Interlude: Travel Plans

I'm taking a break from recounting my trip to China to write about current events. In case you hadn't noticed, the dates don't line up on my entries about China, and I am in fact just writing in retrospect whenever I have a chunk of time, and it's taking me a little while to get around to writing them all out.

Anyway, in the meantime, I just booked my hostel in Kyoto for April, a whopping $40 for 2 nights. I decided I only need two nights there because I'm gonna be taking an overnight bus there, which will put me in Kyoto at 6am on Sunday, so I'll have all day then, then Monday, and check out Tuesday, but be there all day as well, taking the overnight bus back to Tokyo to arrive back in town early Wednesday morning to go to work that afternoon. That means that I only need to arrange one shift swap, and only have to endure a half day at work when I get back. I think I'll be able to manage that, even after the shit sleep one gets on a bus. I know I'm going to be tired, but whatever, I've been tired before, it can be done. Can't possibly be worse than going to work the morning after E, which I know can be done, however zombified.

I figure with three full days, and only travelling by myself, I can bust out all the stuff I want to. I mainly just wanna see the gardens that I studied when I was in college, the temples and flowers are secondary. And since I'm travelling by myself, I don't mind staying in a shithole, regardless of if it turns out to actually be one, because I'm tough like that, and all I need is to be able to get back there and be able to sleep at all whatsoever.

I knew coming into this crazy travel year that I was gonna have to do some of it alone, and I'm ok with that. There are some cases where I prefer to do it that way. It gives me a good time to reflect on things, and really appreciate it on a personal level. When I was in Italy there were days where I never spoke a words except to order food, and really, that's ok with me. You learn a lot about yourself when your entire dialogue is internal. It gives me a sense of accomplishment to know that I've navigated an experience entirely on my own.

On a related note, I've decided to clear July from my travel schedule in order to go to Thailand with Greg in August. That means I'll have a month for people to come visit me during the summer when hopefully the rain season will have ended, but that means I'm going to have to try to do both Awa Odori and Thailand in the same month. Hopefully that will work out, since I'll try not to take any vacation days in July, and just use them in August instead. This is more feasible now that I know I won't have to take any vacation days to go to Kyoto. So we'll see how that works out. I'm gonna try to get Shane out here in July, if I can get him away from his roadshow schedule.

Also, Mauro Picotto rocks my socks off.