Friday, December 6, 2013

Going over the trip details with your 'Travel Buddies'

In my case, my travel buddies are my family.

LOL.

So I'll be leaving for Japan in two days and what was important before we departed for the trip was for the fam-bam to know what we're going to be doing, when we're going to be doing the stuff, and how we're going to be doing that stuff.

I've been planning for this Japan trip since July 2013. JULY! And that produced a 17-page itinerary and a couple of sleepless nights that I could've spent studying for finals.
p.s. I passed everything! Alhamdulillah!

So after printing out the itinerary and giving it to my parents to look at, I added up all our expenses. And it was 2 times over our budget! So that took a couple more nights of crossing out things. Mind you, it was DIFFICULT to cross out a lot of the things that I really wanted to go to :(
And I was only able to go through with it after telling myself that I WILL return to Japan by myself (or with my own family) one day and I could go to those places. Hopefully by the next time I go to Japan, I have a job and a lot of money then. ahahah...

The point of this post was to outline the importance of these get-togethers. It's a chance to hear everybody exchange opinions about the plan and also to negotiate a couple of things.

For e.g. I had to change our night trip to Disneyland to a day trip. My dad didn't want us walking around late at night. He's pretty concerned about the Japanese gangsters, i.e. yakuza and says that they're more dangerous than the gangsters here in Australia. I guess I'll just have to follow what my dad says, since he's lived in Japan for a bit before. I've read some articles on the yakuza, and they apparently have a good side to them as well. I think that makes them scarier though. Insha Allah we don't ride into any trouble!

So anyways, back to the family meetings. Since I was somehow designated the trip planner role, mind you, I was the ONLY one doing all the planning, I did get quite frustrated at times when some family members said they didn't want to go to this or that.
Oh dear. From the beginning, nothing about this trip is easy.. and we haven't even left the country yet!

I found it quite helpful that I made a PowerPoint presentation. I connected my laptop to the tv via the HDMI cable and outlined the activities for each day. I think the powerpoint on the tv screen made things  A LOT easier.

What to include in the powerpoint presentation:

  • I included maps
  • lots of pictures
  • times of trains, prayer times and also how long we were going to walk for, etc.
  • And also a separate copy of the trip plan.
  • Be very detailed.

I felt maps and pictures were VERY effective.

So yeah. Obviously there were quite a bit of changes after that meeting. And some of the things I had to cut out from the plan because of the budget were put back in. Lol, turns out no one wants to walk for 45mins.

till next time!


wassalam,

Nurilen

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