Posts Tagged ‘city’

After a really cool June, we have finally had our first feel of summer here in Tokyo. And while we don’t have a 4th of July weekend like the US, I figured a would give 5 things you can do that will keep you out of the heat, on a small budget, and having fun. The big key is to get out of your own house so you don’t have to run the AC.

1. Go to Karaoke- Most of us love to sing, and if you search around you can even find great deals during the weekend. There is a place near me that costs about 1,000JPY (about $10) for all day on Saturday or sunday) and it comes with a free drink. It would cost that much to run your ac for a couple of hours.

2. Take a train to the Ocean- One of the nice things about living in Japan is you are always close to the ocean. Even if you don’t like to swim, you can get away from the city to relax and enjoy the cooler temperature near the ocean.

3. Activities in the park- Let’s face it, when it gets hot and muggy in Tokyo you are gonna sweat. So why not have some fun and get some exercise out of it.

4. Spend a day visiting art museums and other cultural spots- Most are cheap to enter, they have air conditioning, and is very relaxing. Many also have small cafes where you can have a meal or a cup of tea.

5. Visit the local mountains- Since Japan is made of mostly mountains, there is always one close. You can get to a cooler temperature, get some exercise, and have a great view.

Set a budget to make sure that you don’t overspend and stick to it.

Well it’s been a couple of weeks since Eri and I got back from our trip to Miyakojima. And some of the photos I took inspired me to add a photo gallery to the site. I installed Zenphoto today and am starting to put in photos slowly. You can find the full photo gallery here: simplistic thoughts photo gallery. Please leave some comments and let me know what you think. I have also made a few other changes to the site, including a new contact form in the side bar.

Miyakojima is a small island about an hour south of Okinawa. You can drive across the island in less than an hour. We flew out of Tokyo airport and arrived at Miyakojima at about 10:00am on Thursday morning. We had our rental car in about 30 minutes and were headed off towards our hotel.

We set the coordinates into the GPS and after practically driving in a circle, realized that it didn’t really work that well. We decided to use the map we had grabbed at the airport and use the GPS for a location reference. After a bunch of confusion we finally arrived at our hotel. Had lunch at the restaurant across the street, and enjoyed the warm clean air (don’t get too much of that in Tokyo).

We were able to check into the hotel a little earlier than we had thought and so put our stuff in our room and went for a swim in the ocean. The water was absolutely gorgeous and there was a lot of life. We even saw Nemo (an anemone containing one large clown fish and one very small one).

After coming back from our swim we decided to do some site seeing and drove a little ways down the coast.The weather was mostly cloudy as we were expecting thunderstorms, but still very beautiful. The entire island was a mixture of green and blue. Later in the evening we went for dinner, and then a massage. On the way back, the thunderstorm hit and the rain fell. There was so much rain that the rain pipe was literally shooting out pressurized water. We had some difficulty sleeping that night due to the thunder that lasted well into the early morning.

For the last night (or so we thought) we were comped a stay at a new hotel that had just opened. It was very nice, with a separate bedroom, private sauna, day beds, and dinning room. I found out later the normal cost is $350 per person per night. From there we continued our travels around the island and then received a phone call from the travel agency telling us we would need to leave earlier (after we had paid extra to leave later) due to a strike of the airline. They wanted us to catch an earlier flight to Okinawa and then hope on of the completely booked flights would open up to Tokyo. If not we would have to pay hotel.

I was having too much fun to be bothered by bad news and after a few phone calls. We had arranged to leave the day after on a guaranteed flight, had our additional night at the hotel paid for, and our seats from Okinawa to Tokyo upgraded to business class. Cost to us, 0$. Great job Eri!

We spent our last day walking around the beach and through the city enjoying the various shops. My personal favorite was the snow salt ice cream. I had already consumed 2 ice creams that day, but couldn’t pass it up, and I was glad that I didn’t. It was great.