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!