Planning Stage 05: Ironing out the bumps.

There are bumps that we hadn't accounted for in our planning due to the earthquake/Tsunami disaster that struck northern Japan in March, and as I said before, we weren't certain that we would be able to go.

I've spend the past month glued to news networks like NHK and BBC, and although CNN has been rather uninformative, I've been watching what they have to say as well.  The good news is that although the situation isn't really idea, or even good, it's safe for us to go.  The US, in fact, has just lifted the advisory warning for travel to Tokyo, which I'm so happy about I could just burst.  My friends and I are getting together tonight to discuss our plans and make sure everyone is on the same page.  While I won't know until tonight whether or not they decide to go, I've made up my mind that I am going to go, even if I'm by myself.

The excitement I felt in February is back again, even more intense because it's so close to being here (26 days and counting!).  I've been wanting to travel over seas so long, it's like a dream come true at this point.  I can't wait to touch down and see everything, experience it all, and bring all my experiences back to share with everyone.  This trip has gotten me so excited that I've actually started thinking about where I want to go next.  I've managed to narrow it down to India, Greece or Spain, but I can't decide!  All in it's due time.  I have to admit that I've been so focused on Japan all these years that I haven't done a lot of research on any other country.  That's going to have to change.

Back to Japan though.  The very last thing on the list to do is buy our JR pass for traveling through Japan.  As I said in an earlier post, we started out thinking that a one-week pass would do, but as we planned our trip, we realized that we would need more than seven days to see everything the pass would get us to.  So we expanded it to a two-week pass.  Such a great idea, and it's going to help us see so much more.  Once we get our pass we'll be set, and I'll have to start worrying about packing.  I'm not looking forward to that, I have no idea what I should bring to wear.  I'm afraid of packing too much or too little.

I also need to get a suitcase, I don't even have one.  :o

I'll let everyone know how our meeting goes tonight.  Cross your fingers for me that everyone is in!

Unexpected #2: March 11th, 2011.

I haven't posted in a while, for a couple of reasons.

One is that I hadn't really had any news about the trip planning since I last updated, except for booking the hostels (and the hilarity of not being able to understand the girl at Sakura Hostel - Asakusa when she asked me what my nationality was.   I kept thinking she wanted my id number.), so I was waiting for something new to talk about.

The second reason is that I became extremely depressed and worried about whether or not the trip would actually happen.

It's hard to explain my feelings over what happened on March 11th, 2011.  Two months EXACTLY before we were booked to take off, an earthquake hit Japan, causing a massive tsunami and destroying whole towns and killing thousands.  I know we all saw it in the news, so I don't have to go over any details about it, but I woke up that morning and almost couldn't get out of bed.  I guess numb is the best word to use for how I felt.