Hostels are key. Get a hosteling card. HiUsa.com has great resources for international and domestic hostels. Most hostels I stayed in were very accommodating, you may have to sleep in a 28 person room, but if you like to travel, this isn't a problem, your never there but to get some shut eye. Hostels are also flexible about dates and some are flexible with prices!

Many nights I slept in train stations and bus garages. I'm not advocating this for everyone but I traveled with a friend and Japan is a very safe country. The best way to do this is to pack light and put your backpack behind you, lock it with a zip tie or combo lock and put a strap around your wrist so no one can pull anything out while you sleep.

When traveling around the country, save money by taking buses instead of trains. A great method if your only traveling a few hundred miles is to take an overnight bus, while saving money on a hostel for that night and awaking at your destination. I went from Osaka to Tokyo on an overnight bus costing $50, and saving an extra $15 by not spending it on a hostel.

Remember when staying in a hostel to bring a small combination lock for your locker. Make sure you lock things up when your not in your room, even if you are using the showers.

While you lodge, instead of spending money on washers and dryers bring a small clothesline and hand wash your clothes in a sink and let them dry on a clothesline in a bathroom or outside, depending on hostel and time of year.

My friend only brought 2 pair of boxer briefs with him, he would take a shower with one pair on, then let them dry while wearing the other pair during the day, and repeat this every day. Might sound weird but he always had clean boxers and saved room on packing!

View the rest of this series on my $2000 trip to Japan, with tips of lodging, travel packing, and eating.

Safe Travels.

When it comes to finding the cheapest ticket, check all the travel websites first, like Kayak, Travelocity, Orbitz, StudentAirfare, Hotwire and so on. Begin to do some more research now that you have a base price and range.

Check airline websites directly, bypassing the bulk sellers of tickets, sometimes you can save a couple hundred dollars by going directly to United Airlines website for example. Ultimately I found the cheapest airfare through a travel agent, booking the flight for $630 round trip, total.

I flew Chicago to San Francisco to Osaka, previously I've flown direct O'Hare to Tokyo for around the same price.

To make some extra cash while traveling, when you get to the airport, go to the gate and ask the attendant how well sold the plane is. Airlines typically overbook 5% or so depending on flight. Put yourself on a list for overbooking, so if the flight is overbooked you give up your seat for someone else, get a couple hundred dollars in cash, a night in a nearby hotel and usually fly out the next morning. You can't beat this, if you do it on the way there and back you can pocket some extra cash, sometimes up to $200 each way.

One last tip, when searching for a flight avoid the summertime, it's always busier, pricier, and slower. Fly in downtimes and check for flights with crazy layovers. I saw flights to Tokyo that had a 20 hour layover in Rome. This may not be for everyone but you get a cheaper flight and enough time to run around Rome for a day.

View the rest of this series on my $2000 trip to Japan, with tips of lodging, travel packing and eating.

Safe Travels.

Togo's is a popular sandwich shop that specializes in an assortment of both classic and modern- style sandwiches. You'll find everything from a simple turkey and cheese sandwich to a Sicilian chicken sandwich; a meatball marinara sandwich to a pastrami Reuben. The sandwich selection is diverse and sure to please just about every taste imaginable. Togo's offers a wide variety of breads including honey oat, ciabatta, and classic white, and all sandwiches are served with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, pickles and pepperoncinis.

Although Togo's offers up a variety of soups and salads in addition to their many sandwiches, it's their sandwiches that made Togo's famous. The ingredients are all high quality and fresh. And they load their sandwiches with a generous amount of meat and condiments. A Togo's sandwich looks and eats like a real sandwich. You have a choice of ordering a sandwich in either the regular 6” size or the larger 9” size. And the bread is very tasty as well, and always fresh. My personal bread favorite is the ciabatta, which is basically sourdough.

What's the best sandwich at Togo's? That's a tough call. Although I have never had a bad sandwich at Togo's, I do have my personal favorites. I tend to prefer the more basic of sandwiches, such as the turkey and cheese sandwich or the pastrami sandwich. I tend to stick with a few personal favorites, and these two are high on my list of all-time favorite Togo's sandwiches.

So, for anyone that enjoys a good sandwich as much as I do, I would recommend that you take a trip down to your nearest Togo's and sample one of their tasty sandwiches. You won't be disappointed!

Almost all fancy restaurants in Spain require reservations. Since most of the restaurants outside the tourist area have staff that speak little or no English, a visitor may want to know some Spanish related foods. Many visitors look around and see what other people are eating. When they see something that looks good they can point to it, and the waiter or waitress can get them that.

Since most of the menus are in Spanish, if a visitor gets something that looks strange, and is not what they were looking for, they will most likely try it. Then, they can try new foods. Most visitors try to learn the basic Spanish words for the food groups. They will learn that ensaladas means salad, sopas means soup, pescados means fish, mariscos means seafood, and so on.

That way, when visitors see items under a section called pescados they will know it has something to do with fish. Most visitors take advantage of Spain being so close to water. They will most likely buy squid, fish and shellfish dishes.

Many people try squid because it is hard to find in the United States of America. Visitors recommend the sangria, marmitako, and croquetas. These are all great Spanish dishes. Some of the foods that are not seafood can be cooked on an open fire. Many people go to Spain just to have their meals cooked on an open fire. Spanish food is very important to their culture.

It was an eight-year case of suffering from destination myopia and lack of will and purpose. This World Bank programme destroyed the then emerging middle class and sent the majority of the Nigerian youths to the dump sites to scramble for survival and means of livelihood.

Living became mere existentialism. The cost of living overshoot the sky as more and more people became poor. The race of capital flight ensued as the value of naira is devalued over and over again. The rich most of who have benefited from petro-dollar inspired economic crimes against Nigeria and her people moved their money out of the country to show their loss of confidence in the economy.

Up till today, this has become a national hobby; hence the economic crimes former state governors are accused of. The intellectuals left the shores of Nigeria in their droves causing an unprecedented stigma of brain drain. Nigerian universities undergraduates are today said to be half-baked.

It is either you are poor or you are rich. The gap has widened so much that the poor devised a way of surviving in the face of living below $1 per day.

Mama Put became the answer. Here you get food for any amount you can afford. The dishes are well cooked and spiced to meet the nutritional needs of one's demanding body. The fun of Mama Put is that it is food for the upwardly mobile members of the Nigerian workforce at very affordable prices. Children of school age berth there for a helping before running off to school with their tasty and spicy booty in their food pack. The ingenuity of Nigerian food vendors came to the rescue of the pauperized Nigerians and put holes to the offensive statement made by a then cabinet minister that Nigerians would be dining with the pigs in no distant time in our various dump sites.

Today smart Nigerians have exported this food tradition to various countries of Europe and the Americas. Anywhere you see the letters saying Mama Put, do not hesitate, go in and give yourself a treat to Nigerian nutritional, tasty and well-spiced foods. This is our way of life. As McDonald's is to the United States of American citizens and the Europeans, so is Mama Put to Nigerians. Today we call it "meals in your mother tongue."

Bon Appetite!