feel better hehe.

Insurance

I clean forgot about travel insurance until I chanced upon a friend's facebook status about 45% discount for Tenet. What a timely reminder! With my current workload, I might jolly well forget about it until the day before we departed, or when I needed to be air-lifted back home.

Verified that NTUC Income and AIG were of no match. With Tenet's competitive price, we could even get the plan with more coverage, and still cost less than NTUC/AIG!

This was a good chance to show some support for my sister's new budding career. I tasked her to check if any other insurance company could trump Tenet and hopefully, for a price quote even better than the promotion. So I wouldn't be using my friend's service like last time. Sorry, K!

I think it took about 5 days for my sister to come back with the information. Turned out that she had to ask her senior instead of doing the work herself. Didn't expect that... Well, so, I was already getting impatient with the slow response for something seemingly simple, but nevertheless, I appreciated the information that the Tenet promotion was ending in what, 2 days?? Something I failed to notice while at Tenet's website *sheepish*. Her senior recommended Chartis for the good claim experience... but so ex, don't want lah.

With the limited time and disappointing turnaround time, I felt I couldn't entrust my sister's senior to settle the insurance for us after we passed her our personal information. I felt she wasn't serious about this business at all - the commission was probably negligible. When I asked K the last time, he said he didn't earn much from this, but he could still help me with it. I inferred that he was doing it just to provide a complete service. I guessed it was the same for my sister's senior. I could imagine the commission being a measly $5 or something. Instead of worrying if she could meet the deadline, I could check the task as done in just 15min and not worry about it again.

Initially, I thought my sister's senior would be the one earning the commission, but she said she would still get a cut. But if I were right about the $5 commission, I wondered what would be left for her. Sorry, but her first sale was not meant to be.

Tenet TravelJoy Elite plan, $52.80. Great deal!