telophase | Pre-trip checklist

Entry tags:

japan trip

Pre-trip checklist

-- Figure out what the heck I'm going to do with my cat for three weeks while I'm gone

-- Get more SD cards for camera because 551 pictures just ain't enough
-- Noticed hole in most comfortable bra this morning (WOES); buy more ASAP
-- Buy more of the expensive anti-blister socks from the Walking Store as they work really well
-- Call insurance company to get early refill for prescription approved
-- Remember haircut & dye appointments
-- Call doc, get seen about exercise-induced asthma
-- Get small day-pack type backpack, as current backpack way too big and bulky
-- Download more podcasts for iPod (and keep eye out for extra battery pack in mail)
-- Buy batteries
-- Download those two books from audible.com
-- Get international plug thingy from Mom this weekend
-- ~~Figure out how getting to and back from airport~~*
-- Get travel-sized thingys of various things
-- Burn more DVDs and VCDs
-- Print out possible places to go/eat at in various sites
-- Get small wheelie bag from Mom. Continue to resist her insistence that I'll want the big one, pointing out that the last time I took a big wheelie bag anywhere on a trip, I DESTROYED my lower back to the point where I still can't stand still for too long without pain.

More as remember.

* Just booked on SuperShuttle, as flight leaves at 6:45 AM, too early to ask friends to deliver me, and flight returns at, like, 6PMish, which means friends would have to battle rush-hour traffic to get me. Much easier to just book a shuttle, plus have a company to scream at if pickup fails to materialize.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, I will have to return my DVD player and attempt to find a new one that will play home-burned DVDs and VCDs for that to work-- hey-- can you ask here what brands of portable, lightweight DVD players would do that?

I bought Keen hiking sandals. They are almost absurdly comfortable.

Asked.

I haven't considered hiking sandals for the basic reason that whenever I walk in sandals, I always get rocks in them. XD

I ended up paying someone $150ish to take care of my cat for 10 days when I was on vacation last year because I knew local friends were either convention-going, deathly allergic, or otherwise occupied at the time. Am still not sure about what I want to do right now.

I do know that absolutely nobody believes me when I say that the automatic litterbox needs much less litter than normal litterboxes, because every time someone else has filled it, they always overfill it and I come home to both a cat box that has been combing the litter all. day. long.* and scaring the cat, and the cat's expression of displeasure at that on my carpet.

* Too much litter in box = litter built up *behind* comb, which keeps it from stopping. I found some disposable litterboxes in the store last weekend and decided the next time I left I'd buy a 3-pack of those and just have whoever's taking care of the cat use them, because the risk of burning the apartment down due to the motor malfunctioning from its all-day experience or the cat refusing to use the litterbox ever again is just too big. :D

Do one of you want to get a compass? My brother had one for our family's trip to Japan, and it was useful a few times.

I had to pay someone $300 to take care of my cat, as my regular sitter is vacationing in Italy at the same time.

On a subject other than the cat: I just checked the AA website - they have a record of my reservation and all I need is the e-ticket confirmation number and 3497234937032 pieces of ID - and noticed that so far, there is nobody other than us sitting in our rows on the Japan flight. Fingers crossed it stays that way!

That would be fantastic. Even if there's only one free row, we could switch off so we could each get some sleep.

Which airport are you flying in to, and where are you going from there? There are three trains of varying price, speed and comfort level that run straight from Narita to a bunch of central locations in Tokyo - I took the Keisei Skyliner both ways and that was nice and worry-free. I've got a couple of railway maps of the area I can scan bits of, if you like.

Also, I am totally jealous of how much time you get to spend there, and the amount of countryside you'll get to see. I couldn't afford to leave Tokyo when I was there, it made me sad. Next time! *shakes fist*

:) I'm really looking forward to the more rural bits of the trip, for the reason that I normally don't get far out of cities when I travel. But it's all going to be fun. :D

Hee - no, we've that that end of the trip taken care of, thanks. I'm just starting to think about how I'm getting to and from the Dallas-Fort Worth airport on my end. :)

Or, judging by

rachelmanija's comment, maybe we don't.

No, no, it's fine. We take the Keisei to Ueno; I had just forgotten what the name of the Ueno line was. Then we transfer from Ueno to Minami-Senju, and walk the rest of the way.

We want the one which goes straight to Ueno station. That might be the Keisei.

Yep, that's the one. I stayed in Ueno too, nice easy access to the rest of the city via the Yamanote and the Ginza metro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro_Ginza_Line).

Anti-blister socks = GOOD IDEA. Granted, my sensei is a machine and apparently doesn't understand that most college kids aren't used to walking lots of miles every day, over surfaces like concrete and pavement, but still, my feet hurt almost the entire time I was there, and I suspect they would have even with less walking.

Don't forget a watch or other time-telling device. I forgot to take one, as I usually use my cellphone as a timepiece instead, and it didn't occur to me, in my immense intelligence, that DUH CELLPHONES DON'T WORK IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

Also, in interest of saving you some packing space, you probably won't need the international plug thingy. I took one, but didn't use it at all. The geeks who went on the trip informed me that "yeah, the reason you can buy electronics in Japan and still use them in the U.S. is because the plugs are the same, and the slight voltage difference isn't usually an issue." The key thing IS the voltage difference; I don't remember whether it's higher or lower in Japan, but the only devices I can imagine it affecting would be really sensitive computery stuff. My camera charged just fine.

Also-also. I remembered just this morning that there's a 'Gojyo' subway station in Kyoto, between Gion and the JR Station, and thought of you. XD Proof is the picture I snapped from the moving subway, while trying not to giggle and shake the camera, and being stared at by politely-not-acting-amused Japanese people:

It's the "isn't usually" bit that slightly worries me. :) I got the same advice as you, only the person added that they wouldn't plug their PDA in without a converter, plus if you had a plug that was grounded, and I think my camera's battery charger (which I have to bring, as it takes a lithium battery-pack thing and not regular batteries) is grounded, it wouldn't fit.

Gojyo station! Hee! :D

OH AND. The couple of different hotels I stayed in supplied things like soap, shampoo, conditioner, and toothbrushes. They were low-end hotels, too, so I suspect it's a fairly consistent Japanese thing. Thus, if I were going again, I'd ditch my shampoo and and soap, because I'm not picky about those things like I am the only conditioner that seems to work for me, etc.

I'm also thinking of things like Febreeze, which for me is an absolute necessity when traveling in an area where (a) the weather is hot and sticky and (b) I'm not sure where and when I'll have access to washing machines. Wearing clothes I can smell drives me insane. The hotel we're at in Tokyo - which advertises itself as the cheapest in Tokyo (http://www.newkoyo.com/) - has a laundromat but I'm not sure about anywhere else, especially as we're staying in minshuku, for the most part.

Oh, and you need to bring your own towel. I have a very light microfiber one which rolls up into a tiny space.

I have been assuming that we will not have laundry access in any of the little hilltop inns, so will wash all my clothes in Tokyo.

Crossroads (in Kyoto) doesn't have laundry, but there's a laundromat nearby. One time I was there its owner, Sachiko-san, took my clothes to a dry-cleaner with her own load because I'd been to the fire-festival and everything I owned had been permeated with wood smoke.

So far I know I'm bringing five shirts - all in crinkle cotton, which has the bonus of being (a) cotton and (b) pre-crinkled, so will pack nicely. :) They also all look pretty much alike, just in different colors, and can fake being halfway nice if necessary.

The places we're staying at don't supply that stuff.

Eee! How exciting!
I don't know that I'd be brave enough to go on my own unless I picked up my dusty Japanese books and gave it another go.

Well, I'm not on my own -

rachelmanija and I are going together, and she's been before, so I have a safety cushion. XD

When I studied abroad in Wales, and traveled on my own for 10 days in England and Scotland, I had people tell me they were envious of my bravery in doing so. I was all WTF?! It's frickin' ENGLAND and SCOTLAND, not a WAR ZONE. It's like going to HOUSTON or something!

I love Wales - we've been twice.

Where were you studying?

I was at Trinity College in Carmarthen, down south in Dyfed. :) (And, presumably, the place where Merlin was born.) I've also been to Conwy, in North Wales, with Mom for a couple of days when I was doing an internship in Shropshire.

Heh, I compulsively read and re-read The Crystal Cave throughout my teen years. On our honeymoon, I insisted that we at least drive by Carmarthen when we were looping around Wales (we were castle-hopping, basically, completely freelancing our B&B stays only a night or two in advance ... "young and stupid" comes to mind). Several years ago, we stayed at a winery and vineyard in the Vale of Glamorgan, and did lots of exploring nearby.

Cool. :D Did you go into Carmarthen deep enough to see their teeny-tiny amphitheatre? It's so cute and tiny you got the feeling they were throwing kids to the housecats on weekend afternoons instead of Christian to lions.

I never managed to figure out where the stump of Merlin's oak was - when we went to the spot that was listed in my guidebook, there was a sign saying it had been moved to a local museum for safekeeping and we never got around to finding out where that was.

No - it was sad! The Mr. was all tired that afternoon, and I was not pushing him ... he'd had some bug during the wedding and ran a 102°F fever that night (I mean, we'd been living together for several years, so it wasn't the wedding night crisis it might have been). So we covered a lot of mileage, but there were plenty of things we didn't spend as much time on as I'd have liked.

Aw! Well, overall unless it's market day, Carmarthen is pretty dull. The college and a mental hospital are both at the top of a hill just outside of town, so bus rides were always interesting - between mental patients on day passes and rowdy college students going into town to get the hell away from school for a while, the only way you could tell who was who on the bus was by guessing from the relative age they seemed to be. XD

My Anglo-Welsh Literature prof (literature by Welsh people written in English) was a distant relative of Dylan Thomas and said that to his family he was never the tortured genius poet, he was the schlub who never got a proper job in his life. And the A-W lit world is so small that everyone knows everyone else, so he'd tell us anecdotes from the personal lives of the writers we were reading, which often gave us insight into their stories, or so we thought. :)

And here's where I wander totally off the original topic ... .

I had the misfortune to go to the University of Virginia, and I wish we'd had mental patients instead of the kids from the nearby Fork Union Military Academy. They were the rudest, most foul-mouthed bunch of mini-jarheads I'd ever met!

That is so neat, about the prof! I really love eccentric, chatty professiorial types.

Hee!

He was great and a character - very short, club foot, looked very professorial with the required salt-and-pepper short beard and tendency to tweed. And he'd constructed the course to allow himself to wander down conversational byways, as it was specifically for the American students and was about learning stuff about Wales through its literature, so we'd read a poem and then he'd meander off about history or culture or something. There were several people in the class who didn't get that *that* was the important part of the class, who bombed the final, I think. XD

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Pre-trip checklist

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject