Perfect. You know, I totally wasn’t concerned about flying to NRT until now. 
I imagine the plane has autopilot but since the flight is 14hrs, there will be plenty of opportunity for it to happen. I am already checked in for my flight tomorrow, there are *so* many empty seats that I will hopefully be able to have an entire row to myself. It would be perfect to be able to lay across five seats for the entire flight.
I just finished packing my backpack. You wouldn’t believe what you can fit into a 65L pack. I decided that I would take a day pack too, mostly because I am taking my laptop, iPod, camera, and books on the flight. I also decided to pack a bottle of Nytol. I hope I can sleep on the flight, because if I don’t I will be totally messed up when I arrive in Tokyo.
I will probably be pretty tired anyways, since I am going to get on a Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto where my first hostel is located. I am spending my first night in a room with 8 beds. I will totally switch to a private room if I don’t get any sleep the first night. I am a little curious who else is traveling this time of year though, since most students are already back in school.
The enigma for tonight… since I leave in the middle of the afternoon and arrive in the middle of the afternoon the following day, will it ever be dark outside.
Zzz…
Life
Life update. I finished my presentation today (finally), at least the slides. I will need to work on my talk this week but I think it is alright. I don’t have a clue if the attendees will be able to read the slides or understand a word I am saying but at least I have a translator.
I gave up on my attempt to decide where I am going once I land in Tokyo. I bought my rail pass so that if I decide to go to Kansai after I get off the plane I can, but I honestly don’t have a clue how I will feel after 12+hrs on a plane. :) I will hopefully be able to decide where I want to go after this weekend.
DG and I are going to N.S. from Thu ~ Sat to visit the parents before I leave the continent. :) It will be nice to have a quiet weekend, especially since my entire *vacation* has been cancelled because of my talk. I totally can’t complain though considering it is my first trip to Japan. I think it has finally set in that I am going somewhere completely foreign to me. :) I imagine the culture shock will be quite obvious after I get off the flight, but I still can’t believe I am actually going, especially considering I have been looking to go since university. I bought a new Arc’teryx Bora 65 for the trip. I don’t have a clue what I am taking but I am thinking it’ll be clothes, iPod, iMac, digital camera, passport, and some Yen. :) I can’t wait.
I totally forgot to write about the drama we went through two weekends ago. DG and I went to Heaven with some friends and two of us (the two who were drinking GG) ended up blacking out. It turns out that the “girls” (read “dancers”) who were with Max Graham (DJ) may have mixed up their bottle with ours and added a certain substance to our drinks. :( I woke up on the floor of my bathroom and spent the entire drive to T. in the backseat. I was *so* sick. You can’t imagine how terrible I felt. I didn’t feel close to anything stable until late Sunday night, and was still really slow all day Monday. I totally don’t want to go near alcohol again. I doubt it will happen but it was still the worst night ever.
What else… I bought a $99.00 table with four chairs from IKEA. I didn’t actually need a dining table, but I couldn’t resist. I will never be “Haut Couture”.
Life
I bought a Sony Cybershot DSC-H5. Well, more specifically my family bought it for my birthday. 
I wanted a digital camera that I could stuff in my backpack and not be concerned about lenses, etc. It is the perfect choice if you are looking for something similar, as the optical zoom easily allows you to cover the spectrum of focal length options. I should probably also read the instructions this weekend while I am going through the Japan guide books.
Key Features:
- 12x Optical Zoom (35mm ~ 438mm)
- 24x Precision Digital Zoom
- 3″ Display
- Carl Zeiss® Vario-Tessar® Lens
- 7.2MP
I also found an excellent price $45.00 (including shipping) for a 2GB Sony Pro Duo Memory Stick on eBay. It is easily 1/4 of the price if I bought it locally. I couldn’t believe it was so inexpensive. I can’t wait until it gets here so that I can take more than 12 pictures since the camera only has 32MB of onboard memory.
Photography
I booked my flight. :) YOW ~ NRT (AUG31 ~ SEP21). I can’t believe I am actually going to Tokyo. More specifically I can’t believe I finally booked my flight. I have been considering arrival and departure dates for at least a week and finally decided that while I may have to come “back” to Tokyo for the conference, I don’t actually have to spend any time there when I first arrive. I am going to be spending the long weekend going through the “Guide to Japan” books that I picked up from Chapters so that I can figure out where I want to visit. Any insight is appreciated!
/Edit: If there is anything you want, let me know before I go.
Travel
I switched to Mac. I sold my desktop and my laptop and replaced them with a 20″ iMac and a 13″ Macbook. I had contemplated the change after the release of the Intel Core Duo but it wasn’t until after the conference(s) that I decided to actually do it, mostly because I didn’t have the time to list the systems online and make them ready to sell. The concerns I had about screen “real estate” were also quickly forgotten after I opened the iMac box. The widescreen monitor displays at 1680×1050, and easily offers a similar feel to my Dell 24″ monitor (that I sold with my desktop). The Macbook is literally an exact duplicate, except it has a mobile video card, which doesn’t appear to effect performance at all.
You can’t really believe how fast these processors are until you use them. I ran multiple browser windows, Illustrator, Photoshop, and a DVD (all in windowed mode) and it didn’t even blink. I don’t know how I existed without it.
I am just waiting for my software to arrive (thanks fusion94 & gf today so that I can stop using trial versions of Illustrator and Photoshop.
Technology
