I’ll be there in two weeks. Alas, the cherry blossoms came early this year and I’ll probably miss them.
What? The cherry blossoms are out already?? :eek:
Afraid so. I’m hoping to catch them in Takaiama, but it looks like Tokyo and Kyoto will be done by the first week in April.
Well that sucks big time. We missed them in Washington last year and thought we’d catch them for sure in Japan this year. We always choose April to leave in order to escape the dreaded Thai holiday of Songkran, behind only India’s Holi festival in terms of despicableness.
Ah well. I’ll have to find some way to break this to the wife. 
I’ve stayed at various Toyoko Inns a bunch of times in Tokyo. I usually stayed at the one in Shinjuku (Kabuki-cho) but a few times at other locations.
The hotels are really inexpensive for Tokyo–single rooms were around 6500 yen for one person. The rooms are very clean and quiet, but also quite small (which is something of a norm in Tokyo hotel rooms). The bathtubs in the ones I’ve stayed in were only 3/4 sized, but I didn’t care because I just took showers.
Toyoko Inns are “businessman hotels” in that they cater to business people who just need a place to sleep for a night and a bathroom. As such, they aren’t really marketed to tourists who might be put off by their size. If you’ve every slept in one of those little day rooms rented out at Narita for passengers wanting a nap and a shower, the Toyoko rooms are only a little larger.
The only problem I ever had there was with the climate control one time. Apparently the hotel switches the entire building over from heating to cooling (and vice versa) at the same time in the spring or autumn. My problem was that it was around early March so they still had the heat on but I was burning up and desperately wanted air conditioning. It was not available. I don’t know if this was unique to that one hotel or if it is company-wide.
Even so, I can recommend the Toyoko Inn. I’ll certainly go back.
Sorry… my above post was written before I had read the whole thread and realized you already booked a room. But I’ll just add that I’ve never had much trouble booking a room at Toyoko even just a month ahead of time. It might not have been my first choice location, but there are so many Toyoko Inn’s in the Tokyo area, and the Metro and JR are everywhere so that’s not a problem.
Have a good trip!
Thanks anyway. British and Thai friends have highly recommended the Toyoko Inns too. But we’ve gone with the New Izu Hotel based on the recommendation earlier in this thread. They took our reservation earlier and were very helpful in e-mail exchanges.
Say, that chart is a forecast and for the first bloom. So maybe it will be later, or there will be later blooms?
I hope you’re right. We planned our trip to coincide with the Sakura. Apparently, this is the earliest bloom on record for Tokyo; 10 days earlier than the average and 15 days earlier than last year.
Our plans have changed, because we expect my father to die in the next day or two, and we didn’t want to be away for his funeral. (He’s 100, and he’s been sick for some time now, so this is not unexpected.) So we’ll miss the sakura, unless we go to Hokkaido – and my wife refuses to go near Fukushima, so that’s out of the question – but I’ll still post here when we do go.
Sorry to hear about your father. Good idea to stay away from Fukushima. It was in the news last week or early this week that there’s been a sudden and unexpected power outage to there. They didn’t know what caused it and were working on it the last I heard. They said there was no immediate danger, but if they couldn’t solve the problem in a few days, the lack of cooling water would mean a new release of radiation into the air. But I haven’t heard anything else since then.
A rat apparently chewed through some wiring and shut down the cooling system. The cooling system is working again.
Yay! Thanks.
I just caught my first Japanese ball game (Yomiuri Giants 6, Chinichi Dragons 3). Definitely a must-do on any trip to Japan. There are two fan sections in the outfield bleachers and the supporters really put on a show. The Giants hit a homer into the Dragons’ fan section and they actually threw the ball back. First time I’ve ever personally seen that at a major league game! Beer girls, cheerleaders, goofy mascots! It was a blast!
Not a baseball fan, but this sounds intriguing. May have to give it a go.
Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. We fly to Tokyo tonight (Sunday night), and I generally don’t faff around with the Internet while abroad. If the North Koreans don’t zap us, I’ll be back in a couple of weeks.
Woke up this morning in Kyoto to a 6.0 earthquake. An awesome start to the day!
Well, it was a great trip. We could not squeeze a ballgame in though. Just too much to do and see.
Heard about that earthquake. It was centered in the Kobe area, wasn’t it? We arrived in Kyoto the day after, on Sunday. That’s a nice city too. Stayed at the Palace Side Hotel in central Kyoto, which we can highly recommend. As it’s name says, it is right next to the Imperial Palace.
I’m now on my third day in Japan, all in Osaka so far. I’ve been impressed by:
- Osaka Castle (which is in a beautiful setting)
- Food in Osaka – last night we shared two ekibens (railway station lunchboxes) that we bought at Shin-Osaka Station.
- The Osaka subway system.
- Continual Japanese politeness in all situations – I must have been bowed to by hundreds of people so far.
On the other hand I was not impressed to discover that the Osaka Maritime Museum closed last month, after we took the subway out to Cosmosquare to see it. We also found that the Osaka Museum of Housing and Living closes on Tuesdays, but at least we will be able to see it today.
As our visit progresses, I’ll be posting pictures on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/75905404@N00/collections/72157633022893262/. Today we will stay in Osaka, partly because there’s a good chance that it will rain, and there’s plenty of indoor activities here. Tomorrow we’ll get our JR (Japan Rail) pass, and first use it to take a shinkansen trip to Miyajima, Hiroshima and Okayama.
I assume you’ll be hitting Tokyo? If so, and especially since you seem interested in museums, I highly recommend the Tokyo National Museum. Very close to Ueno Station and in Ueno Park, which is a pleasant stroll.
If you’re taking the Shinkansen back north to Osaka, overshoot Shin-Osaka and get off at Kyoto station 15 minutes later to hit the conveyer sushi place in Asty Street (a mall attached to the station). It’s the best fish I had in Japan and ridiculously cheap (16 plates for less than 2000 yen!)