[tracilicious]

Japan!!!

You may or may not know that I've been planning a trip to WDW this coming February. Well...my mother in law that was going to be joining us had to cancel. We decided it would be better to wait until October anyways, but then we got to thinking where else we could go for that amount of money. It turns out that, unless I'm wrong, you can plan a budget trip to Japan for just a little more than you would spend to do WDW at AKL for a week. We were planning on waiting four or five years, but who knows what will happen in that time. Besides, it's not like we can't go back.

I know that this board is chock full of people that have been to Japan, so help me plan! This is what I'm wondering at this early stage of planning.

Guidebooks- any favorites? I have a 2002 Fodor's, but I'm sure that's out of date.

A few weeks ago I looked up airfare to Tokyo and found round trip tickets for $600. I looked tickets up yesterday and they were $1200. My search options were probably different and I don't know what I put in the first time. Which sounds right? Has anyone used ticket consolidators?

I would like to find a hotel for around $100/night. BUT it needs to have a king sized bed, or at the very least a queen to fit Me, Michael, Indi (who will be three) and Jade (who will be one). Two large doubles would probably work, but I haven't come across any. I'm not that interested in staying in a traditional Ryokan, just a big hotel that preferrably is very tall. Those of you who have been, any luck finding good rates?

We'll mainly eat in small places on the street, not expensive restaurants. What's the approx. cost of a meal at such places (we aren't big drinkers, but the people we are traveling with are)?

We will definitely do a few days of Disney, the Ghibli museum, perhaps the Imperial palace, but we don't know what else. We're trying to find rhings that Indi will enjoy as well. Any ideas? We'll have nine days including travel days, so approx. seven days to do stuff.

I know that by planning this far in advance I'm going to burn out, but I can't help it!