Purchases

Saving for this trip is a little difficult to say the least. It's costing me quite a bit more than originally planned so rather than £100 a week going to savings, it's £150. Therefore a lot of the things that I'm going to need to take with me I may not be able to afford. Yes I am taking donations if anyone wants to contribute to my cause....yeah I'm sure you're all dying to offer hehe. Hopefully I can take full advantage of Christmas and rather than random gifts of chocolate, socks and general stuff I don't want I can request the following items specifically chosen to aid me in my adventures in Japanland.

• XSHOT Extendable Arm
• So far only found on ebay but a vital purchase. An alternative is available on I Want One of Those.
  
• Gorilla Pod
• An alternative to the above but would also be very nice to have. Size Small please.
  
• 4 Litre Dry Sack
• Must be useful for my trip to Mount Fuji somehow.
• Personal Organiser
• Another vital piece of equipment. Will be needed for addresses, notes, money, blah blah. This one at Amazon should surfice though I may select a bigger one at a later date....we'll see.
• Walking Boots and Walking Socks
• I'll probably need to buy these myself.
• Laptop Case
• Will need to fit a 17" laptop.
• Rucksack
• A large one. I'll pick one out at a later date.
• Backpack
• For Mount Fuji Climb...again, I'll pick one out later
• Head lamp
• Not sure where you get these from but I'll need one if I do my climb through the night. An alternative would be a torch but I might just get one of those in Japan.
  

This list could go on forever. I'll post more things to it as and when I think of them.

Where to actually go...

The first 3 months of this tour are pretty much set. I'll be in a language school just outside Tokyo the entire time so apart from the occasional short distance day trip to Disneyland, Yokohama, Kamakura etc, I won't be straying far from the greater Tokyo area itself. Once the language course is finished, then the problems start.

First of all there's the visa issue. It's a little complicated but I should just about get away with it. It's all tied in with the JR Pass so anyone who wants to read up on that, Visas and why it's causing me a headache can go poke around.

But more so than the financial and legal issues, the biggest problem I'm having is deciding where to go and in which order to do it in. The damn Wikitravel website is the bane of my life right now. The more I read the more places I think I can squeeze in and the more I jumble my already packed itinery.

Today I've been looking at the island on Kyushu. Now I know I want to go to Oita and Beppu. Hot springs and sunshine. I might try and get to Nagasaki as it isn't that far out of the way. But then I was going to take the ferry from Osaka to Beppu and go from there but now I discover that I can get a shinkansen all the way to Fukuoka. Not that there's anything in particular that I want to go to Fukuoka for but the JR Pass would, in a round about sort of way, get me there for free. I'd just have to change train half way there. And it would be quicker. But do I really want or need to go there? Would a ferry be better? The ferry is overnight so I'd save on a nights accomodation. But then who wants to sleep on a ferry? Maybe I just need to sit and have a read of Fukuoka Now to see if it's worth the effort.

And then as I type this I discover this article regarding the Kyushu ferries and price increases....It just keeps getting more and more difficult to make any solid decisions. Grr!

And so it begins....well in blog form at least

Ok so this blog is here to track the next 12 months of my life, 1/3rd of which will be spent living in Japan. Before I tell you more about what I'm doing I'll give you a small introduction to myself. It might help haha!!

My name is Laura. I'm 27 years old and I currently live in Swansea, South Wales. I work for the Royal Mail in what I consider to be the most mind-numbing job that ever existed. I have a degree in Anthropology which I have failed to make the most of hence me doing the job that I do. I have had an interest in Japan for quite some time. I'm going to blame it on the influence of two Japanese students who came to study at my school when I was 16. Since then I've delved in to the world of manga and anime, and through that I have found myself immersed in J-drama, J-pop, bizarre tv programmes, melon pan, sushi, yukata and all sorts of fun Japanese things. And so the desire to visit the country has been growing for quite some time. I was lucky enough last year (September 2007) to visit for 2 weeks and now, fueled by my boring job, my desire to escape this pretty shitty city for an adventure that most people have whilst still of university age and my love of all things modern Japan , I am setting off next Spring for my belated Japan adventure!



It's still 8 months before I leave but you wouldn't believe how much planning there is in all this. How long should I stay? Where should I go? Which order shall I do it in? Which path up Mount Fuji should I take? What size bag? Should I take my laptop? It's tough, it really is. Which is partly what this blog if for. Somewhere to spew it all out to and hopefully from the chaos, a plan will come. It's also a safeguard in case my computer dies and I lose all my bookmarks haha!

I'm going to leave it at this today. Tomorrow I'll see how much of the garbled mash of information in my head I can push together in to an actually itinery. Then maybe one day soon I'll be able to add my destinations to the map below for you to get a good idea of where I'll be swanning off to.



Until then, Adieu....