Flight Bookings To & From Japan

日本の旅行

Most people making flight bookings from Japan to overseas destinations use the big travel agencies such as No1 Travel, HIS, Nihon Ryoku or JTB.

With all the agency fees and add ons, not to mention the time and inconvenience endured to fax or scan travel documents to the agency, it is often quicker and cheaper to make a flight booking direct on the airline's website, especially for flights to the US and the UK (on BA and Virgin).

Check out the deals available on United, Delta and American from such major Japanese airports as Narita, Haneda, Chubu and KIX (Osaka) to the US and you may discover some significant savings on airfares. Other big players for flights to both London and New York are JAL, ANA and Korean Airlines. Air France and Lufthansa fly from Japanese airports to Paris and Frankfurt.

For flights from Europe, America and Australia to Japan most visitors book their tickets online from big online flight comparison sites such as Expedia, saving time and being presented with a choice of airlines.

Flights from Japan to Europe usually leave in the morning, though flights to the USA leave both in the morning and late evening.

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JA Kyosai Sculpture - Is It Art?

全国共済農業協同組合連合会

The National Mutual Insurance Federation of Agricultural Cooperatives, or "JA Kyosai" for short, is a Japanese mutual aid association founded in 1948 and which in 1951 began catering to agricultural cooperatives nationwide. JA Kyosai is an insurance provider for its members. As of today JA Kyosai is Japan's biggest domestic insurer.

Last year JA Kyosai got itself a very handsome new 21-story national headquarters building in Tokyo's Hirakawacho district, just a short distance from the administrative center of Japan, the Nagatacho district.

The JapanVisitor Blog has recently been looking at public sculpture around Tokyo. The JA Kyosai building has a sculpture out front, but the lack of any plaque on it or in its vicinity suggests that it is not so much a work of art as an ornament conceived in the office of the building's architects, Nihon Sekkei.

Nevertheless, the line between art and ornamentation is an exceptionally fuzzy one, so we hereby christen this craggy, granite, somewhat Easter Island-inspired homage to earthy rural camaraderie in the beatific cycle of fertility and harvest, "Untitled."

"Untitled" is certainly a lot more inspired and inspiring than most of the titled public art in Tokyo, particularly that created up until a couple of decades ago, which is often an unfortunate blend of the sentimental and the homespun, a few examples of which we will try to cover in posts to come.

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Japanese Overseas Migration Museum Yokohama

海外移住資料館

The Japanese Overseas Migration Museum in Yokohama is a free museum close to Landmark Tower, Yokohama Cosmoworld and the Yokohama World Porters mall in the Minato Mirai 21 area of the city.

The Japanese Overseas Migration Museum is dedicated to the history of Japanese migration mainly to South America in the early 20th century. Many of the migrants left Japan for their new homes in Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia and Peru through the port of Yokohama. In all over 60% of the Japanese migrants went to Brazil.

Later many of their descendants were to return to Japan as guest workers to fill car and electronics factories in the land of their ancestors. Many of these returnees face a wall of discrimination due to their lack of Japanese language skills and a perceived inability to assimilate into mainstream Japanese culture.

The Japanese Overseas Migration Museum is located within the JICA Yokohama International Center and displays the history of Japanese emigration through documents, photos and videos. The facility includes a cafe and a terrace with good views.

Japanese Overseas Migration Museum
2-3-1, Shinko, Naka-ku, Yokohama, 231-0001
Tel: 045 633 3257
Hours: 10am-6pm (closed Mondays)
Access: 10 minutes by taxi from Yokohama Station or within walking distance of Minatomirai, Bashamichi and Sakuragicho Stations.
Google map of the Japanese Overseas Migration Museum

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Kyoto Aquarium

Kyoto Aquarium on the northern edge of Umekoji Park, just west of Kyoto Station, has opened despite a considerable amount of local opposition.

Built by Orix Corp, Kyoto Aquarium is a high-tech facility, with a number of eco-friendly features such as rain-recycling for the aquarium's toilets. The highlight of the Kyoto Aquarium is the Dolphin Lagoon, one of the nine zones of the complex.

The other zones are the Rivers of Kyoto Zone, which includes Japanese giant salamanders, the Sea Animals Zone, the Penguin Zone, the Ocean Zone with an impressive coral reef area, the Main Pool with 500 tons of water, the Event Hall, the Beauty of Nature Zone, and the Countryside of Kyoto Zone.

Kyoto Aquarium
35-1 Kankijicho
Shimogyo-ku
Kyoto
600-8835
Tel: 075 354 3130
Google map of Kyoto Aquarium


Access: Kyoto Aquarium is 15-minute walk south of Tambaguchi Station on the JR San-in Line or 15 minutes west of Kyoto Station.
Hours: 9am-5pm
Admission: 2,000 yen

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Laos Festival in Tokyo 2012

 ラオス・フェスティバル　代々木

Laos Festival music stage, Yoyogi Event Square, Tokyo, 2012

Yoyogi Park's Event Plaza (across from the main Yoyogi Park)  is the venue for an array of festivals, many of which have been covered by the JapanVistor Blog in the past.

This weekend - of bright balmy spring weather - it was the turn for the Laos Festival. Thousands flocked the Yoyogi Park Event Plaza to check out the music performances in the sound shell, join the queues at the numerous Laotian or Thai food stalls, try samples of Laotian rum, buy tropical fruit and vegetables from Laos, drink Laotian beer, look at and perhaps buy the Laotian clothing and handicrafts on display, pick up Laos-related travel and cultural information, and rifle through the clothing and knick-knicks at the flea market that formed part of the festival.

Food stalls, Laos Festival, Tokyo 2012

The people-watching was, as is always the case at Yoyogi Park, as much fun as the event spectacles themselves, not to mention the dog-watching.

Faces got redder and redder and the laughter more boisterous - or the snores of the catnapping louder - as the afternoon progressed, and those queues at the food stalls stayed as long as ever whatever the hour.

Check out past JapanVisitor blogs featuring events at Yoyogi Park:
Sri Lanka Festival at Yoyogi Park 2011
Brazilian Festival at Yoyogi Park 2010
One Love Jamaica Festival at Yoyogi Park 2009
Trance Party at Yoyogi Park 2008

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Japan News This Week 27 May 2012

今週の日本

As U.S. Retailers Retreat, a Japanese Chain Sees an Opening

New York Times

WHO : Post-Fukushima radiation levels in Japan 'low'

BBC

Tokyo Skytree: the world's tallest broadcasting tower opens - in pictures

Guardian

Confession retracted but stands for killer, 86

Japan Times

海通证券引入日本SBI集团作为基石投资者

Caijing

Retratos de la doble identidad

El Pais

Can Japan Respond Better to its Next Large Disaster?

Japan Focus

Japan loves Yu - but MLB wants China

Yahoo Sports

Last Week's Japan News

Statistics

TOP 5 brands in Japan

1) satisfaction guaranteed
2)  Uniqlo
3)  BAD LAND
4)  au
5)  ANA.Japan

Source: Socialbakers

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APA Hotel Ekimae Kyoto

アパホテル京都

The APA Ekimae Hotel is located just to the west of Kyoto Station and across Horikawa Street from the luxury Rihga Royal Hotel.

The business-style APA Ekimae Hotel is also close to its sister hotel, the two-star APA Hotel Kyoto-Eki-Horikawa.

There are currently 74 APA Hotels in Japan stretching from Hokkaido to Okinawa with APA Hotels in most of Japan's major cities including Tokyo, Nagoya, Niigata and Fukuoka. APA stands for Always Pleasant Amenity, and APA's slogan is "Best for the guest." The APA hotel chain is proactive in trying to attract non-Japanese guests, too, as evidenced by the multilingual APA Hotel website, and, in certain APA hotels, the free-of-charge Tel/Tell Concierge interpreting service using your iPad.

However, Considering that APA actively seeks the custom of Chinese, Korean, and English-speaking guests, it is odd, then, that APA posted a controversial essay on the APA website four years ago by Japanese air force chief, General Toshio Tamogami, claiming Japan was the victim, not the aggressor, in the Pacific War—an essay that led to Tamogami's dismissal.

The CEO of the APA Group, Mr. Seiji Fuji, appears to have very definite political views that he very much wants to air, as evidenced by APA Group political essays by CEO Seiji Fuji that, among other things, warn that "China and Korea will lure Japan’s nuclear power technicians away and export nuclear power plants throughout the entire world," and being Chinese- and Korean-made they will be of "a lower technical standard than Japan's," that they will malfunction, and "Japan would be damaged by the radioactivity that would be spread on the westerlies." (He makes no mention of which nation was responsible for the Fukushima nuclear accident.)

Mr. Fuji should have done a quick Google search before he penned those lines, where he would discover that to date China already has 14 nuclear power plants with 25 more under construction, and that South Korea has  23 reactors. And he ignores the role of the other big player in the international nuclear reactor market, France.

The APA Hotel Ekimae's facilities include internet access in rooms and a restaurant. The APA Hotel is close to Nishi and Higashi Honganji, a short distance to the north and Toji Temple to the south.

The APA Ekimae Hotel
806, Minami Fudodocho
Shiokoji-sagaru
Nishinotoin dori
Shimogyo-ku
Kyoto

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Japanese Car Sex Pests

公衆猥褻

Do you have a Japanese car sex pest in your neighborhood? Tell-tall signs of this form of exhibitionism will be used condoms and wet tissues thrown out of the car onto the road or sidewalk. Yuck, yuck and yuck again.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against car sex per se, but dealing with other people's post-coitus detritus on the street where my kids and their friends walk to school is a real drag.

Earlier we reported on people dumping porn in public places and these types of anti-social behavior are known as koshu waisetsu (public indecency) in Japan.

Car sex is a popular theme for adult videos in Japan and seems a more common activity than in other countries, I would imagine, due to the lack of private places for couples to couple (as most young people still live at home until marriage and even thereafter).

The lack of available privacy explains the incidence of thousands of love hotels across the country to provide people with a space to be intimate in. If you don't have the money for a love hotel, the next best thing is your motor.

The lyrics of Billericay Dickie by British singer Ian Drury come to mind "had a love affair with Nina in the back of my Cortina".

For Ford Cortina substitute Toyota, Nissan or Honda and you get the idea. The car sex pest or pests in my neighborhood have become more active recently so I visited my local koban and reported my annoyance to the Japanese police. I was promised a patrol car would make a regular pass during the night. Result, nothing. So story to be continued.

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Japan Visitor Newsletter May 2012

ジャパンニュースレター

Thank you to all those subscribers who entered our latest competition in our Japan Visitor newsletter.

The level of the answers was incredibly good and we'll be getting back in touch with the lucky winners in early June.

Take a look at our May 2012 Japan Visitor newsletter to see what you will receive in your email inbox if you decide to subscribe.

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Tokyo Sky Tree Opens!

東京スカイツリータウングランドオープン

Tokyo Sky Tree officially opened today! Actually, "Tokyo Sky Tree Town," the huge complex that accompanies the famous 634.0 meter (2,080 foot) tower in Tokyo's Sumida ward.

Tokyo Sky Tree stood tall and proud this evening, bathed in the full glory of its lighting scheme that had only been occasionally witnessed over recent weeks in the lead up to the opening. The rings encircling the Sky Tree in the above photo were actually shining lighthouse-style, rotating.

Unfortunately it rained very hard on the parade, today being unseasonably cold and very, very wet, with a hard, constant rain falling all day long, and quite strong winds. This had the unexpected result of causing the closure of the higher observation deck, the Tembo Galleria, early this evening, well before the official 10pm closing time.

Nevertheless, thousands of people had booked flights and tours to be at the opening of the Tokyo Sky Tree from months before. Interest was reportedly especially high in West Japan (the Kansai area).

5.4 million people are expected to visit Tokyo Sky Tree City in Tokyo's Oshiage area over the next year, turning what was one of Tokyo's drabbest and most forgettable areas into a positive tourist mecca. The competition for retail space and tour conductor rights has therefore been fierce.

A conspicuous effort is being made by many businesses to cash in on foreign tourist interest in Tokyo Sky Tree as well, with English information aplenty.

Over the past two or three years, JapanVisitor has been following the progress of the Tokyo Sky Tree construction, for example our post Tokyo Sky Tree Nearing Completion from late last year, and the following YouTube video from two years ago.

Look forward to more coverage of Tokyo Sky Tree City in the weeks ahead.



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