Travel back to home

Travel Back to Home
Saturday, 30, 2008
Orlando to Tallahassee

After spending eight days in Japan, we were ready to head back home. Our almost 18 hour (9 1/2 hour to San Francisco and 5 1/2 hour journey to Orlando) journey and 13 hour time difference made us very tired. So we stayed at a Hotel last night.

Around 10 AM we got back in our car and headed toward Tallahassee. We stopped only briefly to pick up some lunch. We arrived around 3 PM.

Travel to Japan 13

On Flights to Japan
Friday-Saturday, Aug 21-22, 2008
United 51 and 831

We started out journey very early in the morning in Orlando, Florida. With tropical strom Fay still threatening the East coast of Florida (current location is around between Cape Canavarel and Jacksonville) we woke up around 3:15 AM prepared ourselves, checked out of the HoJo and headed toward the Orlando International Airport (MCO). Flights from MCO fortunately were not affected, but it was raining on and off.

We parked our car in one of the Satellite parking lots and took the shuttle (in rain) and reached the gates for the Untied Airlines. We checked our bags with relative ease and MCO was much more easiser to navigate than the busy ATL airport in Atlanta, GA. Since there was still time we grabbed some breakfast before the 5-hour trip to San Franscisco (SFO) International Airport.

Our flight to SFO was smooth. The weather in SFO was much better, cloudy but no rain. Even though we reached early, we had very short time before catching the connecting flight to Nagoya International Airport (NGO). The flight 831 was about 10 1/2 hours long. We saw Kung Fu Panda and Iron Man while traveling.

Finally around 1:40 PM JST (Japan Standard Time) ahead of our 2:20 PM scheduled arrival we landed at NGO. 15 minutes before we landed we had a beautiful view of Mount Fuji (no snow cover at the altitude of 14,000 feet) to our right of the flight path.

We were fingerprinted and photographed (all non-Japanese citizens are required to go through this procedure) and collected out baggage and needed find a way to get the Nagoya Japan Rail station.

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.