After the program (TRAVEL PLAN)

For everyone who is interested in joining:

and also to Joanne and Charge:

Hei everyone, after the program, Joanne, Charge and me are planning to go for 2 days in Tokyo, 2 days in Osaka, and 2 days in Kyoto (it's like "down-to-top" in the map).

( Joanne will be staying for 4 days, I will be 7 days and Charge will be for 10 days)

Accommodations plan:

i have been thinking, maybe we can stay in the same hotels as we will be staying in Osaka when we arrive and during the new year break, which means:

Tokyo - Tokiwa Hotel (6,600 yen single per night)
Osaka - Hotel Chuo (2,600 yen single per night)
Kyoto - some Temple (since it might be the cheapest way to go, and plus we get to be close to the culture too =)!)

* of course, if we are not happy with our first stay with the hotels, we can always try to find another hotel!



Travel Plan:

We plan to find a travel agent as soon as we get to the town and book in for 1-day-tour straight away. We will be spending 1 day shopping and 1 day touring (or vice-versa depends on the availablity of the tour) in each cities. The price for 1-day-tour are around AUS$100-200. Hopefully it will be cheaper over there. But if people are anxious about it, we can book the tours here in AUstralia instead of booking them in Japan.

since we will be travelling around a lot, it will be a good idea to get a 7-day JR Rail pass, which will cost AUS$314.
(i will do some research to see whether there is any cheaper travel cost than the JR Railway Pass!)



COST

So, the total cost for the trip: (very very rough calculations, and will be overstated in most cases!)
*assuming exchange rate of AUS$1 = 64 yen* <<< worst exchange rate, hopefully it won't be worse than this.


*assuming it will cost about 5,000 yen to stay in a temple per night in Kyoto, i am pretty sure it won't be as expensive*
accommodations
= (6,600 yen x 2) + (2,600 yen x 2) + (5,000 yen x 2)
= 284,000 yen (for 6 nights)
= AUS $444 (rounded to nearest dollar)

*assuming we all book in for the 1-day-tour for $150 = 9,600 yen*
Travel (1-day-tour & railway pass)
= ($150 x 3 cities) + $314
= AUS$764

*assuming cost $15 per meals and 3 meals per day*
Food
= $15 x 3 meals x 6 days
= AUS$270
(lol, i don't think i will eat food that expensive...)

SO the basic cost for the whole trip:

Total
= $444 + 764 + 270
= $1478 for the 6 days

It's not cheap, but i have overstated some of the costs in the calculations, so the cost will be $1200 - $1500 for 6 days, or maybe even less than that.

I like to overstate things when doing budgets so that i can see what will be the worst case and i won't be running out of money! (<<< totally am influenced by the accounting concepts that i have been studying for 3 years)

Anyway, hopefully this will be some use for anyone lol. I have to plan everything cause i have LIMITED money.. *sigh*

thx for doin this
must b tirin for u to calculate the lot

hope more ppl will join us XD

haha, no problem, but the exchange rate had indeed dropped A LOT!

oh man, now it is just going to cost so much more T__T...