Joe Rodin Has A Blog

December 31st - January 1st. Instagram One more recommendation for travel: fly on New Year's Eve. The airport was empty and I made it through security in under 10 minutes. When Japan Airlines sent me the reminder email, they said I only needed to be the airport an hour in advance, but my instinct is to always arrive at least two hours early. Boy was I wrong. I sure did sit at that airport for two hours waiting and waiting and waiting! It ended up being fine, because with no one at the airport, the WiFi wasn't bogged down and I stayed entertained for the most part. The flight as well was a breeze. Japan Airlines has plenty of leg room, and the movie selection was pretty solid, so as long as you stay busy: time flies. I think the movies I watched in no particular order were: Jumanji 1, Maleficent 2, Toy Story 4, Aladdin, X-Men: Dark Pheonix, and Shazam! I paid the premium for inflight WiFi, and it wasn't fast enough to do most things on the internet, but was good enough...

Preparing for a trip halfway across the world has it's difficulties, the most important being the language barrier that exists. I'll cover that and also talk about other basic prep things, such as what to pack. I've been catching up with James May's "Our Man In Japan," and he mentions that if you're an english speaker and travel to a country using the Roman Alphabet, even if you're not sure of what the word means, you can at least get a sound in your head and either deduct or just translate. This doesn't work in Japan if you don't know the alphabets, Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. For someone like me, they look real cool, but I honestly can't read anything, and my vocabulary is also tiny, as I really only know how to say, "Hello," "Thank You," and "Ramen." There are plenty of language learning resources that are free and easily accessible: phone apps, libraries, videos on YouTube, etc. There are an equally ...

Criteria The most important thing when it comes to traveling, first and foremost, is where I'd like to go and what I want to accomplish: Criteria . A real vacation should cover these six fields: Sightseeing/Tourism, History, Food, Shopping, Weather, Leisure. Sightseeing/Tourism : If it's ancient or brand new, if it's a cool building, a fun event, a "must-do" whether for locals or travelers, I want to do all of it, or as much as possible. I'm a tour guide in Boston, so I love to see what other cities have to offer. History : Square and a rectangle with sightseeing, not all sights you see are necessarily historic, so if I'm going to a new country/city, I need there to be a draw in terms of its history. Food : When it comes to being at home, I honestly order almost the same thing every week from the same places, and maybe have 7-10 recipes I rotate through. When I'm in a new country, I love to just go wild trying every new dish I possibly can, and ...