There is this thing in Japan called the JTB: The Japan Tourism Board. If you see a busload of Japanese tourists, look for someone (usually a woman) with a badge leading them saying in a really high-pitched voice “minna-san, minna-san!” (“Everybody everybody!”). She will probably have “JTB” on a patch somewhere on her body.<\/p>\n
\nThe JTB is like a travel agency on steroids. You can go in totally clueless with a free week and a check and walk out with an elaborate vacation. When I went, I had the vague notion “I want to see castles.” My consultant scheduled me a 3 day trip to a castle, and on the way a museum dedicated to a famous Japanese doctor, a walk through a scenic forest, and of course lots of onsen.<\/p>\n\nOnsen. Hot baths. The main things Japanese tourists do are go visit temples and onsen.<\/p>\n\nThe JTB has serious onsen issues. If you go in with your wad of cash and ask for a vacation without onsen your representative will probably have an aneurism. Like, “WHAT. Oooh, I understand. You must be confused! You meant ‘I want to only go to one or two onsen.’ ” etc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is this thing in Japan called the JTB: The Japan Tourism Board. If you see a busload of Japanese tourists, look for someone (usually a woman) with a badge leading them saying in a really high-pitched voice “minna-san, minna-san!” (“Everybody everybody!”). She will probably have “JTB” on a patch somewhere on her body. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-looky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}