FACTSnet Travel Blog

Welcome to our travel blog. This blog will serve as a collection of records of our trips to Japan. To begin viewing our travel blog posts, click on the Index above this post. Also, please feel free to leave comments and/or suggestions on our posts.

FACTSnet Japan Trip 2012

This June 21st to July 3 a group from our team traveled to Japan and created a journal blog of the trip.
Below are the links to the journal entries for each day of the trip.

• Day 1 and 2 - Travel Days
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5 - Sunday our day off
• Day 6 - in Japan
• Day 7 - Travel to Nagasaki
• Day 8
• Day 9 - Travel from Nagasaki to Kyoto
• Day 10
• Day 11 - From Kyoto to Shizuoka
• Day 12 - Shizuoka to Aoki
• Day 13 - Shizuoka to Osaka
• Day 14 - Return to Canada from Japan

Day 1 and 2 - Wednesday/Thursday, June-21st/22nd

Today I left for Japan from Edmonton. Going through security at the airport was fast and took about 10-15 minutes. At the airport they have an electronic check in that confirms your flight and baggage tickets using the machine is much faster and easier than in person. The airplane was a small one from Edmonton to Vancouver so it is a good idea to have smaller carryon bags in case the plane is small two seater each side. The inflight entertainment system was good and Air Canada had some free snacks and drinks inflight. The airplane had a USB plug in which is nice to use while traveling so that your devices remained charged. When going through Vancouver airport it is a long walk to the international terminal.The airport has a nice food court where one can buy food. There is free internet at the airport, however their free internet is bad as it takes forever to load and is extremely slow. We finally arrived on the plane. I switched seats as sometimes it is hard to get seats together sometimes. Today the Air Canada flight was behind as it arrived late to the terminal we ended up waiting 45 minutes for the plane to take off. The inflight entertainment system was the same and there was a USB plug in and a three pronged plug. The meal was Japanese and was good. On these 8 hour flights it is good to sleep if possible. The second meal was ok but the fruit with it was not tasty. There was also some turbulence. We arrived later in Japan than our expected time but we got through the airport fast. We had kept our Passamo cards still so I went to the machine to put money on it but it ate my card so I gave it to the guy behind the machine so I could put it back in but it did this several times so he told me the machine was broken. So I had to go to the ticket booth and put money on the cards manually. In Japan it is hard to rent sim cards that work on North American phones as our phone we unlocked did not work with that sim card so we ended up renting a phone. Also the rental shop had very few sim cards and the phone was not compatible with their sim cards. Finding train directions to the nearest stop near the airport was easy but the train ride from the airport took 1 hour and 15 minutes. Finding the hotel from the train station however was difficult because it is hard to find where it was as everyone we asked even the taxi drivers did not know where the hotel was and the phone number on expedia is incorrect. Also what they call streets in Japan we would call allies. We also bought food from 7-11 for dinner. We had soba noodles. The aircon in the hotel was nice as they upgraded us to a new hotel. We had three single bed mattresses and we had a small fridge, t.v and tatami matts on the floor. I also had a small bathroom with razors, soap, towels, bathrobes, shampoo and conditioner.

Day 3 - Friday, June 24th

Today I ate noodles for breakfast. If you buy food at 7-11 you can eat it the next day. Today it is raining. The T.V shows in Japan are mostly different reality T.V game shows as there is a game show for everything. In Japan it gets light at around 4am and is dark by 7pm. The shower head in the shower is connected to the tap and is used by  turning the tap. The hotel does not have a closet so hooks are used to hang up your hanging clothes. I went to Shinjuku district in Tokyo as our hotel was near there. I went to a bookstore called Kinokuniya where there are some English books all on one floor. For lunch I ate fresh sashimi. It was delicious. I also had sesame flavored tofu for dessert. On the way back from a meeting I ended up getting lost on the way back to the hotel I was lost for about 30 minutes because on the way out with friends from the hotel I went a different way and so on the way back we went a different way again.  I got confused and thought that the hotel was across the street but it was on the opposite side that I thought it was. I ended up finding my way by eventually asking for directions at a 7-11 and they told me to go to the police box and they told me it was just around the corner from the police box. In Japan on hot days it is easy to get heat exhaustion.

Day 4 - Saturday, June 25th

Today I went to a grocery store where they sold fresh fruit and vegetables. In Japan they have huge apples three times the size of our apples. Then we went to the dollar store and I bought two tea cups, some chopsticks as they had Edo period art on them. Then I went to Shinjuku station in Tokyo to meet a friend. I saw how yam apple pies were made and they looked so yummy. They also sold bento boxes at the train station.  On the train I saw a girl yelling, banging the glass and kicking the door. This was quite strange as most normal people don't do this when a train stops or on a train. I then went to the Imperial Palace Gardens and walked around. It was a nice park with free admission and the flowers that bloom during the rainy season are called Ajisai. The imperial palace also had a rest stop and a museum of artifacts that the royal family had received. Then I stopped for lunch in an effort to save money. You can bring a bagged lunch and find a place to sit down and eat it. Then we took a 40 minute train and walked to the outdoor Edo Tokyo Museum. The museum has some buildings that look like the ones from Spirited Away and Princess Mononko movies. The park we walked by was nice and they had old buildings you can go through and see but they don't have much furniture in some of them but the shops have stuff in them also there was a bathhouse you could walk through and see. In this area it is called Kichijoji and there is a nice covered shopping and restaurant area that you can walk through. If you go to Japan at the end of June first part of July they have sales in the stores.

Day 5 - Sunday, June 26th

Today we almost took the wrong train but an older Japanese couple helped us find the right one. So today we went to Church. It was mostly married people and older people with Hymns and sharing time of the ministries the church has. Also we had gyoza(Japanese dumplings) and soba noodles for lunch.

Day 6 - Monday, June 27th

Today we went to the University of my friend in Japan Tokyo International Christian University. It was a nice university, it was very quiet, the buildings were spread out and it was a small university. Also they had a bookstore that was small and one building for classes with blackboards in the classrooms with a few t.v screens and plug-ins. The university has a building for computers and one library. The cafeteria on campus was quite nice with a separate place for getting food and a separate place for throwing out trash and putting the tray in a dishwasher.  There was a chapel that has services three times a week but it is not mandatory that one attends. The place also has a lot of trees and a Japanese tea house. If one is looking to study at this University I would recommend it as they have a lot of English classes and it is an International University. Before attending it is a good idea to make sure that your home university will give you credit for  the course you take while abroad and have approval to go abroad.