IN WHAT WAS PROBABLY the most expensive weekend of my life, V and I took a trip to Tokyo in March. Good ol’ reliable Air Asia had just opened its Busan – Tokyo route, which meant absurd sales in the area of $100 round-trip. I took this to mean we might be able to do Tokyo on the cheap in just a day and a half. 

I obviously had no clue what I was talking about. After two ostensibly “cheap” nights (one in a capsule hotel, shockingly clean), a gorgeous sushi dinner, two drinks at a jazz bar, several oily bowls of thick ramen, two fresh pints of Asahi and a visit to only the outside of the newly-opened Tokyo Tower (which costs $22 a head to enter — come on!), we found ourselves withdrawing more than the $200 we’d each brought along, which I’d naively considered might be too much  for barely 36 hours.

Whatever. The cherry blossoms were pretty and the food was incredible. I’d love to be able to afford more time to spend there.