Preparations

A Short Introduction:

Hi all, I’m Maddy. I have never been to Japan before, but I am extremely excited, as well as a little terrified, to be living in Japan. My Japanese skills are quite limited, but I am very excited to learn as much as I can; I hope my blog will be just as entertaining as my life as I find myself in a foreign country for a year.

 Here we go.

Dawn of the first day ~72 hours remain~

 My major project these last couple of days has been packing. Now you’re probably thinking, “You still have like, 3 days left. You don’t need to pack yet, you should be doing more important things like sleeping!!” While I may still have 3 days until my real adventure begins, I am leaving my hometown of Atkinson, New Hampshire tomorrow, and traveling to Los Angeles, California to stay with my relatives for about 2 days. I will then board the rather large airplane which will take me to my final destination. So yeah, I need to finish packing like, now.    

Packing was, and is, a bit of a challenge. I’m not one to take my entire closet with me ,but trying to fit clothes for the entire year into one duffle suitcase under 50 pounds is proving to be a little harder then I had originally anticipated. Plus there are so many random little extras that need to be packed: toothpaste, nail clippers, soap, band-aids, etcetera. Of course I could, and most likely will, buy these types of things one I get to Japan, I want to be as prepared when I first arrive so I have less to worry about.

And then I’ve got my carry-on. The beauty of the carry-on is there is no weight limit so you could bring a pile of bricks and no one would care. (Don’t do that though, that’s dumb) I, while not bringing bricks, have a stack of books weigh about as much.  In addition my carry-on has my shoe supply. Pro tip: when traveling to Japan the largest women’s shoe size they keep in stores is 25 cm or American size 8. (Men’s largest shoe size is 28 cm).  So if you happen to have feet larger than that, I suggest you don’t plan on buying any shoes while you’re away. I have the unfortunate gift of very large feet (size 10) I need to bring any shoes I think I’ll need. Overall it is probably a good thing that they don’t weigh check carry-ons because mine is probably going to be heavier than my entire suitcase!

 Random interjection:

My CIEE Package just came!!! I was sitting in my kitchen blogging whilst wrapped in a blanket when I heard my doorbell ring. I woke up about an hour ago, my hair was not brushed and I was wearing my pajamas.  I looked like I had just come out of hibernation. And that is how I answered the door. (The Fedex guy was pretty chill though). I opened the package right away of course. In the package was my CIEE t-shirt, folder, orange notebook, carabineer and the super cool Backpack!

I’m so pumped

  I should probably get back to packing, so I can make sure everything is ready to go, but I will leave you with one last thought:

 Have you ever noticed that the thingy on top of the “i” in the CIEE logo looks like a macaroni noodle? Because that’s all I can think about.

Until next time,

Maddy