Plans are finalized, but somehow this has failed to resolve anything. I know where I’ll be on each successive travel pivot point, but not where my luggage (read – clean clothes) will be. This would be less of a problem if the timespan in question wasn’t ten days, with four of those days being training and one being a meeting with my future Board of Education.
Traveling in Japan with luggage is an unappealing prospect. Japan agrees with me on this, offering five or six different luggage shipping companies conveniently located right outside of customs. These companies, for a nominal fee of around ￥5000 ($50), will ship your bulky, heavy, absolutely unmanageable luggage to anywhere in Japan.
“But I travel light,” you say.
“I don’t mind dragging around suitcases,” you say.
You will.
My getting-to-Japan schedule currently looks like this:
- 8/18 – Portland to Seattle, leaving at 9:30 am
- 8/18 – Seattle to Dallas, leaving at 12:15
- Overnight in Dallas
- 8/19 - leaving Dallas for Narita at 12:10 (first class!)
- 8/20 - arrive at Narita at 3:05PM (Japan time)
- 8/20-8/22 – Tokyo! With Lauren and my host family, hopefully.
- 8/23 – off to Gifu, to meet with Gifu’s BOE
- 8/24 – ?
- 8/25-8/28-ish – teacher training in Nagoya with the company
- 8/28(9?)-ish – back to Gifu and the beginning of work!
Looks busy but manageable, right? Except.
- I cannot carry my luggage with me throughout Tokyo. Normally, what would happen is that I would ship it from the airport to my final destination, except:
- There are ten-ish days between the day I would ship it and the day I would have access to it again. Normally, I’d stuff a backpack full of easily mixable and matchable clothes, like jeans and tshirts, except:
- Meeting with Gifu’s BOE and training in Nagoya are business formal and business casual, respectively. While my suit might survive ten days in a backpack if it was by itself, I’m pretty sure stuffing in jeans too would be a disaster.
- I am not wearing a suit for ten days.
And I haven’t even thought about lodging for all this.
In sum,
Help?
Have you considered a dress(es)? You can wear them casually and if you pick the right dress, they look good under a business jacket.
ReplyDeleteAs for lodging, I can recommend capsule hotels, which can be only around 3000JPY per night and found Nagoya at the least. Or, also in Nagoya, there's the Petit Ryokan Ichifuji, where my dad stayed. Twice as expensive, but there's a free continental breakfast.
Also, if you have a free day in Nagoya make sure you get directions from Joanna, Lisa or I for stuff to do. There's Inuyama (with the best ramen place ever), the cat cafe, Nagoya Dome...
Get one of the four-wheeled carry-on size pieces. It's not going to be FUN to drag around, but you'll be able to, and it should fit enough clothes for casual and business purposes. I think you'll find that in Nagoya, except in the after-work Friday rush, the subways aren't nearly as packed as they would've been when you were in Tokyo. Depending on where you need to be (downtown Nagoya? Sakae? Another random station?) the subway traffic will be even less.
ReplyDeleteAn stow it in a big locker at the subway/train station each day while you're in Tokyo; my sister used to do that on all of her trips there.
Also, good luck!