Joe Rodin Has A Blog

January 21. Instagram Three options on the table: Yokohama and tall buildings, DisneyLand Tokyo, or $300 Evisu Jeans. I left it to a public vote on Facebook, and conveniently when I'm going to bed my friends are all waking up, and with overwhelming support, DisneyLand Tokyo won. Honestly, having slept on it overnight, I was convinced I was going to Disney, because my spouse hates Disney, so if I come back to Japan with her, we can do the other two, but definitely not Disney. It's free for me to hop on the JR Train to make it to DisneyLand Tokyo, whereas the hotel's shuttle bus would take an extra 20 minutes and cost $20. Done and easy. I arrived at Disney early because it doesn't matter what time of year it is, there's always a line waiting to get inside. When I arrived for day of tickets, I was maybe only the 20th person in line, but there was easily 1,000 people already waiting to enter the gates. Everyone had blankets, snacks, and vinyl mats to sit down on ...

January 17. Instagram Today is a sad day, because it's my last big train ride in Japan. It's just under 2 hours from Beppu to Fukuoka, and this is also my earliest train of the trip, as it leaves the station at 5:27am. Save the best for last, right? I actually left the hotel so early in the morning, I had to wake the desk guy up to tell him I was leaving. He wasn't like hunched over the desk or anything, he was in a back room and I rang the bell and clearly woke the poor man up. Luckily I was the only person there, so he can go back to sleep for a few more hours. Fukuoka has a tourist day pass that also covers all local metro trains! I didn't look this up in advance, but there was a sign for it at the train station, and it's purchased at the station, so it's a good win-win. The day pass is mostly discounts, not a lot of attractions are free, but it's only $18, so the metro/bus being free all day will be the biggest win. The best bonus of the day is whe...

January 15. Instagram Woke up way too early in the morning for how much fun we had last night, but it's a 6am train out of Nara up to Kyoto, and then a train from Kyoto to Shin-Osaka, and another train from there to Hiroshima. All of my trains for the past week have been well under a two hour commute, and if I kept to my original plan, that would also be the case today, but in total it was around 3 hours of commuting and train hopping before my arrival in Hiroshima. My hotel is diagonal across the street from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Museum, and as I knew coming into today, it was going to be an emotionally heavy day. I dropped my bags at the hotel, and walked my way across the street to the Museum and Park, and prepared myself for tears, because I knew they'd be coming. Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Hiroshima. On August 6, 1945, a single atomic bomb destroyed the majority of the city, and was responsible for the death of 90,000-170,000 people, and in...