Why we visited Japan in 2011

I'd been putting off visiting Japan as I'd always thought Japan was rather expensive for my family of six to visit – we would need two rooms, and hotel rooms are so expensive in Japan! So we'd usually settle for other destinations that are less expensive.

But sometime in September 2011, I discovered the business hotel chain Toyoko Inn on the Net. Toyoko Inn made it possible for my family to holiday in Japan for 28 days!

I’ll tell you more about this fabulous hotel chain in another post. Now back to why we ought to run off to Japan in 2011. I found out that if we visited Japan in December 2011, my 3^rd child, CK age 11 in 2011, would be considered a child – his Japan Rail Pass would still be at child rate, which is half the price of an adult’s.

Plus, he could sleep in his two older brothers’ (age 13 and 15) hotel room for free (while my daughter GG age 8, slept in the room my hubby and I shared). On top of that, he also qualified for a child suica, just like GG (A suica is like an EZ-link card used for getting around Tokyo) – which means half price on all other trains and subways.

If we went in 2012 or later, we will have to pay adult rate for CK’s Japan Rail Pass and suica, AND our family of six could no longer fit into two rooms in Toyoko Inn.

By the way, you can’t fake a child’s age as you need to show your passports for the Japan Rail Pass, as well as to check into any hotel in Japan.

Hooray! I had all these money-saving reasons to make a Japan winter holiday a reality!

It's our first winter holiday, we've never seen snow or played with snow before, and we've never taken a 4-week long holiday before. Our record prior to Japan was just a 3-weeks long holiday, so it feels really good to set a new record of 4-weeks!