Saturday, January 17, 2009

2 weeks in, 2 weeks to go

Things really creep up on you. I can still remember dreaming of a trip to Japan to go snowboarding all those months ago when the exchange rate was so attractive, and I remember being in disbelief at the fact that the trip we were planning had suddenly become almost a thousand dollars more expensive (and deciding to go through with it anyway). Now it's mid-way through the first month of a new year, and less than two weeks until we leave for Japan, and I still haven't given a lot of thought as to what I should be doing in preparation.

The best thing I can think of right now is making sure our bags are under the specified (and quite restrictive) weight limits for our flights. After that we need to triple check that all of our documents are in order and that we know exactly what to do when we get to the airports and train stations and hotels. Closer to the trip (which is a funny thing to say, because it's really close now, and we should probably already be worry about it) we'll also have to consider barriers of culture and language.

The process of preparation is something I've deliberately been avoiding so that I can have time to do other things like read books or play video games but it's time that I start forcing myself to do these things so that I won't have such a hard time during the trip. It'll be interesting, at least, brushing up on aspects of Japanese culture that I haven't bothered thinking about since doing Japanese in high school. I hope that I'm worrying over nothing.