WANT TO DO... BLOG WANT TO DO... BLOGWELL. THAT HAPPENED QUICKLY!!!!
What needs to be done has basically been done. Sharehouse confirmed and paid for. Insurance bought. Silly little pamphlet with everyones requests designed and printed. I'm most of the way through packing. The new suitcase is magical; I am 100% going to be able to bring the clothes I wanted and even some additonal ones I wasn't sure would fit. (I still need to organize the big suitcase for real, I've just folded stuff up and put it in for now; I forgot my makeup/skincare bag.)
There's still a few things left; entry paperwork, printing forms, charging all my shit, packing my purse, etc... I'm trying not to leave it until the last minute since I've got tutoring tomorrow and therapy on Tuesday, but I'm soooo sleepy.
Because of sleepiness I'm not sure what else to say...! I'm excited, but trying not to think about it actully Happening to prevent insanity.
We will see if I actually use this as a blog while I'm there; it might be hard to do HTML on the iPad, I realized; that said I'm bringing my bluetooth keyboard so I'll do my best. Even if I don't manage to keep it up I'm going to try to journal on paper too/instead, so I'll have notes to bring back in addition to photos.
Gonna go nap now!! In one week I'll be in the air!!
Technically my ticket is for the 19th, but I will be leaving the house for the airport on the 18th, so I'm going to call it. One month out.
I don't know how to think about it. One second I feel like I've worn the idea out in my head and it won't be exciting; the next I feel like I am fooling myself and I'm going to throw up on the plane. Everything's in motion so I don't even have to do anything (not true), it's just going to Happen To Me. There's too much I haven't done, there's nothing I haven't done... I'm trying to put together a countdown to-do list and at this point all the things I can think of that need doing are pretty much 1-2 week out things. One Month is just the beginning of the Real Countdown.
My Japanese isn't great but I feel confident it's passable; I understood more of Kieta Hatsukoi than I expected when I watched it the other day. I'll get a better idea when I see Yuka next week, but overall I think this is as good as it's going to get. Maybe I'll do some review today; it's definitely the early stuff that's slipping. I should add more words to my flashcard decks, too.
For places to go and stay-- just today the room I was hoping would stay open at Fastroom Koenji got snapped up, which is stressy. But I'm gonna keep my teeth gritted and hang on a bit longer; I think first week of February is when I really need to make a choice. This is perhaps overly by-the-seat-of-my-pants of me, but it's kind of mandated by the way sharehouses work... I do still hope to stay in Koenji but if I can't, I can't, so I should keep an open mind. We will revisit this in a week or so, hah.
...I got distracted in the middle of writing this, but the point is: we're really in it now. Instead of writing more, I'm going to go work on my to-do lists. I think I now actually do need to start thinking about packing, instead of just daydreaming about packing. I suspect less of my closet will fit in my suitcase than I'd like. Ha ha.
One month.
42 days... next month... both of these sound far and also soon.
So much is actually done that I'm floundering a little; my to-do list has shrunk to, basically, The Sharehouse, which I'm still holding off on because I'm trying to get a room in the place Karli stayed. Other than that, it's just travel insurance and then... packing. Which is obviously, like, not something I can do right now, though I should probably at some point do a test run for how much it's even possible for me to bring. I realize in my head I've been like "I will just bring my entire wardrobe" and I don't think that's, like, physically possible. I'm going to need to whittle it down to a Capsule situation, which is in of itself a challenge. How will I know what I'm going to want to wear... I suppose I will have to pack what I'd LIKE to wear, and then I'll be stranded there and have to wear it. It's been so long since I've regularly gone out; the idea of putting on cute clothes every day has become scary and intimidating. Anyway, as you can see, at this point my to-dos have become less cut and dry in nature. It's all: figure out what I'm going to want to wear, make a shopping wish-list, practice Japanese harder... etc.
Anyway, of things that ARE done, I wanted to mention that I rearranged my travel plans a bit -- I decided that instead of going to Osaka, I'd spend another day in Naoshima. I feel weirdly guilty about it, but I don't think 1 day there would have been enough. I'm going to go to Nara from Kyoto instead, and go straight from Naoshima to Koyasan, and then back to Tokyo. I might try to swing by Osaka when I go to Nara -- I'd be sad to miss it entirely because the Bunny Items Shop is in Osaka, and I wanted to go to the Museum of Housing and Living to see if I could find any info about when my grandpa was there. It'll depend on how tired I am, though.
Energy level is almost the thing I'm most worried about: like I said, I'm no longer used to going out every day, let alone in a completely new place... but hopefully the stiumulation keeps me going instead of knocking me out. We will find out, I guess! Until then, all I can do is try not to think about potential bad outcomes. I'm less stressed about it than I was, but we'll see if that continues as it gets closer. I hope so.
Writing this on my lunch break in between BOOKING PLACES TO STAY WHEN I TRAVEL IN JAPAN... I just finished booking the two one-night stays, which are also the most limited accomodation option ones (therefore I wanted to do them first): Naoshima Island and Koya-san. Naoshima is a small island filled almost exclusively with art musuems, and Mt. Koya is... well, a mountain, but known for the buddhist temples people do pilgrimages to. I am going to stay in a hostel on Naoshima (because it's walkable from the ferry and seems fine/cute) and then one of the temples on Koya-san, because that is a thing you can do. They serve vegetarian food and you can join the monks for morning prayers.
I had been kind of going back and forth on the temple stay, because I wasn't sure if it was something I would do. Planning this trip has been a really weird experience in that way -- I already hadn't done a lot of travel/vacationing, but then on top of that all that I have done was with my family. So you don't really get to worry or think about "what you want to do", because it's mostly irrelevant -- we did whatever my mom planned. Even that wasn't really "what she wanted to do" so much as "what you Should do here on vacation with your family", meaning every trip was more about What One Ought To Do In A Place than anything else.
Planning to travel alone, I'm seeing now why it would be easiest to just do whatever The Thing To Do is; if only because there is so much TO do. And if you go off the beaten path you have to pick. And if you're picking, it's like -- why do I want to do this? Should I do this? Is this the right thing to do? Is this the me thing to do? How am I supposed to choose?
So I've been like, this appeals to me for some reason, but I'm not sure what the reason is, and it's not necessarily one of the things I know I'll like -- I just kind of want to. And maybe I won't enjoy it, but maybe I will. So I have decided to do it, because when else am I gonna get that chance.
The temple stands out because it's very... something my parents will be baffled by if I tell them I'm planning on doing it, based on Facts About Aimee. But despite Facts About Aimee (not big into nature, kind of a hedonist, somewhat easily spooked), me the person who is sitting here booking things wants to do it. And that is sort of a weird feeling, differentiating between those things... I feel like a lot of choices I have made in general are based on the idea of myself in my head and not what I actually want, making this an exercise in trying to sort through that.
Anyway. Two lodgings booked, uhhh, two (?) to go, I think? One for Kyoto and one for Osaka. I'll do those as soon as I finish eating this soup.
A while back my therapist suggested I give myself more structure for this trip, what with it already being Very Scary, but I was reluctant. I'm not 100% sure why; possibly just because I am a very stubborn person and even if "show up and magically know exactly how to do everything" is an unlikely way for this to go, it's still kind of the way I want it to go, in my heart, and coming up with itineraries felt like cheating.
But this week, I came up with a compromise that works for me! Instead of making Itineraries (boring), I am going to give myself Quests (exciting)! More flexible, goal-oriented yet not defining how I achieve a goal, much sillier. 10/10.
First quest is going to be a journal situation because I fell down a Traveler's Notebook hole, and origianlly I was going to leave it at that, but then I thought about it some more and decided the Quest Mindset would also work great for getting everyone little presents. Therefore...
I have created an お土産 (travel souvenirs) request form!
You can find it down at the bottom of the navigation bar. Click on the speech bubble. If you are reading this, you are entitled to send me on one (1) quest for a silly thing. I will do my best to fulfill requests! Please do request something; it will give me something to look for and will let me feel close to you, my friends, while I am alone-ish in the timezone from hell. ♥
I'll be real, mostly the reason I'm writing blog entries starting now is because I want to keep working on the website. Probably, also, because it's distracting me from what I actually really need to be doing -- studying, booking hotels, planning out days... take your pick. Doing those things gives me anxiety, though, and this feels somewhat productive. This feels more like a very fancy shrine than a blog, to the point where I'm partly like, was this just a way to procrastinate? Probably a little, right? But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
I'm trying to figure out how this is going to work when I'm there... Documentation is one of the things I really want to do for myself, but it's been a long time since I've actually carried around a sketchbook or kept any kind of journal. I'm sort of hoping it will come back to me when I'm in a situation where I want to keep the memories (what does that say about regular life, ha ha, etc); which is actually kind of the tagline for this trip. "I am sort of hoping..." that being there will feel natural. That being there will let me think and exist in ways different to my "normal" life. That being there will force me to open myself up, when I am only just realizing how closed off I have become since [???] time unknown.
That is all to say, I realize this is a lot to ask -- of a blog, of a trip, of myself. But I don't want to hedge my bets, either. I have recently come to the conclusion that hoping or not hoping has no effect on an outcome; I will not get more because I asked for less. I will get whatever I was going to get anyway. The only thing hoping for less has done to me is make it so I don't feel anything positive or negative about an outcome.
So: I am doing this all because I am excited. I am excited because I appear to have over the past five to ten years purposefully surgically removed my ability to want things, and I've only just recently noticed, and this is the stubborn growth back of Wanting that I'm trying to keep alive. I am going to go to Japan like I have wanted to since I was 12, and I hope I have an amazing time. I want to meet people and do things and see everything, and buy a lot of stuff, and wear a bunch of outfits. And I want it to feel like for the last almost 20 years Japan has been waiting for me, just like I have been waiting to go.