Tadaima!

Good day everyone and　ようこそ　みんな! It has been a very long time since the last post due to.. oh lets call it a case of 'life' and 'reality' setting over us. Now I believe reopen this blog and continue discussing the long forgotten plan of going to Japan!

Now during the blog's downtime SOME of us did manage to go to Japan, but! The ultimate goal of this blog is to go there as a group and enjoy the sights, sounds and people together!

Now that not all of us are students and can't just have long holidays, the longest we could stay for our trip would be 1 week. That's a whopping 9 (Friday to the next Sunday) days! Therefore this would either mean doing everything we've planned so far within those 9 days or spending more quality time enjoying one city/region and plan to return another time in the future for the other regions! The former would be very unpractical and tiring as we'd have to travel all over the country and would not get enough time to slow down and relax. We shall therefore focus on one region while trying to do as many of the planned activities within our reach!

Obviously we have to go to Tokyo first because.. well most of what we (well I do anyway) want to do is primarily there and the surrounding areas! I won't list them out because that would mean going back through the archives and finding what we had planned before (yes.. I have forgotten everything). The planned time would be sometime in the summer of 2010 and therefore the first course of action is to see who is coming along with us so that we could figure out how much it would cost for a return journey and accommodation. On that note, you shall all spread the word! Count the heads and we shall continue from there! In the mean time, when I do manage to find the time.. and when I'm bothered to I shall make a rough plan of what we're going to do for the 9 days in Tokyo.

Jom ke CC!

I present to you Case A: Link

And as the great Takasu Ryuji once said, "We'll stay in a business hotel or maybe even a manga cafe for now.."
Kids, I believe this is a cheap alternative to a hotel.. love or no love.

Love Hotels

There's no doubt that we'll visit a love hotel, but which ones?!

Hello Kitty S&M Room (bed), Hotel Adonis, Osaka, Japan

Vending Machine with Vibrators

Kufufu.

Oi ~ Kagamin ~

Am absolutely appalled that this hasn't been updated in months, but not to worry, we shall have a real life massu on my birthday soon nyahahah!

We should be doing some pretty otakuey activities such as prancing around in London with neko-mimis on and maybe go read mangas at forbidden planet. =.=

How I wish there's a maid cafe in London!

Themed Activities

I figured that since we're going to be spending a lot of time in the land of the rising sun, might as well set some activities to keep us busy.
Therefore I propose that we go around Japan in search for places that look like the opening for Lucky Star to take pictures of us in them reenacting those scenes. More specifically, these:

A field

Torii next to some shop house

Next to a zebra crossing

In front of what looks like a school

Initial research (2 minutes on Wikipedia) shows that the anime is based in the city of Kasukabe in the Saitama Prefecture. It's north east of central Tokyo and takes about 25minutes by train to reach... so if we're bored/hardcore enough we could pay that place a visit and maybe uhh.. walk around and do stuff?? Ok it seems more and more unlikely this is possible as it's quite out of the way and we're not guaranteed to find those places. What's important here is the intriduction of themed activities! So if anyone else comes up with any activities please feel free to share them!

[edit] So even though it's not relevant anymore, I've found the places in Japan that was shown in Lucky Star. This is the shrine where Kagami is dancing in front of and this and this shows comparison shots between the anime and real life. I'm not obsessed.. I'm not I'm not I'm not. [/edit]

Kit List

Since the concensus was to travel light, may I suggest the following items that should be prepared for the tentatively 2 weeks trip.

Rucksack
Any 25-35 litre rucksack from a dependable, sound outdoor make (Berghaus, Lowe Alpine, The North Face, Osprey etc) should comfortably hold clothes, pared-down toiletries, notebook and various pamphlets/brochures if need be, travel towel and chargers for extended periods of time. Look out for features such as rain covers, back ventilation, storage management and style. It wouldn't work if you think it looks shytez.
Budget <£100

Toiletries
Shampoo, face wash and shower cream in individual 100ml bottles for each person should last two weeks. Light travel towels are available from outdoor equipment shops as well, providing massive size with very little bulk. They tend to stink though as synthetic materials attract bacteria. A rinse with clean water after use and hung to air for the night should do the trick. They dry within the hour. An interesting problem to note, since we're travelling light, there's bound to be laundry. How does buying washing powder/detergent in Japan and wash clothes at night sound? Hotels and ryokans will provide yukatas to be worn during your stay with them anyway.
Budget <£50

Clothing
Throwing all sense of fashion out the window, best things to wear would be trekking trousers which are lightweight, comfy airy and quick dry and microfibre shirts covered with a softshell jacket. Since not everyone is like me, I suggest whatever stuff you like (that is suitable for wet autumnal times), enough for 3-4 changes. Inclusive of whatever undergarments and socks. Prepare something to keep off the rain. Umbrellas would be good but unpractically bulky. Waterproofs are expensive and probably to hot for the weather. I'd go for the aforementioned softshell jacket. As far as footwear goes, comfort's t3h word. That, and good grippy soles for variety of terrain. 'nuff said.
Budget £200-300

Other
A nifty little hidden travel pouch is a good idea. Passports, ID and money can go in there. As far as camera gear and bags go, I leave it up to Chee-kun. Thats about it really. A laptop, if we're really hard-pressed. Max size should not exceed 14.1" widescreen. Weight shouldn't be more than 4 kilograms all in.

Anything else?

Sabishi~

It's been a while since this is updated, I wonder why.

Well I suppose everyone's been slacking pretty much and I've been busy since I have to go to classes. =.=

Chee-kun has failed to get Lonely Planets' guidebook to Japan owing to teh fact that it seems to be sold out in every single bookshop! There are still some copies left in WHSmith over here though... :3

And since it is also scheduled to be updated in 2009, Chee-kun figured we can wait till then.

On another note, Yo Sushi! is having this insane promotion which says that if you eat 10 or more plates, you shall have 5 plates free! (the plates with the lowest prices of course)

NOM!