Travel to Japan 02

Purchase of Japan Tickets
Tickets to Osaka via United
Friday, March 28, 2008

I have started to inquire about my upcoming trip to Osaka, Japan in late summer 2008. I first started my search using the regular websites like, Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz, and OneTravel. However, since I am leaving from a small town in the USA my flight options in late March 2008 for a trip in late August were not good. Several of them quoted prices in the 1500 range.

So I decided to modify my plans so that I will leave from a bigger city in the US and try to fly to Tokyo or Nagoya both of which have relatively larger International Airports compared to Osaka. In addition, since I will be traveling to Japan just after the Olympics in China gets over, I assume that may contribute to the high cost of the ticket.

Even after exploring the options I was unable to find good fares either through the above mentioned sites or even through airlines themselves like Delta, NorthWest, and Continental.

Then I spoke to people who are native of Japan and they suggested I contact Travel Agents who specialize in travels to Japan. One such vendor was IACE-USA Travels. They have offices in Orlando, Atlanta, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other places.

I sent out my plans and the next day they sent me an itinerary via e-mail. Then I spoke with one travel agent who helped me fine tune my departure and arrival as per my request. It turned out that if I traveled out of Orlando (MCO) and arrived Nagoya (NGO) they would offer me their best price. So I decided to go with that itinerary. This meant I had to travel to Orlando by car and take a train to Osaka after arriving in Nagoya. Another option would have been to arrive at Tokyo/Narita (NRT) International Airport and change to Haneda (HND) Domestic airport in Tokyo and arrive in Osaka. I preferred to fly to NGO and take the train rather than shuttle between two airports after a long journey.

Once I gave my selection they sent me the tickets in United Airlines. The tickets were reasonably priced in the 1300 range.

Trip to Konxville TN 01

Annual Meeting of the American Crystallographic Association
Knoxville, Tennessee

I wanted to travel to Knoxville, TN to attend the Annual Meeting of the American Crystallographic Association at Knoxville Convention Center. Since Knoxville is served via Delta (I always start my searches with Delta, since Tallahassee is well connected via Delta than any other carrier), I tried to look for flights that left late evening and arriving their in before 10 PM (CDT).

I found couple of them and decided to book one of them using Delta's own website. But when I tried to book reservation for my stay and flight, Expedia turned out to give me a better deal for the combination rather than separate reservations. So I went with Expedia.

My flight routing was TLH to ATL and then ATL to TYS. The return journey was simply the reverse of the forward journey. When I tried to combine hotel, car rental, and flight that combination was more expensive. So I decided to do car rental separately.

Travel to Japan 01

Japan Books and Travel Guide
Feburuary 28, 2008

I started to search for books and Travel Guides for Japan. I first started my search at my local county library (Leon County Library) and found couple of good books. But some of them were bit older and so I used those books for general information.

Then I selected the books I liked the most and went to Ebay, Half, Barnes & Nobles, Amazon, and Alibris, as well http://www.isbn.nu/ and searched for the titles and ISBN numbers (http://www.isbn.nu/) to get the newer versions or newer editions of the same books.

I was able to get some of the books through Ebay, Half and Amazon. The following are the books I liked the most.

• Good picture book from Dorling Kindersley (aka DK) called Eyewitness Travel Japan (ISBN: 0-7894-9719-0 or 978-0-75662-876-5)


• General information about Japan - Frommer's Japan by Beth Reiber, Edition 8, (ISBN: 0-471-763-91-8 978-0-471-76391-8)
  
• If you plan to travel by train - Japan by Rail by Ramsey Zarifeh (ISBN: 978-1-873756-97-3)

• Japanese Language Audio CD - Pimsleur Quick & Simple Japanese, 3rd Edition (ISBN: 0-7435-2351-2) 4CD set with 8 lessons.