One week until Japan!

In just one week, I’ll be setting off on my next visit to Japan! But it’ll take me a while to get there, as I’m going on a rather roundabout route to get there.

As I’m taking my ten year old nephew with me, I need to fly to Edinburgh first to pick him up. Flight schedules then mean we fly to Amsterdam and stay the night at an airport hotel, before flying on to Helsinki and then, finally, Tokyo! So that’s British Airways, KLM and Finnair, just to get to Tokyo.

I’ve taken the Finnair route to get to Asia before, previously going via Helsinki to fly to Seoul. It’s a great service and breaking the journey in Helsinki’s wonderful airport is such a great idea.

I’m really looking forward to this trip, as it’s the first holiday I’ll have alone with my nephew. We’re going business class, which he doesn’t know yet. So that will be another surprise once we get to the airport. I’ll also get to show him around my favourite city in the world, knowing that he’s similarly obsessed with Japan. It’s his first ever visit, so I know I’ll love his excitement.

Given the epic route we’re taking, I’ve booked us a few hours at a capsule hotel at Narita Airport, so we can shower and freshen up and get a nap if needs be. He’s never travelled that far before, so may need it.

Who am I kidding?!

Given the route we’re taking, I know I’ll need it!

It will be my first stay in a capsule hotel – which is weird, given the number of times I’ve already visited Japan. I’m looking forward to the experience – I hope he enjoys it too. A first for both of us.

As for the itinerary, we’re in Japan for a little under a week, so we’ll hit the main popular spots: Harajuku, Shibuya, Asakusa and Odaiba. We’ll be staying in Shinjuku at the hotel I always stay in, meaning we’re well placed to do some exploring.

Top of my list will be more onsen experiences, but given I’ll be entertaining a ten year old, we’ll also do some more fun and exciting stuff. Expect over-excited blog posts at some point from yours truly, along with many, many photos of Andrew grinning into the camera.

Incidentally, I’ve just started to use Anchor.fm to record brief audio posts. I’ll be using this a lot more in Japan as it’s so easy – you just speak into your iPhone and the system creates short podcast episodes for you. If you’re interested in following me there, you can subscribe to ‘MacPsych on the Move’ via this link.

Now to get ready and decide what I’m packing. As usual, I know I’ll need to bring a large bag, half-full. Because, you know, shopping in Tokyo… 😜