Pack It Up, Pack It In…Let Me Begin

Call me crazy — and I know you’re about to — but I’m embracing a “pack light” mentality for my trip. Instead of wheeling around my trusty Eagle Creek suitcase (aside: I love Eagle Creek. If you need a new suitcase or other packing gear, CHECK THEM OUT, especially the Pack-It folders.), I’m going to pack my wares on my back like one of them real world-travelers.

As mentioned previously, we will be staying in hostels at our various destinations, and we will also be spending a fair amount of time on trains and in train stations, and the idea of not having to drag something up and down stairs and along sidewalk and through crowds is quite appealing. Plus, every hostel will have a laundry, allowing me to take fewer clothing items. (Theoretically at least.) And arriving in Japan with few toiletries will give me an excuse to stock up on Japanese bath and beauty products.

So, I’ve settled on this pack, a blue Gregory G-Pack. It’s rated for 25 to 30 pounds of stuff, but weighs less than 3 pounds itself.

And when I say “settled on,” I mean I already own it, have never used it, and so, in my packrat nature, was easily able to dig it out of a pile of wetsuits over in the country of Spare Oom. (Yes, near the city of War Drobe, thanks for asking.)

Every site I’ve seen that reviews this pack likes it, but distinctly calls it a “weekender.” So am I foolish to think that I will be able to fit 10 days’ of city travel in a pack meant for 2 or 3 days of outback exploring? I’ll let you know when I finalize my packing list and do a dry run. 

There’s also the question of getting My Little Gregory safely checked — I am terrified that I will pick him up at the Tokyo luggage carousel with an essential strap cut or torn off. (Note to self: Put a roll of duct tape inside Gregory so that he can repair himself, if necessary.)

Also up for debate: Which shoes to designate as my daily walkers? No fancy pants events on the schedule, so I’m only planning on taking one pair. I need to be able to walk all day in them without pain or blisters, but also be able to take them off regularly when entering Japanese homes, my sister’s school, etc. Right now, my Birkenstock Paris T-straps are the top contender.

I’m not really a “sneakers” person, and my day-to-day wear is typically Birks, Danskos, or the like. I’m considering get some sneakers for this trip (I just threw away a rode-hard pair of New Balance that took me through Portland twice and San Francisco), but I’m thinking that having to take my shoes off frequently during the day will be a drag with laces.

Japanese phonetic phrase of the day:

Nimotsu ga mitsukarimasen.

“I’m missing a bag.”

A Place to Lay My Head…Seriously, Can I Set It Down Right Here? Thanks.

I’ve been to Mexico 4 or 5 times (including my hurricane-shelter honeymoon) and I was born in Honduras. So while this trip to Japan isn’t technically my first trip out of the country, it sure feels like it.

And not only will this be my “first” international trip, it will also be my first time staying in hostels. Fun.

Now, to be clear, I grew up in the family that invented the phrase “shoestring vacation.” We never traveled by plane, and thus we never got much farther than Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, or Colorado. It was way before the advent of in-car DVD players (we wouldn’t have had one anyhow), so our on-the-road entertainment was Christian music cassettes, sleeping, and license plate bingo.

And when we arrived at our destination, if we weren’t there to visit family who put us up, we looked for the nearest campground. I’ve slept in a tent in the middle of San Antonio, where the Via city buses came right to the front gate of the campground. I’ve peed in a chemical toilet and bathed with sun-heated water in Santa Fe. I’ve sought shelter inside the camp store during daily sand storms in Cortez, Colorado. And I’ve seen every damn kiva in the Southwest.

If we enter spent the night at a Motel 6 in my family, it was a rare luxury. My husband was the one who introduced me to hotels and airplanes and the middle-class vacation — the kind where you don’t have to eat peanut butter sandwiches for lunch every day. [That makes me think of a Dwight Schrute quote…”She introduced me to so many things: Pasteurized milk, sheets, monotheism. Presents on your birthday, preventative medicine.”] Normal people live like this, I pondered, with room service and balconies and king-size featherbeds?

And once you go four-star…but really, I’m not a hotel snob. I can whip up enthusiasm for a Holiday Inn Express in San Francisco (free parking! free breakfast!) as well as a suite in Las Vegas (Jacuzzi bathtub! flatscreen TV mounted near the bathtub!). But hostels. Full of sweaty, dreadlocked backpackers. And potentially a psychotic killer.

So what am I to do except load up my backpack, right? If I’m gonna do this thing, I’m just gonna do it.

Japanese phonetic phrase of the day:
“Rumu sabisu wa arimasuka?”
“Is there room service?”

Surface tension

This picture is not Japan. It’s San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden. But I fully expect all of Japan to look like this.

Tumblrbot’s incisive question (the first blog post, below) brings up a point that I’ve recently admitted to myself: I have mixed feelings about going to Japan. And…about going on a trip with my mother.

If I could spend my money to go anywhere in the world, Japan’s not first on the list. Not by a long shot. Having been raised in a dead-old-white-folk literary world, my first inclination is toward Western Europe. An evening spent in Oxford’s Eagle and Child Pub. Or drifting through France on a tipsy, existential voyage of self-discovery. That kind of college-age bullshit that I never did in my 20s.

But when the opportunity presented itself to visit Japan, it was easy enough to say yes. After all, when else would I have a place to stay (my sister’s apartment) and a built-in guide and translator (my sister)? If I didn’t go now, then would I go ever?

My mother says that Europe is really first on her list too. At least that we can agree on. Other stuff…not so much.

So far, my mother has expressed to me regarding the trip:

1) People go to onsens (Japanese hot springs) mainly because they like other people to look at them naked.

2) She is uncomfortable staying in a shukubo (lodging available in a Buddhist temple).

3) Mentions of quirky Tokyo cultural activities — visiting a maid cafe, wandering among the costumed crowds in Harajuku, going to a manga kissa — elicited eyerolls, huffs, and guffaws.

4) My sister and I can do some of these unsavory things while she’s at church. (She did seem slightly at a loss when my sister mentioned that she wasn’t sure if there was any kind of Protestant church in her town. Living in Texas — and especially after spending time in Abilene — it does really seem that a Church of Christ on every corner must be an inevitability in all parts of the world.)

Japanese phonetic phrase of the day:
“Koh-ket-su-aht-su des.”
“I have high blood pressure.”

tumblrbot asked: WHERE WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT ON YOUR PLANET?

England. I’m a total Anglophile, and grew up on Agatha Christie and C.S. Lewis.