I should probably start out by saying, I’m not a writer… I don’t really enjoy it…. But I’m going on a lengthy trip and I thought it might be good to keep a journal of it, so that in 30-40 years when I’m old and bed ridden, I will be able to remember the good old days when I’m able to go on adventures like this. So ya, hopefully this isn’t the first and only post and I can continue to write some of these memories down.

To fill in the back story, I’ve left my job as a Systems Analyst at an Aerospace company so that I can travel around Japan and get to know my wife’s family and culture better. We are going to be here for approximately 4 months, and after that I’ll head back to my native Seattle and look for new work.

The weeks/months leading up to this adventure were busy… packing, applying for a Japanese Spouse Visa, prepping everything to ensure we had all we needed for our adventure and that everything back home would be taken care of. I think our to-do list ended up being about 70 items long. But we managed to take care of everything or at least I hope we did… We will probably find out later on if there is something we forgot to do.

The morning we left, I woke up at 4:30 AM. Not because I had things to pack, or stuff to get ready, but because I had one of those moments where you half wake up in the middle of the night and in a nonsensical panic remember something and you immediately wake up fully, then you can’t fall back asleep. I remember it being something like “omg I’m leaving for Japan today”, or “I might miss my plane” or something to that affect. Our plane was leaving at 1PM, and we were planning on heading to the airport around 10AM. So I definitely had a few more hours I could have spent sleeping.

After sitting in bed thinking about my pack list for a few hours I got up, got ready, and finished zipping up my suitcases. My family took us to the airport and we were off to begin our adventures.