‘Measure seven times, cut once‘ is pretty much solid advice, dear Reader. I have written down ‘to do’ lists, ‘forget-me-not’ lists, ‘souvenirs’ lists, ‘packing’ lists, and then some more lists, in the hope of making the cut. Currently, it is a very fine cut.
I find myself in a looking glass, sitting across from the Mad Hatter, an ocean of cards face down between us on the table, and I have to do a reading. Frankly, I got no clue which card is gonna come up, but I suspect it is going to be The Hanged Man.
There’s plenty of advice available on how to pack, but I’ll just wing this one. I intend to travel as light as possible, with the intent of having my luggage sent from station to hotel via one of the luggage delivery services, and go straight into sight-seeing mode, or what they call ‘hands-free’.
“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
I will be travelling alone, yet in the company of my ‘hyper teenage anime & manga-loving’ self, ‘the disciple of Diogenes who needs some air’ self, and the ‘I am but a book-loving, thirsty for tea and stories wanderer’ self, among others. One or more of them may surface in the text, though I trust it may be in an all but orderly fashion. Oh, and a lot of stream of consciousness…it’s hard to write when you’re unconscious anyway.
And that’s all for now, dear Reader. Only a few hours left.
And the checklist…
- Luggage inside luggage Total dimensions < 160cm (this is convenient when paying for luggage delivery, storage, and special train tickets)
- Appropriate clothing for the weather (November weather will be in its teens, in terms of centigrades)
- First-aid Kit (one could leave this decision to the butler, or some entrepreneur who prepped a ready-made bundle to go and now sells it in stores nation-wide)
- Paper maps and city guides (courtesy of Japan House’s collection of travel brochures.ありがとう ございます。)
- Digital offline maps (thanks J, multi-travelled office colleague who passed this nugget of knowledge on)
- Itinerary in excel & on paper (what can I say, conditional formatting and coloured post-its make everything more fun)
- Itinerary in a travel app with live updates (a brilliant find, life-saver of an app, with live updates for a small fee. Worth it!)
- Pre-checks, pre-bookings, and lists of what I wish to see, and what to get (though I do like pre-planning, too many bookings are somewhat binding. So one rail ticket, a tea-pairing experience and a hairdresser’s is all I’m committing to on paper)