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The Selfish Years

~ Over 200 cities, 42 countries, 6 continents and counting.

The Selfish Years

Monthly Archives: June 2015

Where to Spot Geishas in Kyoto

26 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by misterselfish in Asia, Japan, Kyoto

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Geisha, Gion, Japan, Kyoto, Selfish Year, Selfish Years, Where to spot Geishas

During our Selfish Year, we spent 43 days in Japan, in places like Fukouka, Kanazawa, Kyoto, and Tokyo. During our time in that fair city we finally made it to Harajuku’s legendary Cosplayer meet up.

tokyo-shibuya_harajuku_akihibara-023

Basically you show up at the Northern Exit of Harajuku station on Sunday between 1pm – 2:30pm. If you’re in the area and love taking pictures, I highly recommend it.

While I thought cosplayers in Tokyo were fairly rare, spotting a geisha in Kyoto proved to be an even rarer event. We spent a mind-boggling 23 days in Kyoto near the Gion district (the part of Kyoto where one is supposed to see geishas), and never saw one.

NOT ONE.

This time, however, we got lucky. Spotting not one, not two, but TWELVE geishas in the span of 5 nights. Totally crazy and I’ll share with you how and where we spotted them today.

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Keeping it Short and Suite at the Park Hyatt Tokyo

25 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by misterselfish in Accommodations, Asia, Hyatt, Japan, Tokyo

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Guest of Honor, Park Hyatt, Park Hyatt Tokyo, Selfish Year, Selfish Years, suite, Tokyo

Mrs. Selfish and I stayed at the Park Hyatt Tokyo twice before – once during the Selfish Year trip, and a second time during our trip to the Maldives. It’s one of our favorite hotels in the world, and one I was looking forward to sharing it with Baby Selfish.

During our first two stays, we had temporary diamond status (back when Hyatt was overly generous with their diamond trial), which meant we had free room service breakfast, access to the sauna, and free admission to the NYC bar during the diamond happy hour. Amazing benefits, to be sure, and ones which we were not going to get this time around as lowly Platinum members.

Upgrading to the Suite & Guest of Honor status

Since I still had a diamond suite certificate to burn, I booked the three of us into a king suite for two nights on a severely reduced paid stay using a combination of the Best Rate Guaranteed 20% discount and buying Hyatt gift certificates at 15% off.

In the end, we ended up paying something like 55% of the rack rate for the room and were upgraded to a suite. Pretty great.

Since we wanted to spend a total of 4 nights at the PHT so Mrs. Selfish’s parents could recover from jetlag, I booked the remaining two nights in a standard king, transferring points over to Cousin Selfish’s account so we could try out the Guest of Honor status.

If you’ve never tried Guest of Honor status you basically get to partake in a diamond member’s benefits if they book the room for you with points. Hyatt’s transfer policy is fairly generous, though a member can only receive points from another member once every 30 days, so make sure to transfer all your points at once!

I was secretly hoping that the Park Hyatt Tokyo would give us the best of both worlds and keep us in the suite for 4 nights while giving us diamond status, but didn’t have high hopes since this IS Japan after all. As expected, they followed the rules down to the letter.

Baby Selfish enjoying the view.

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2.5 Nights at the Fabulous Conrad Tokyo

24 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by misterselfish in Accommodations, Asia, Hilton, Japan, Tokyo

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Conrad, Conrad Tokyo, HHonors, Hilton, Selfish Year, Selfish Years

Let me start this review by saying that I am torn. Mrs. Selfish and I are, by nature, Hyatt loyalists. There are numerous reasons: better perks, more consistent quality, low cost awards, etc. etc.

Yet every now and then, we stay at a Hilton property or, (dare I say) Intercontinental that is not only good, but is excellent.

The Conrad Hilton is definitely one of these properties and if you’re looking to burn some Hilton free nights, I would consider this an excellent use of points.

This was our fourth Conrad property, and while the Conrad Koh Samui and the Conrad Rangali wowed, the Conrad Singapore was a bit meh. Whereas that hotel fell flat on its face (other than the excellent breakfast), the Conrad Tokyo more than rose to the challenge.

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15 Selfish Tips for Infant Traveling Success

23 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by misterselfish in Asia, Infant Travel, Japan

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

infant, infant travel, Japan, Selfish Year, Selfish Years, travel, Travel with infant

Hello! It’s been a riiiiidiculous amount of time since our last new post proper, which I can only attribute to being a) grounded, and b) severely sleep deprived. We’ve been spending most of our time un-selfishly, which is a big change of pace for us.

Yes, Baby Selfish is cute, but man is she a handful.

So I was very excited to leave the country once more (it had been 7 months at that point), and pleased to take Baby Selfish on her first international trip: Japan.

 

Ah, Japan. Home to efficient service, clean water, and bottomless ramen bowls.

Having spent over 2 months in Japan, Mrs. Selfish and I were pretty confident this would be a safe and enjoyable travel for a 3-month old – and it was!

That being said, we definitely learned a few lessons on the way, which will hopefully lead to others’ future baby traveling success.

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The Selfish Game of Thrones Update

22 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by mrsselfish in Croatia, Dubrovnik, Europe, Game of Thrones, Northern Ireland, Split

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Game of Thrones Tour, Selfish Game of Thrones Tour, Selfish Year, Selfish Years

Season 5 of Game of Thrones was quite epic. Not only did a whole bunch of characters die (spoilers!), but Mr. Selfish and I were able to see the sights that we stumbled upon during our own GoT tour come alive as Dorne and Braavos.

GoT_spoiler_warning

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Who’s Selfish?

Mr. and Mrs. Selfish are an obsessively organized couple who sold all their junk to travel abroad for a year. Now settled in San Francisco, they have since visited over 200 cities in 44 countries over 6 continents. This site chronicles their travels.

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  • Heading back to Japan for one more Selfish Trip!
  • Our Earning and Burning in 2015
  • Traveling with an Infant Means Less International Travel for Now
  • Where to Spot Geishas in Kyoto
  • Keeping it Short and Suite at the Park Hyatt Tokyo

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