Okay, so the biggest headache I’m going to have organizing this trip is: not the flight, not the trip from Narita to Tokyo, but the damn accommodation. I ies Dutch: cheap cheap, but at the same time wants to have value for monies. How else did we gets our own island up there. The hotel I stayed last time, though fine, I find a bit too pricey for what it offers. Especially on single rooms, they clean you out. It’s a forest out there. Granted, I didn’t book many hotels before in my life. But going 9000 kilometers and standing there going “hehe, I hope this will be alright Bob” is not my style. In any other country, I would probably be a little more chill but I know my short and courteous friends that prefer rice and raw fish have trouble speaking English or Pig Latin. Yes, western chain hotels are included in that list. I think I was Korean or Vietnamese in two places when I last visited by the way they spelled my Nordic last name. Looked overly surprised too I wasn’t dragging my own carry-on pot of kimchi. Thought about joking about being Han Solo.

If you want to arrange stuff from the Netherlands with a Dutch point of contact that’s fine. The only problem: very few options. That’s because the average Dutch person can’t tell the difference between China and Japan (apparently). Want an example? This carnival they had a float with a text about Japan and there’s 10 people behind it in Chinese wardrobe. All I thought was “Lord, let’s not have the take out restaurant people see this, or we’ll be on diarrhea for months to come“.  God I’m funny when I nag.

Back to dutch travel agents. Either you’re out of central Tokyo on a good price, you’re in the same hotel as I stayed, or it’s so expensive I will have trouble sleeping there and would want to stay awake every minute. There are only 1 or 2 travel agents here that leave a semi-indication they can do things upon request.

On one travel agent site it reads: “we don’t do this” and then on another page it says “hey we do do the same thing”, and on another page it says “we do do the same thing and it’s limitless”. *pulls eyelid*. Make up your mind, which one is it?

Nao, on to the booking sites. Besides the fact that the general booking sites that operate for or from the Netherlands have only 13 hotels listed and absolutely never match with the hotel’s real options or room options they suck at informaciun as well.

This one booking site I visited, it had like “a starter’s package” which you could expand. So after going into the booking system to place a reservation it asks me for how long I’ll be staying, then another window pops up and says “extension or no extension of stay”? So I’m scratching my head going “Oh, you meant my arrival/departure of flight”. *head desk*

JTB does have more options as it’s based in Japan, and might be a possibility to use, but then again the hotel I’m looking at is not listed. How is that possible? It’s a chain hotel.

It’s only listed on one dutch booking site, which doesn’t get the most great reviews and manages to not give any information on which of the 5 types of rooms you’re actually booking. Perhaps if you’re creative enough to match their pricing with the hotels (and a little extra, you’ll get there). On the other hand, some seem to promise things that aren’t even available on the Hotel websites. Are they expecting people to be that stupid to not even check the actual hotel website? Hmm nah, information analyst is just simply over-informed.

You know who provides you the best info? Japanese western business chain hotels. Perfect english, clear rate structure: anywhere but the front desk. Sometimes it’s a little too much to ask when it comes to a decent reservation system and ALL times it’s too much to ask for a proper explanation of how it works. Step 1, do this, Step 2 do this, Step 3 within x amount of time you hear from us and if not direct your response to here, Step 4 etc. How come this isn’t obvious to information diabetic h00mins? Howcome I’m not earning 5 grand a month?

In short: IT’S AN INFORMACIUN ANALYSTS NIGHTMARE. So many ants to anal retentively order, it ain’t funny anymoo. O-Feles-Hime is always a difficult customer where ever she may land because eh … it’s my damn profession to order, file, automate and communicate. *salutes*.

I know everything’s going to work out fine and stuff, but if it’s one thing people like me hate is putting time and effort into digging up info’s for things they find painfully obvious should have been there in the first place.