A few months ago we were lucky enough to get a guest post over at Hack My Trip to talk about our travel philosophy and how we approach the points and miles game. For us, we don't like to hold onto points for very long and we always try to have a goal in mind when we are earning points so that as soon as we have them, we can burn them. The motto of "Find A Trip, Do Your Research, Earn and Burn" really stands true. With the constant devaluation of points and miles and award space that shrinks as it gets closer to your trip I feel there is real value in locking in a trip if you know where you want to go.
Last year Kelsey and I spent New Year's Eve in London and had one of the best experiences I have ever had on a trip. We enjoyed every second of it and just felt like there was no where else we would rather be. So, when we were talking about doing a trip this year we thought...why not go back to London.
We plan to be in Ohio visiting Kelsey's parents for the Christmas holiday so we thought we would take advantage of the sweet spot in the British Airways Award Chart that allows you to fly from Boston to Dublin on Aer Lingus for 25,000 Avios points round-trip in economy and 50,000 in business class. We have enough Avios from signing up for the British Airways visa card (public offer) that we used it for a flight on our Australia trip and now we are going to use it for the 25,000 each in economy. So on Christmas Day we will get a flight from Ohio to Boston and then catch the 10:15 p.m. flight over to Dublin!
From there we plan to spend a few days in Dublin, Rome/Berlin/Prague,Vienna/Insert Other City and London for New Year's again before returning back to Dublin.
This is a great sweet spot in the award chart and availability was pretty much wide open for the December/January time frame. So...if you want a quick hop over to Europe for 25,000 Avios (remember it' just a 5-6 hour flight) this is a great way to do it!
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Friday, June 21, 2013
Thursday, June 20, 2013
The Suite Life @ Austin Hyatt Regency
On my recent trip to Austin, I decided to stay at the Austin Hyatt Regency.
There is additional seating outside on the patio with multiple TVs and fire pits. Great for warm Texas nights.
Also, on the ground level is the gym which is open 24/7. The gym was a good size for the number of rooms in the hotel. Each elliptical and treadmill had its own TVS. The gym was stocked with cold towels, dry towels, headphones and citrus flavored water.
The pool is located outside and opened late.
The hotel has a business center on second floor. The center has four computers, but the price to use was extremely expensive. $6.95 for 15 minutes...exessive.
Breakfast is served in the Southwest Bistro located on the second floor.
As I stated, the AAA rate came with breakfast for two of us. The breakfast buffet was amazing with every option that one could want. I especially liked the fried french toast with the berry compote.
My sister ordered off the menu and got the Austin Eggs Benedict, which she enjoyed:
The hotel is located on the southside of Austin, but it is a short walk over the bridge to the major tourist bar scene. If walking is not your style, there were always cabs right outside the hotel waiting for fares.
This is was amazing hotel stay. The staff was attentive, the product clean and modern and food amazing. I wish I could have afforded to stay here more than one night.
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The hotel is located off the South Congress Bridge, where one can view the bats at dusk.
The hotel's parking lot/garage is under renovations. One has two options, self-park for $10 a night or valet at $24 a night. I valeted, because the self park option was limited and tight. However, the parking situation was not a surprise to me. There were notices about the lack of parking on the Hyatt website, I was told about the parking situation when I called to book an upgrade and received an email from the hotel a few days before arriving. I applaude Hyatt for their proactive communication.
The reception desk is to the left of the lobby. Check-in was smooth. They welcomed us to the hotel, acknowledged my Platinum status and asked about my parking choice. What was not discussed was our breakfast vouchers. I booked with a AAA rate that provided for breakfast for 2 each day. It wasn't until later that I noticed the lack of vouchers. A quick call to concierge gave me the answer: charge it to the room, it would be removed later.
I decided to use one of my suite upgrades provided to me by my Chase Hyatt Visa for being a platinum member prior to applying. We were given keys to room 503 and 504.
When we opened the door, my sister and I were pleasantly surprised:
This was my first real suite. So, I was giddy like a child in a candy shop. The suite had two double beds, a living area and two full baths. The suite can turn into a three room suite by the unlocking of this door below. The room next door has a king bed and another full bath turning the suite into a two bedroom, three bath suite.
The views from the room were amazing.
The lobby of the hotel has plenty of places to sit and relax. It was inviting, but also invoked a night club feel at night.
There is additional seating outside on the patio with multiple TVs and fire pits. Great for warm Texas nights.
The pool is located outside and opened late.
As I stated, the AAA rate came with breakfast for two of us. The breakfast buffet was amazing with every option that one could want. I especially liked the fried french toast with the berry compote.
My sister ordered off the menu and got the Austin Eggs Benedict, which she enjoyed:
Our bill came to over $50 and was removed, as promised, on my final folio.
The hotel is located on the southside of Austin, but it is a short walk over the bridge to the major tourist bar scene. If walking is not your style, there were always cabs right outside the hotel waiting for fares.
This is was amazing hotel stay. The staff was attentive, the product clean and modern and food amazing. I wish I could have afforded to stay here more than one night.
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Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints!
Have a question for us? E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
United Premier Status Qualification and Award Ticket Changes...What to do...
After yesterdays, not unexpected but still annoying, news that United will be adding a spending requirement to the qualification levels for 2014-2015 elite status my brain was spinning thinking of what that means for my flying habits. Tie that in with today's notification that United has changed their policy on changes to award tickets for general members. (Big H/T to Amol at Hack My Trip)
Previously you could change your award ticket any number of times as long as it was 21-days before departure. Now general members will have to pay $75 for every change and $100 for every change inside the 21-day window. The changes are still free for all levels of Premier status, but as I ponder my strategy for 2014 this throws a wrench into the system.
I love the ability to be able to change an itinerary numerous times as the flights that I want open up. The value of free changes 21-days plus allows you to "massage" and itinerary until it's perfect. For our trip to Australia and Asia we took full advantage of these rules. The trip as originally booked was just Sydney to Tokyo to Seattle. Now the trip is Sydney - Bangkok - Hong Kong - Singapore - Bangkok - Tokyo - Seattle. The generous ability to add in "layovers" of up to 24-hours is allowing us to experience four cities in Asia we didn't actually expect to get to see....all for an award ticket price of Australia to the United States. If I were a general member, and not a Premier Silver, and wanted to make these changes today I would have added hundreds of dollars in change fees as we made at least 10-15 changes to the itinerary over the past few months. So the prospect of letting my status lapse in 2014 and suddenly having to pay for changes to an itinerary is not ideal.
So what are the options....
Well lets look at the new chart again:
This year I plan to end the year with just over 50,000 PQMs and I have 47,000 already flown/booked for the future. So far I have spent just under $2000 for that 47,000 and I expect to just add about $200 to that for the final 3,000 or more miles to round out the year at 50,000 PQMs spending about $2200 or 4.4 cents per mile. While I know that others can do better than this on the cost per mile, I have limits like work during the week and a budget of about $200 per month to spend on travel so I have to be picky about what I choose to fly.
But my main takeaway from adding up the numbers is that under the new qualification system I won't even hit the Premier Qualifying Dollars amount for Premier Silver (Which is $2,500). In fact...I would be even farther away from it as the $2200 I am estimating includes airline taxes which do not count for your PQD spend. So despite flying over 50,000 miles I won't even qualify if I have the same habits next year. After a night of thinking these are the options I have thought of so far:
1. Mo Money Mo Problems: This is the strategy that I am least likely to adopt. It would mean looking for more expensive tickets to try and meet the spending requirements to requalify for Premier Gold. This would translate into increasing my cost per mile from 4.4 cents to 10 cents and a real increase in costs from $2200 per year to over $5,000 (more like $5,500 or $6,000 when you drop off the taxes). This option just not in the cards for me, I don't think. This completely blows my travel budget out of the water and spends money that I don't have. I know that for some who travel for business or who might have a bit more cash flow could make this happen. But as someone who will be just over a year and a half out of grad school, just over six months in a new city and someone who has student loans...I don't think I can swing the extra $3000 or more needed to meet the PQD limit.
2. Disregard Gold, Acquire Silver with Bonuses: I currently have Silver status, and to be honest I actually like it quite a bit. I am excited to qualify for Gold status this year, but Silver is still an OK place to be if you travel as much as I do (15-20 times a year). This strategy is one that is a bit of a hybrid and would only work if you have Gold (or I guess Platinum or 1K status, though I bet you have different priorities) status. My plan would be to stick to the rule of averaging out my cost per mile to around 4.0-5.0 cents per mile again. I would still try to get 50,000 miles or more per year and take full advantage of Gold status during the 2014-2015 qualifying period. This way I can live it up as a Gold and enjoy the added benefits for at least one year. At the end I could end up with 75,000 redeemable miles (as a result of the 50% bonus) and could spend a little extra to make sure I hit the $2,500 PQD spending requirement that would at least get me to Silver for next year to make sure I could still change award tickets without a fee, still access Economy Plus seats and still have an outside chance at an upgrade.
3. Chase My Way Into Status: As a Premier member I saw my United MileagePlus credit card annual fee come up and didn't see much value in keeping it, since the benefits were pretty much the same as Premier status, so I moved the credit line over and canceled the card. But with the new system allowing for a waiver of the PQD spending requirement if you spend $25,000 in a year on a United branded card this could be an option. Of course I would need to get a United co-branded card again, but with my US Airways Club Access expiring in December, and their impending moving to AA meaning I need a new card for lounge access anyway, I might have my eyes on the United Club Card (hopefully with a fee waiver) to try and get around the PQD requirement and gain lounge access in the process. But this is still a difficult process for me. Spending $25,000 in a year is nothing to sneeze at. I know that some people will say you can use various tricks to manufacture your spend and get this done quickly, but I am a very light player in that game. I will do Amazon Payments and a few Ice Cream runs every month, but if I were to go this route it would push my comfort zone a little bit.
4. Say Bye Bye to United: This is the last option that I could come up with. With our move to Seattle it opens the door to trying out a new airline...Enter: Alaska Air. I love Alaska and I used to fly them all the time in college on their direct Seattle to Washington National route. Then that route got really expensive and I started moving my business over to United because of their heavy presence at the DC area airports. But being in Seattle with Alaska's hub already in place I can see the benefits of switching over. Alaska generally matches United Gold status to their MVP Gold status, which has many of the same benefits. The great thing is I could then still continue to mileage run to maintain the status, and even use miles earned on AA and Delta to get to the just slightly higher qualification number via partner flights. The benefit here is that my spending habits don't have to change. I can still be picky about my flights and my cost per mile to keep the budget in check. The downside is I would have to concentrate my flying on Alaska and AA/Delta and wouldn't actually get to take advantage of the Premier Gold status I worked so hard to earn.
I don't know that I quite have my answer yet of what I plan to do...I would be interested to hear the plans of others as we go forward. Worse comes to worse, I'll just "move" to Canada. ;)
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Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints! Have a question for us? E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com
|
For tickets issued on or after
June 19, 2013
|
General
member
|
|
Fee to book award travel
|
|
|
Booking
a MileagePlus award ticket by phone through United Reservations, regardless
of departure date
|
$25
|
|
Booking
a MileagePlus award ticket through any channel, less than 21 days before
departure
|
$75
|
|
Fees to change award travel or
re-credit miles
|
|
|
Making
a change 21 or more days prior to the date of travel (no change to
origin/destination)1
|
$75
|
|
Making
any change less than 21 days prior to the date of travel; or changing
origin/destination at any time
|
$100
|
|
Canceling
your trip and re-crediting the miles, regardless of the date
|
$200
|
Previously you could change your award ticket any number of times as long as it was 21-days before departure. Now general members will have to pay $75 for every change and $100 for every change inside the 21-day window. The changes are still free for all levels of Premier status, but as I ponder my strategy for 2014 this throws a wrench into the system.
I love the ability to be able to change an itinerary numerous times as the flights that I want open up. The value of free changes 21-days plus allows you to "massage" and itinerary until it's perfect. For our trip to Australia and Asia we took full advantage of these rules. The trip as originally booked was just Sydney to Tokyo to Seattle. Now the trip is Sydney - Bangkok - Hong Kong - Singapore - Bangkok - Tokyo - Seattle. The generous ability to add in "layovers" of up to 24-hours is allowing us to experience four cities in Asia we didn't actually expect to get to see....all for an award ticket price of Australia to the United States. If I were a general member, and not a Premier Silver, and wanted to make these changes today I would have added hundreds of dollars in change fees as we made at least 10-15 changes to the itinerary over the past few months. So the prospect of letting my status lapse in 2014 and suddenly having to pay for changes to an itinerary is not ideal.
So what are the options....
Well lets look at the new chart again:
This year I plan to end the year with just over 50,000 PQMs and I have 47,000 already flown/booked for the future. So far I have spent just under $2000 for that 47,000 and I expect to just add about $200 to that for the final 3,000 or more miles to round out the year at 50,000 PQMs spending about $2200 or 4.4 cents per mile. While I know that others can do better than this on the cost per mile, I have limits like work during the week and a budget of about $200 per month to spend on travel so I have to be picky about what I choose to fly.
But my main takeaway from adding up the numbers is that under the new qualification system I won't even hit the Premier Qualifying Dollars amount for Premier Silver (Which is $2,500). In fact...I would be even farther away from it as the $2200 I am estimating includes airline taxes which do not count for your PQD spend. So despite flying over 50,000 miles I won't even qualify if I have the same habits next year. After a night of thinking these are the options I have thought of so far:
1. Mo Money Mo Problems: This is the strategy that I am least likely to adopt. It would mean looking for more expensive tickets to try and meet the spending requirements to requalify for Premier Gold. This would translate into increasing my cost per mile from 4.4 cents to 10 cents and a real increase in costs from $2200 per year to over $5,000 (more like $5,500 or $6,000 when you drop off the taxes). This option just not in the cards for me, I don't think. This completely blows my travel budget out of the water and spends money that I don't have. I know that for some who travel for business or who might have a bit more cash flow could make this happen. But as someone who will be just over a year and a half out of grad school, just over six months in a new city and someone who has student loans...I don't think I can swing the extra $3000 or more needed to meet the PQD limit.
2. Disregard Gold, Acquire Silver with Bonuses: I currently have Silver status, and to be honest I actually like it quite a bit. I am excited to qualify for Gold status this year, but Silver is still an OK place to be if you travel as much as I do (15-20 times a year). This strategy is one that is a bit of a hybrid and would only work if you have Gold (or I guess Platinum or 1K status, though I bet you have different priorities) status. My plan would be to stick to the rule of averaging out my cost per mile to around 4.0-5.0 cents per mile again. I would still try to get 50,000 miles or more per year and take full advantage of Gold status during the 2014-2015 qualifying period. This way I can live it up as a Gold and enjoy the added benefits for at least one year. At the end I could end up with 75,000 redeemable miles (as a result of the 50% bonus) and could spend a little extra to make sure I hit the $2,500 PQD spending requirement that would at least get me to Silver for next year to make sure I could still change award tickets without a fee, still access Economy Plus seats and still have an outside chance at an upgrade.
3. Chase My Way Into Status: As a Premier member I saw my United MileagePlus credit card annual fee come up and didn't see much value in keeping it, since the benefits were pretty much the same as Premier status, so I moved the credit line over and canceled the card. But with the new system allowing for a waiver of the PQD spending requirement if you spend $25,000 in a year on a United branded card this could be an option. Of course I would need to get a United co-branded card again, but with my US Airways Club Access expiring in December, and their impending moving to AA meaning I need a new card for lounge access anyway, I might have my eyes on the United Club Card (hopefully with a fee waiver) to try and get around the PQD requirement and gain lounge access in the process. But this is still a difficult process for me. Spending $25,000 in a year is nothing to sneeze at. I know that some people will say you can use various tricks to manufacture your spend and get this done quickly, but I am a very light player in that game. I will do Amazon Payments and a few Ice Cream runs every month, but if I were to go this route it would push my comfort zone a little bit.
4. Say Bye Bye to United: This is the last option that I could come up with. With our move to Seattle it opens the door to trying out a new airline...Enter: Alaska Air. I love Alaska and I used to fly them all the time in college on their direct Seattle to Washington National route. Then that route got really expensive and I started moving my business over to United because of their heavy presence at the DC area airports. But being in Seattle with Alaska's hub already in place I can see the benefits of switching over. Alaska generally matches United Gold status to their MVP Gold status, which has many of the same benefits. The great thing is I could then still continue to mileage run to maintain the status, and even use miles earned on AA and Delta to get to the just slightly higher qualification number via partner flights. The benefit here is that my spending habits don't have to change. I can still be picky about my flights and my cost per mile to keep the budget in check. The downside is I would have to concentrate my flying on Alaska and AA/Delta and wouldn't actually get to take advantage of the Premier Gold status I worked so hard to earn.
I don't know that I quite have my answer yet of what I plan to do...I would be interested to hear the plans of others as we go forward. Worse comes to worse, I'll just "move" to Canada. ;)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints! Have a question for us? E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com
End of Year Trip: Day Trip to Kamakura
Introduction
Tale of Two Lounges - Dulles Airport
Onward to Tokyo - First Class United & ANA Dreamliner
Castle in the Clouds - Park Hyatt Tokyo
Day Trip to Kamakura
Tokyo Hilton
A Blast From the Past - American First Class
Tale of Two Lounges - Narita Airport
The Joan Rivers Hotel - W Chicago Lakeside
Wrap-Up of Trip
After a wonderful breakfast at the Park Hyatt, it was time for my day trip. My initial plan was to take a day trip to see Mt. Fuji. However, ever person I told my plan to visit Mt. Fuji thought it was a bad idea, because it was winter and there would be little to see. One of the person who thought my Mt. Fuji trip was a bad idea was one of the ANA flight attendants. Instead, she suggested I take a trip to Kamakura.
Kamakura is located southwest of Tokyo. It takes about an 90 minutes to get their via train and tram to get one of the first major stops around Kamakura. I would recommend buying the Enoshima Kamakura Free Pass, which costs about 1,500 Yen. You can find more information about the tickets here.
The pass gives you a roundtrip on Odakyu Railways. One picks up the Odakyu train at the Shinjuku station, the station closest to the Park Hyatt. You take the Odakyu line to Fujisawa.
The next step is a little tricky. One needs to transfer to the Enoden line. To get to the Enoden line, one needs to walk out of the Fujisawa station and follow the signs:
Enoshima is an inlet with some attractions on the top of a big hill.
To get to the top, one can walk or take an a series of escalators. Pay for the escalators. Actually, pay for all of the attractions on the island at the first escalator, it will save you money. I made the mistake of not doing this and it cost me going up the tower.
The cost of the elevator ride is 350 Yen or under $4.
While the cost of the elevator, gardens and tower is 750 Yen or $8. I would pay for this option.
The final option cost 1000 Yen or under $11 for a ride up the escaltors and tower, a visit to the gardens and the caves. Skip this option. The caves, as you will see where a waste of time and effort.
The escalators are a series of three or four that takes you up to the main area.
At each landing, there is areas to buy various things and eat.
There are three shrines located throughout the island that make up the Enshonma Shrine, here is one of them:
The last escalator will drop one off at the Cooking Garden and Tower. No pictures, because I refused to pay the 500 Yen (my only regret on this entire trip was not doing this for $6).
The walk to the cave is long. Lots of stone steps going down to the cave, but going down on the way to the cave requires you to go up the stairs
The cave is a true tourist trap. There is not much to it except a few statues:
The only benefit of the caves are the ocean views. However, I don't know if the views outweigh the long walk up and down the steps.
After my visit to Enoshima, I boarded the train to head to the next station, Hase. Hase is the home to the main reason for the Kamakura trip: the Great Buddha. Its a 5-10 minute walk from the Hase station.
The Buddha is an impressive piece of work. One turns the corner and the view is breath taking. The last time I had this feeling was at the Grand Canyon. As one gets closer to the statue, the detail on the statue become evident. Then you remember that the statue was cast in 1252. 1252!!!! For a small extra fee, less than a $1, one can go inside the Budda. The inside is cramped, but a must see.
One the exhibits at the statue are these sandals. They were created by school children after using math to figure out how big the sandals would have to be to fit the statue.
After spending time with the statue, I headed to the other major attraction at Haas, the Hasedera Temple. The temple has amazing gardens and interesting little statues throughout, but I don't remember the temples.
At the Haas Station is an important stop: the 100 Yen Store or now 105 Yen Store.
The 100 Yen stores can be found all over Japan and are dollar type stores. Everything in the store is 100 Yen or now 105 Yen. One can get anything from food, dishes, paper, and clothing. On this trip, I lost my gloves and the 100 Yen store had it. If in Japan, defiantly stop at these stores to stock up on things.
The last stop is Kamakura. The major attraction here is the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine. This shrine is the symbol of Kamakura being the capital of Tokyo 900 + years ago.
The other major attraction in Kamakura is ice cream. Not just any ice cream, but purple sweet potato.
Purple sweet potato is special to Kamakura. I heard that purple sweet potato ice cream was a must try. And I agree, if in Kamakura, one must try it. It was very sweet, but the color did not scream purple. It was light purple. The same vendor has fried purple sweet potato and the color on that was deep purple.
The trip to Kamakura was amazing. I loved getting out of the city for a day. I visiting Tokyo, I highly recommend a day trip to Kamakura.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints! Have a question for us? E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com
Tale of Two Lounges - Dulles Airport
Onward to Tokyo - First Class United & ANA Dreamliner
Castle in the Clouds - Park Hyatt Tokyo
Day Trip to Kamakura
Tokyo Hilton
A Blast From the Past - American First Class
Tale of Two Lounges - Narita Airport
The Joan Rivers Hotel - W Chicago Lakeside
Wrap-Up of Trip
After a wonderful breakfast at the Park Hyatt, it was time for my day trip. My initial plan was to take a day trip to see Mt. Fuji. However, ever person I told my plan to visit Mt. Fuji thought it was a bad idea, because it was winter and there would be little to see. One of the person who thought my Mt. Fuji trip was a bad idea was one of the ANA flight attendants. Instead, she suggested I take a trip to Kamakura.
Kamakura is located southwest of Tokyo. It takes about an 90 minutes to get their via train and tram to get one of the first major stops around Kamakura. I would recommend buying the Enoshima Kamakura Free Pass, which costs about 1,500 Yen. You can find more information about the tickets here.
The pass gives you a roundtrip on Odakyu Railways. One picks up the Odakyu train at the Shinjuku station, the station closest to the Park Hyatt. You take the Odakyu line to Fujisawa.
The next step is a little tricky. One needs to transfer to the Enoden line. To get to the Enoden line, one needs to walk out of the Fujisawa station and follow the signs:
Outside of the Fujisawa station, one needs to walk over the a bridge towards a department store.
Right by the department store is the small Fujisawa- Endoden tation. Look for the sign for the Enoden line in the direction of Kamakura.
The Enoden line is operated by a very cute electrical rail line with green trains. The train goes from the Fujisawa- Endoden station to Kamakura with many stops between. The free pass allows ultimated rides on the Enoden line on one day. Each stops various things to do and see. I go off the train at the three major stops: Enoshima, Hase, and Kamakira.
The Enoshima station takes one to a beach resort. This station involves the longest amount of walking for the day. I would recommend doing this stop first. Follow the signs to the major attractions.
On the walk, one will need to cross a major street. There is a walkway under the street to the right. On my way to the attractions, I missed this walkway and tried to cross this very busy street.
Enoshima is an inlet with some attractions on the top of a big hill.
 |
| Enoshima |
The cost of the elevator ride is 350 Yen or under $4.
While the cost of the elevator, gardens and tower is 750 Yen or $8. I would pay for this option.
The escalators are a series of three or four that takes you up to the main area.
At each landing, there is areas to buy various things and eat.
There are three shrines located throughout the island that make up the Enshonma Shrine, here is one of them:
The last escalator will drop one off at the Cooking Garden and Tower. No pictures, because I refused to pay the 500 Yen (my only regret on this entire trip was not doing this for $6).
The walk to the cave is long. Lots of stone steps going down to the cave, but going down on the way to the cave requires you to go up the stairs
The only benefit of the caves are the ocean views. However, I don't know if the views outweigh the long walk up and down the steps.
After my visit to Enoshima, I boarded the train to head to the next station, Hase. Hase is the home to the main reason for the Kamakura trip: the Great Buddha. Its a 5-10 minute walk from the Hase station.
One the exhibits at the statue are these sandals. They were created by school children after using math to figure out how big the sandals would have to be to fit the statue.
After spending time with the statue, I headed to the other major attraction at Haas, the Hasedera Temple. The temple has amazing gardens and interesting little statues throughout, but I don't remember the temples.
The last stop is Kamakura. The major attraction here is the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine. This shrine is the symbol of Kamakura being the capital of Tokyo 900 + years ago.
The other major attraction in Kamakura is ice cream. Not just any ice cream, but purple sweet potato.
Purple sweet potato is special to Kamakura. I heard that purple sweet potato ice cream was a must try. And I agree, if in Kamakura, one must try it. It was very sweet, but the color did not scream purple. It was light purple. The same vendor has fried purple sweet potato and the color on that was deep purple.
The trip to Kamakura was amazing. I loved getting out of the city for a day. I visiting Tokyo, I highly recommend a day trip to Kamakura.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Follow us on Twitter @doit4thepoints! Have a question for us? E-mail us at chris@doitforthepoints.com or jd@doitforthepoints.com
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