Monday Peeves – Trip-Planning

Published on by Yinglan

Paula Light is the lovely hostess for The Monday Peeve, where I get to do the thing I cannot do in real life – air my inner most complaints.

I LOATHE trip planning, especially when I’m unfamiliar with the culture and its language is as alien as the first day I started learning English. I used to love trip planning – browsing for places to stay and all the fun things to do, etc. – but I can only go through that once a year, not twice, and certainly not three times in a matter of 12 months.

Mom is having me plan yet another trip. It’ll be the third time we’ve traveled over the course of 12 months. The first was last September to Niagara falls, Canada, and East Coast. We just did the second trip to the UK, and we’re about to embark on a third trip in September to Japan – land of the rising sun.

I, for one, am tired of travel even though I would’ve called myself crazy for saying that a few years ago. Turned out, travel takes a lot out of a person. I’m going on this trip because I’m weak. Mom wore me down until I said yes. I don’t think I’ve even recovered from my last trip yet, unless my body is malfunctioning again and now, she’s practically jumping up and down with a level of giddy and excitement that can only exist in children. She’s heading to a country she’d always wanted to go, except I have to plan it. Ugh!

I thought planning for the UK trip was hard. Planning a trip to Japan is a whole other beast. First of all, I can’t read Japanese and when Google translates the websites into English, the translation is so weird that I found myself scratching my head trying to decipher the meaning of a sentence.

I tried learning Japanese and the language is much, much, much harder than learning English and re-learning Chinese. How did I even learn these languages again?

As of this moment, I’m not sure I really want to go on this trip. Not only is she blaming me for every little mistakes like accidentally booking a smoking room as opposed to a non-smoking room, she’s bringing her friend along, which will mean double pressure on me. I mean, that’s why we book rooms that’s fully refundable, right? In case we make mistakes like this?

Nope, she acted like the world’s ending.

So can you see why I don’t like trip-planning? Particularly when it involves you-know-who?

20 thoughts on “Monday Peeves – Trip-Planning”

  2. What do you want to know about Japan from a travelers perspective. My wife adores Japan. We do musical tours there, we travel there for fun and as late as about 9 months ago we spent 25 days there. Ask away. The first thing to know is how to get to Tokyo from Narita.

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    1. One of my biggest concerns is transferring between trains and buses. I have enough trouble with that as it is in the US. So many things can go wrong between the first and second train or bus and I don’t have the luxury of making that mistake traveling with my mom as she will lecture me for 30 minutes to an hour for one tiny mistake like getting on the wrong train. I’m going to be living in Shinjuku and coming from Haneda airport requires a transfer. I don’t know what, Google Maps does not say. I feel I’m going to have research every public transit company in Japan just as I had to for the UK.

      My main gripe about this it’s a new country, I don’t know the language, and looking at the characters makes me as anxious as hell, not to mention having someone like my mom scream at me for 30 minutes every little mistake. All these things just makes me want to curl beneath a rock until the trip is over.

      Finally, what are some places you recommend in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka? Obviously, there are the shrines but too many to visit. Are there any one particular that are interesting to take a peek? What about museums?

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      1. This is going to take more than one or two comments to sort out so let’s start with some questions.

        What dialect of Chinese do you read? After living in Hong Kong for so long, I could read a kittle old style characters because HK is a Cantonese city. I was surprised at how much I understood in Japan.

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      2. I speak Cantonese and Mandarin (as we were forced to learn in school). After watching a few Youtube videos about Japan, some of the Japanese pronunciation seems to be derived from Cantonese but the native speaks so fast that it sounds like gibberish. At the moment, I can read some of the Chinese characters and then do what I did when I visited China a few years ago – make educated guesses based on the characters I can read.

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      4. How did you settle in Shinjuku as a home base? If you thought London was crowded and noisy, you’ll think Shinjuku is a hellscape. Transfers. Just ask any Japanese person who is near your train or bus. They may not speak English or Chinese but they are helpful to the point that they will take you to your transport and put you in your seat.

        Something to know about street addresses. They are not sequential. They are ordered by building construction date which is why businesses always fax or email a map to show you where they are.

        In Shinjuku find Yodobashi Photo, There are a bunch of them in Japan, but this is the biggest one. 8 floors of everything photographic. Prices are similar to the US depending on Yen to USD, but they have items you will never ever see in the US. Also there is the Tsukiji Fish Market. Go there early in the morning like 4-5am, which we do on the first day because we are upside down in time. Wander and make pictures then walk across the street to any of the sushi houses. These are working mens places. The fish is right off the boat, the portions are huge.

        Go to Kyoto for shrines, temples and Zen lodging where you can eat for just a few yen. Musical Miss says she’ll write to you about that if she ever recovers from just getting home from touring. Should be in a day or two.

        I’ll tell you about Osaka and a lot more about Tokyo.

        What kind of hotel are you staying at?

        If you want to take this offline… ray@laskowitzpictures.com

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    1. That’s what I’ve been saying for months but if I don’t go, she won’t go. She seems to be under the impression or delusion we make great traveling partners. I feel like she’s referring to her friend’s daughter, not me.

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