Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Chicago, IL., U.S.A.
Programs: Global Entry · WN, UA, AS, DL, NH; IHG, Wyndham, Hilton, Best Value Inn, Marriott, Starwood, Ramada
Posts: 642
In what I will title the on-line equivalent of the Grateful Dead parking lot miracle, Friday morning, my travel bot, one day after telling me my surveyed flights were $1,800.00; found a round trip from Chicago to Tokyo including the days of the Do, for $998.15. 
Yes, there is a twist to this fare. I have to fly from | to Chicago to EWR | IAD to catch nonstops to HND.
I have not been to Japan since September 2017. But this shall be my fifteenth trip there. I now have Global Entry. This should help, considering my flight from ORD is at 06:00 [GMT-6]. Yes, there is CTA transit service from the abode here to O'Hare at 04:14. I think I will be so pumped for this - I would not get much sleep on the night of the 3rd anyhow.
I will find the way to Mikkeller Kanda. (I walked past the Mikkeller bar in Shibuya when I was not looking for it.) I will register for the Do Dinner. The Friday morning walk of Ueno Park | Kappabashi | Sumida River sounds good. Saturday- I am not yet sure.
I will be hanging out in Tokyo on days after the Do. If you have browsed my regular bookmark page [see below], you will espy a handful of English-language Japan bloggers. I definitely want to see them.
Registering with Visit Japan Web has been done. (I am scribing this from O'Callaghan's Bar on W. Hubbard St.) It seems probable I will wind up staying at a hostel, not that I would mind anyhow. The last time I was on an airplane was for YVR Do in September 2018, and I selected a hostel in western Vancouver which was fine. 
I will update as necessary.
I went through my own hotel links to Japan and turned up a hostel 2/5ths of a mile from the Shimbashi train and subway stations. I am quite familiar with Shimbashi. The hostel is in Shimbashi 5. There is a Daikokuya money exchange store in the New Shimbashi Bldg. in Shimbashi 2. It is quite close to Dry Dock Shimbashi, an incredibly diminutive venue underneath the J.R. structure, where I have visited and taken photographs therof. Or there is a World Currency Shop in the Ginza Core department store further up (from 4 April).
Last edited by pudgym29; Mar 25, 2023 at 6:10 pm
Reason: booked a hostel and provided data for Visit Japan Web..