Japan travels in October

[K14]

Our family is making a trip to Japan in October, starting to become a yearly event for us. We tend to go when we have other friends visiting and we also have friends living there that we visit as well. Our travels will cover both northern and southern cities.

Our first couple of days we will be staying with friends in Kunitachi. I'm wondering if there are any interesting camera shops in that area besides BIC? I might end up taking the train down to Shinjuku and take a look into Map Camera or over to Lemons Sha's if nothing near by grabs my interest.

Toward the end of our fist week we travel to Kyoto for 2 days to meet friends coming in from Thailand. I'm not sure where we intend to go but does anyone know of a good hotel there that could accommodate rooms for 6 people?

After Kyoto all of us are off to Kobe were we meet with more friends. I have to get up to Venus Terrace for that fabulous night view of Kobe Port. We then head back up north to Yokohama for some of that awesome half n half at the 82 Alehouse.

I tend to go into overkill on the cameras. Kids and the friends gathering love the Diana pinhole shots that I take and having the instant back this time will be twice as fun. I will use my Leica IIIa Summar for my B&W. I'm taking some Eastman XX and may try some Neopan 1600. My city-scape day & night shots of Yokohama and Kobe will be taken with my Agfa Billy II. I've had some stunning night shots of Yokohama City using Kodak Portra 400VC. I have a Demenkin fisheye 110 camera that I will bring along for fun.

I'm sorry for the long winded post, Japan gets me so excited especially thinking of all the places to go and things to do, sure can make a gajin giddy. 😀 Gary

 

[jonmanjiro]

Konnichiwa from Yokohama 🙂

If you haven't discovered it already, I recommend taking a look at the Toyoko Inn chain of hotels. Their rates are about as good as they get in Japan, and the Toyoko Inns I've stayed in have been very comfortable.

http://www.toyoko-inn.com/eng/index.html

 

[K14]

Konnichiwa from Yokohama 🙂

If you haven't discovered it already, I recommend taking a look at the Toyoko Inn chain of hotels.

Domo Jonmanjiro,

Yes we've stayed at several Toyoko Inn hotels and they are tops in terms of price, location and cleanliness. We stay at the one over by Yama****a Park when we visit Yokohama. There are probably several in the that area around China Town.

In Kyoto we found 5 person rooms for $220 but we have 6 people. When we have that many people it's nice to have a room that has a kotatsu/totami room plus bedroom. Cheaper definitely but also people can talk and carry on in the kotatsu room while others can sack out for a nap. Night time both rooms are used for sleeping.

We may end up using Tokoyo, the only drawback is having 2 people per room and we would have to gather in the lobby to talk. They may have restrictions on room gatherings.

We also stayed at the Green Hotel, I think they are a chain too. They are cheap, love the continental breakfast and they don't mind people gathering in a single room to eat, drink and be a little merry 😛 Though they have older style rooms, like stepping back into the 70's.

Cheers!! Gary

 

[kshapero]

Have a great trip. Spent some quality time in Japan in 1984. Brought back 20 rolls of slides, so the memories will last "forever".

 

[K14]

Thanks kshapero! Sounds like you have these memories on Kodachrome? I think that's the only time a slide shooter can say "forever". 😀

These places keep me coming back for more.

Aashi-Kobe Bridge

Yokohama Night

On the camera side I've been debating about picking up a wider lens for my Lieca Barnark while I'm over there. Map Camera's site has a ton of CV lenses, not bad prices to boot. They even had that rare Color Heliar, the collapsible 50mm version. They have a couple of the 35mm pancakes that I really like. Boy, this shop is looking more like a candy store!