Well it's exactly one month until my big two week trip to Japan which has been nearly two years in the making *sigh* still can't believe that I will finally be there this time next month.

Just to give u some background information we originally had our trip planned for march 2011 with a couple of our mates but unfortunately three weeks prior to our scheduled holiday sadly the tsunami hit and we were forced to cancel our plans and had decided to wait another 12 moths before attempting out plans again. Funnily enough it worked out for the best as now my grandparents have agreed to come with us and I am beyond excited about sharing this experience with them :) so it has been a very long wait but it's only four weeks now and i have officially began the countdown to our fly out date which is the 19th of may 2012.

So i thought I would give u all a taste of what's to come and jot down my itinerary, hotel information and overall details of our trip, plus it gives me an excuse to recap everything and tick all the boxes :)

Itinerary:
Saturday 19th of May 2012 - fly out of cairns via Jetstar at 1pm arriving in Tokyo at 8:30pm and catching the limousine bus service from the airport straight to the hotel. My grandparents have already arrived as they had an early morning flight out of Melbourne.

Sunday 20th of May 2012 - our first official day in Japan. As it is Sunday we are going to catch the train to the shinjuku/harajuku area and do some shopping and checkout the cosplay scene. In the afternoon we are going to see the Meiji shrine and relax at yoyogi park and have dinner in shibuya and check out the famous crossing at night.

Monday 21st of May 2012 - probably have a relaxing morning and then head to akihabara (electronics and anime district) for lunch and the afternoon trolling the comic stores and maid cafes. Relax at night.

Tuesday 22nd of may 2012 - going to check out the imperial palace in the morning and then head over to tokyo tower and do some shopping. Maybe go out somewhere nice to eat at night.

Wednesday 23rd of may 2012 - getting up early and going to the famous fish market and then going to the endo museum in the afternoon.

Thursday 24th of may 2012 - going to go see the samurai temple across the road from our hotel in shingawa and then hop onto the bullet train and head to Kyoto around lunch time arriving mid afternoon. Explore Kyoto!

Friday 25th of may 2012 - temple sightseeing all day :)

Saturday 26th of may 2012 - visiting fushimi anari in the morning and then catching train to Nara for the rest of the day!

Sunday 27th of may 2012 - Day trip to Hiroshima :)

Monday 28th of may 2012 - Bamboo forest and monkey park in morning and then catching bullet train back to Tokyo early afternoon arriving back early evening. Dinner in Tokyo.

Tuesday 29th of may 2012 - Disneyland :)

Wednesday 30th of may 2012 - last day in Tokyo, relaxing morning packing and then any last minute shopping or anything we missed. Head to airport late afternoon for evening flight back home. Arrive in Australia 5am Thursday morning!!!

So that's the plan, I am one of those travelers who like to know exactly what is going to happen each day so that's why it is so detailed, I know that things will probably change and shift around but hopefully it all goes to plan! I have done enough research for it lol.

Now for the above itinerary we purchased the first class jr rail pass for 7 days which cost around $430 per ticket. In Tokyo we are staying at the shingawa prince hotel which averaged around $120 a night for a twin room in the main tower and in Kyoto we are staying at the hotel monterey Kyoto for on average $115 a night. Before flying out we are going to exchange $2700 aud in cairns for 82yen to the dollar and also taking over an anz visa travel card with another $200 on that for spending money. We booked our train tickets through jtb online with no problems and the hotels were booked through www.hotels.com.

Yay not too long now :) countdown is on!!! Xx