Flights of Fancy – Saipan for Obon

Flights of Fancy – Saipan for Obon
Next week is Obon – the traditional Japanese summer holiday when just about everyone in Japan is a) on vacation, b) on the highways, c) on the airplanes and d) in the hotels. Brian and I often go camping during the peak holiday time – usually deftly avoiding traffic and quickly finding our way into the unpopulated mountains. This year is a little different.

It’s simply been a hectic month (or two!), and with everything we were busy with, we barely noticed the summer holiday sneak up on us. We haven’t gotten our camping gear ready or re-stocked any supplies…but that’s ok. Because, on a whim, we have decided to fly to Saipan for some time on the beach.

It happened like this:
I got home from work yesterday evening. I had a promotional email from Northwest Airlines in my Outlook mail box that announced, “Micronesia for Cash and Miles – Extended!”. Well, knowing that all flights are usually very booked by this time, and that those that aren’t booked are prohibitively expensive, I wasn’t expecting much when I clicked on the link. However, after typing in our preferred travel dates and hitting the “Check Flights” button, we were pleasantly surprised to find that not only were there available flights, but they were also cheap – 60,000 yen plus 20,000 of my air miles for two people. After a brief discussion, we decided to take the offer and reserved online.

We fly out tomorrow morning and come back on Friday. Hopefully we can blog while away (we’re bringing a laptop).