Getting ready to go to Japan~!

I'm getting a slight case of pre-trip anxieties....  Nah, just kidding! lol.  But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little anxious.

Mom assigned me as the trip planner so I'm trying to find major locations where we'll be renting hotel rooms and where we can branch out from those set points.  We'll be staying in Japan for a week and for the first time, we won't be spending all our time in a major city, in this case, Tokyo.

We'll be traveling from Tokyo to Nagasaki.  We each bought a $279 JR rail pass so I'm hoping it will cover most of the train fare.  I'm working really hard to plan around the Japan Rail Pass map.

At the moment I'm looking over the JR map to see what ground we can cover; and that's a lot.

I've decided that a good portion of this trip will be devoted to Japan's sento and onsen.  I really, really, really want to experience their bath culture-!!!  I've been to Japan a good few times but I've never had the nerve to seek out these out.  Epic fail on my part...  As luck has it, there are a lot of sento in Kyoto.  We'll definitely be staying there at least a couple nights! ( " * w * " )  I've also found a few locations where we'll have a high probability of finding an onsen, preferably a rotenburo (open-air bath).

It took a lot of research but it paid off; there's a ton of info on good sento and onsen in Japan (I'll post my findings of super helpful sites and blogs on a future post).  Hopefully I'll get some exciting blog material from this experience!

I've already bought a new suitcase because I swore to myself that the next time I travel to Japan, I'll be traveling with a 4-wheeler suitcase.

 

The first suitcase I've ever bought!  (All the others I've used were hand-me-downs)  Got this for roughly $60 at Ross.

I used to work in a luggage shop so as I recall, "Heys" was a fairly good brand and the wheels also looked sturdy enough compared to all the other 4-wheelers (we shall see!).  It was also lightweight and expandable which is a definite plus.

Only after traveling to Tokyo and having to traverse their very busy and often crowded subway stations with my luggage did I realize the true importance of a 4-wheeler.  Having my luggage a good distance behind me, I would feel really self-conscious with my huge a** suitcase taking up all this space, especially with it dragging behind me; I would also have to be so careful not to hit anyone, God forbid if someone tripped over it!  Having to deal with that mental anguish every time I lugged my suitcase around,  I did NOT want do deal with it again, especially since we'll be towing our luggage around a lot more on this trip.  So for $60?  Totally worth it.

Another thing I had to buy was a new camera.  I can tell my old one is dying, well, mostly its button pad.  I'll have to see if I can find a way to get that fixed...  I ended up getting a Canon PowerShot.

Yay blue!  One of my favorite colors! :D

I found a lot of vloggers/bloggers have good reviews on the Canon Powershot.  I've always wanted to own a Canon camera at least once in my life, so I bought it.  I got a fairly good price with some discounts from Target; I ended up paying $120.  So far, it beats my old camera's optical zoom capabilities; it has 8x optical zoom while my old Sony has 4x optical zoom.

There was another camera that I was totally gonna buy on impulse because it was so adorable and would probably help me in my "stealth photo shots."  It was this tiny Nikon Coolpix S01 and it was on clearance.  Unfortunately, the store didn't have any more in stock and only had the display model....  That's one thing I probably won't buy used; electronics have too many risks involved.  Oh well~

For these past couple days, the majority of my time was spent trip planning, getting packed, and buying all the essentials.  I still have to stop by the mall to find some nice dresses because it's easy to create different outfits with it and I can wear it with leggings.

One of the travel tips I've come across was to use leggings instead of jeans as they're lighter and don't take up as much space.  Dresses were also recommended because one dress can create multiple outfits.

I finally washed all my thrift store shoes and laid them out in the sun.  Now I can wear these without worry. ^^

 Which pair will go with me to Japan?

I want to wear shoes on this trip that are stylish but comfortable enough so I can withstand walking in them for extended periods of time.  Tennis shoes are the most comfortable choice for travel but I've never felt more dumpy and obviously tourist-looking while traveling in them.  Beauty is pain, beauty is pain...

That's about all the pre-travel stuff that's happening at the moment.  Tomorrow, I'll be going out to buy a detailed map of Japan and a good dress.  I still have to figure out how I can effectively blog this trip since I won't have internet access.  Maybe I can write my blogs in a journal and then type it when I get back.  And then I'll have to keep track of all the pictures....  Omg, such immense organization this is gonna take!!  xD

I'll end this blog with a pic of apple pie a la mode that I've gotten addicted to recently.  There's something so delicious about biting into a warm apple pie and then taking a bite of cold vanilla ice cream.  Mmmm mmmm..

 So good....

I lied.  I'll end this blog with a Scruffy pic instead.  xD

It's sleep-time!  Oyasumi nasaaaaai-!