The idea for this trip to Japan came about almost by accident. Most of you know me by now and understand that my traveholism wasn’t going to allow me to just stay home. I’d had vague ideas for a trip to South America that didn’t pan out for this year, for various reasons (though it’s still on the agenda hopefully for next year), so when that fell through, I was trying to decide what to do with my two weeks of vacation time. At the time, I was chatting with my friend Carolyn over MSN, and she said, “Why not go to Japan?”
Why not indeed?
After all, Japan has been on my “list” for a long time. And it’s far. And different. And fascinating. And both compact and expensive enough to make it an ideal destination for the situation I find myself in right now, where I seem to have more money than time for travel.
So now it’s a little over a week until departure, so I’m taking care of a few of the mundane pre-departure checklist items. Like getting some Japanese yen. Normally, my bank is pretty good to deal with for foreign currency exchanges. Submit the online order, go pick it up the next day, end of story. But this time, I picked up the yen that I ordered at a different branch, which is near my new office. Seven people were standing at the counter, chatting and drinking coffee. Another half-dozen were outside, smoking cigarettes. But it still took a full twenty minutes for the customer service rep to retrieve my cash, because apparently she “couldn’t find a second person” to open the vault with her. When I politely inquired about all of the people standing around doing nothing, I was told that none of them were authorized because they are “all trainees”. Hmmmmm.
Eventually, they figured it out, and now I’m all stocked up on yen, a currency designed to make you feel either very rich or very poor. Ten thousand yen sounds impressive until you realize that it’s worth roughly 80 bucks.
Aside from that, the plane tickets are booked. Thanks to Marie’s handy phrasebook, I now know how to fluently pick up Japanese men. I also have a long list of must-sees and must-dos from Marie, Susie, Jerome and other friends. The packing will, as usual, probably not happen until the night before, but that’s okay, cause I don’t need much. And I have a brand-new memory card for my camera with lots of space to take pictures of Engrish signs everywhere.
The countdown is on.