Skygate: Up up and away

Last March I ran into a problem while trying to buy a ticket to South Korea. You see, I don't have any credit cards back in the US and here in Japan my bank account is with the Japanese Post Office system which is common here. Unfortunately they don't do debit cards here and it is difficult for a foreigner to get a credit card not to mention I wouldn't want one. (I'm done with credit cards forever.) Usually not having a credit card is no big deal in my life but the problem comes when I would like to search online for plane tickets to the various places I travel to. You gotta have some kind of card with a credit card logo on it to pull this off. Because of this I've had to go to a travel agency where I can pay in cash for my previous trip to Taiwan, but sometimes the travel agency doesn't have the available flight I need and more than likely a plane ticket bought online will be cheaper.  Luckily I found an awesome site for people living in Japan with my problem.  Ladies and gentlemen, Skygate!
The best thing about this site are the payment options. You can still use a credit card if you have one but if not you can do what I do and take advantage of the convenience store payment option. With this option you can choose from a variety of convenience stores in Japan such as Lawson and Family mart and use the ticket machines there to pay for and receive an e-ticket. The option for your payment will at the end of the booking process and the convenience store option is the last option. You can find it easily by spotting the various convenience store logos.

Now the first thing you will notice and possibly be overwhelmed by is the fact that the site is in Japanese but fret not. As you can see the search engine for searching for flights looks like most airline ticket sites. Luckily my Japanese and deductive reasoning is good enough to figure out the most important part about the front page.

You will need to know the Kanji of the city you live in and also be able to read Katakana so you can choose where you want to go. Also you can only choose flights that start in Japan so if you are planning on a multi country trip this won't help you. After finding your flight you will be asked to input a bunch of information and most of it is in Japanese but  using Google Translator you should slowly yet effectively be able to figure it all out. My Kanji is horrible and I was able to do it all alone.

After finishing your order you will receiver some info once again in Japanese with some numbers and instructions on how to get the ticket at the store.Write these numbers down. (They will also be sent to your email that you entered earlier.) Either translate the instruction with the translator or most likely someone working at the store will know how to do it and you can just ask them once you get to the store just remember you need the numbers. Mission accomplished.

This site has been quite useful for me and ticket prices are usually pretty good as well. Happy travels!

http://www.skygate.co.jp/
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

The Great Summer Adventure

I'm two weeks away from a 7 week summer vacation and heck yeah I'm excited about that. I have a few trips planned as well as a possible visit from one of my friends from America. Let me take some time out to write down a couple of my plans and at the end of the summer I can see how much of it I actually accomplished. Money doesn't grow on trees but I think I'll be able to get a lot out of this summer.

Definite Trips
1. Singapore (July)
2. Phuket,Thailand (July)
3. Nagano, Japan (August)

Most Likely Trips
1. Seoul,South Korea (August)

Maybe Trips
1. Hokkaido, Japan (August)

One word, EPIC!

Here comes the heat. 0_o

It's summer in Japan which means one thing. It's about to get disgustingly hot/humid.Now St.Louis back in the U.S. can get pretty hot in the summer, but the heat in Japan is a different kind of heat. Back home it's dry and the sun beats down on you like an abusive sibling but in Japan it's ”むしあつい”"Mushi atsui" also know as "humid" in English. The humidity is insane here. You walk outside and immediately become wet and suddenly feel the need to go back in and take your 2nd or 3rd bath of the day. The worst part about it is that public schools do not have air condition, so I'm hot about %65 of the day. From this day forward after work it's nothing but t-shirts,shorts, and sandals for me.

Here's Korean girl group "Wonder Girls" with their song "So Hot" to ring in the summer. Stay chilly everyone.