Joe Rodin Has A Blog

This is my last official post about my Japan trip, because I still left a few things on the table to talk about, and condense a few tips down into one convenient post. Let's go over final budget/spending, final look back, and for those who like the numbers: final stats on the trip. Final Budget/Spending My budget post was very long, but that's because there's a lot to consider when budgeting for a three week international trip. I am lucky that I had a fairly open budget, I didn't need to stay under a certain budget, but there was definitely an amount I would not like to reach. Doing something in the moment and Yolo'ing hard can become really, really expensive, so planning ahead and keeping track of numbers is primo. Some things I did that cost a whole bunch of money: Spent $400+ on an outfit and gifts in Harajuku, $470 on one night in a fancy Ryokan in Hakone, and close to $200 spent at Disneyland Tokyo between the ticket, souvenirs, and food. If we cut all th...

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 ...

My Japan spreadsheet is pretty cool, and it covers all the important information. Across the board it covers: Date Time of Travel Hotel Cost Destinations Costs This all gets looped together into a vertical version of the sheet, which is easier to read on a mobile device on the go, I won't show the full vertical sheet, because that information is already covered above, and would take up the majority of this post, so this is just for the idea: The items highlighted by a green border  means there's a pre-booked ticket that is on a time schedule. All flights are listed with the flight number and takeoff time 🛫. The item highlighted with the big red question mark❓means the ticket is pending and I won't know until the day of arrival if the voucher goes through. (If not, it triggers an auto-refund). Tokyo Tower and Tokyo Skytree are limited to days the sun ☀️ is out, they close for inclement weather.  Hakone being fairly spread out and requiring busses ...

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 ...

I'm going to be retroactively posting here over the next couple days about our honeymoon and the places we saw and the things we did, but I'll be starting with this post about the most important thing: Food. BOGO Drinks, First meal in London, Day 1 BOGO Drinks and Mexican, Day 1 Molly has her first Pasty after Platform 9 3/4, Night 1 Lunch At the Tate Modern, Day 2 Lunch At The Tate Modern, Day 2 Lunch At The Tate Modern, Day 2 Indian Food, Night 2 British Pub Grub, Day 3 Ethiopian Food, Night 3 Twix McFlurry, Night 3 Lunch in Stratford Upon Avon, after Shakespeare's Birthplace, Day 4 Cocktails and Wine, Night 4 Italian Food, Last Night in London, Night 4 (This was one of the Top 3 meals of the trip, so delicious!) Chocolate for Dessert, Night 4 This is where we leave London for Paris. Quick Breakfast and Train Station Lunch. Escargot, First Meal in Paris, Night 5 (I was afraid to snap photos in this restauran...

Today was strictly set aside as a travel day, we needed to catch a train from Paris to Barcelona, and that ride alone was set to take close to 6 hours. So we bought some last minute souvenirs in Paris, stocked up on snacks, and hit the train station. Weird thing: They never checked our tickets on the train until after we left the first stop, which was easily 100km out from Paris. We could have free-loaded on this train and no one would have even noticed, much less said anything. And where this was between two real EU countries (sorry, England), there was no security check or passport check, just off you go! Photo of the French Countryside on the way to Barcelona. Arriving in Barcelona, I picked a hotel immediately across the street from the train station, to make travel into and out of Barcelona super fast, and it worked out well for us. We grabbed some dinner at a restaurant a couple blocks down the road and called it a night. Joe