invading japan

if i can figure stuff like this out, i will be fine. and the language. and food that isn’t seafood (or apparently beef, which is in short supply). other than that – yeah, it’s cool.

i leave tomorrow for 10 days in japan. i will be in tokyo, kobe, kyoto and maybe osaka, hiroshima, some other places i don’t know the names of, etc. i’ll get to see kyle and maybe see his school, plus some of tadao ando’s buildings in kyoto/osaka! also uniqlo, the gap of japan, which will hopefully have some stuff that actually fits me. i’m only taking a backpack for the whole trip – i haven’t, um, actually packed, uh…yet…but…uh, hopefully i will be able to fit everything i need in there. i have saved my magazines from the past few weeks for the plane (popular science, macworld, entertainment weekly that best buy conned me into getting) and it looks like jal’s planes are pretty well equipped for movies and games.

i am excited but also nervous. i didn’t really have a lot to do with the planning of the trip, so i’m not sure what cities i will be in when or names of hotels. i don’t feel like i’ll be leaving tomorrow – it’s weird. i don’t even feel my usual travel-panic, which is me freaking out because i’m always harassed by united states ‘we don’t discriminate on the basis of race’ customs. i’m sure that will be especially fun flying back from an asian country, where they will be sure not to insinuate not-so-subtly that i’m lying about my citizenship and have faked a us passport with a european name in order to more cleverly hide my drug/prostitute/arms/embargoed-items smuggling/dealing operation. god bless america right?

anyway, i will post a big one when i get back to let y’all know what happened. i will write down what i see everyday, which should be easy since i’ll be fasitidiously cataloguing receipts and purchases so as to avoid further customs aggravation. seriously, i AM excited for this trip, despite the logistical nightmares.