48 Hrs to go....

We are a "go" for Japan.  Despite the best effort of Kim Jong Un to discourage us, we are still going.

The past few weeks have been filled with work schedules and other travel opportunities.  Donna and I went to Baltimore a week ago to see Samantha re-einlist in the US Navy.  5 more years.  That was a proud parent moment.

As a part of that trip, we also took an Amtrak train trip to New York City, and saw the 9/11 memorial and museum.  it was part of a guided tour package that got us a tour of St. Pauls church, Fire Station 10, The fountain and memorial grounds, access to the museum, and access to the observation deck of the new One World Trade Center building.  The 9/11 memorial did have lot of stories and testimonials regarding the day, and how people coped with the event and aftermath.  Lots of stories were conveyed in reader boards about loved ones lost on a seemingly beautiful day, where New York hummed along like it did every summer day.

What got me were the number of vendors in the general area, selling 9/11 souvenirs and trinkets - coffee mugs, bookmarks, shirts, hats, toy fire engines - all kinds of stuff.  There was even a gift shop inside the museum, right near the exit and not far from the exhibits that were pulled from the rubble.  For some reason, it struck me odd to have a gift shop at this museum.  Sure, the gift shop proceeds were probably used to support the memorial and it's operations. Perhaps they even supported the families.  However,  It just didn't feel right.  Blatant consumerism butted up against immense sorrow, destruction and loss.

Anyway, we will be getting the last bit of packing done over the next 48 hours.  I always seem to pack at the last minute, and toil over the decisions to be made about what to pack and what to leave behind.  Since we're in Japan, and space is a premium, we'll be going as light as possible.  We will only take enough clothes for a couple of days, and wash them in the hotel laundry room (or in our hotel sink and hang stuff up to dry, like we did in Greece).  Going light is real nice.

We have invested in quite a few travel pants and shirts (synthetic stuff), so that it wicks away moisture and is easy to wash and dries quickly.  We'll probably look like tourists just from our clothes.  But we'll also look like tourists because we are caucasions in Japan.  That's probably a give away, too.

I worry about the electronics way more than the clothes.  This time around, I'll be bringing my netbook with a Linux distro on it (Lubuntu).  The netbook originally came with Windows 7 Starter, an Atom processor, and 1gb of RAM.  It was a slow and obnoxious computer, at best.  I upgraded it to the max RAM it would take (2gb), and the performance didn't improve much.

Lubuntu is a lightweight version of Ubuntu.  It was made for netbooks and older PC's that didn't have much horsepower.  So far, I like it.  Boot up is notably faster, and the performance is snappier.  For just getting on the web to research stuff or for doing this blog, this just might work out ok.
It even has an SD slot, so I can move photos over to this computer and save them in the cloud somewhere (provided the wifi doesn't suck in our hotel.  Which it probably will).

So, we leave on Wednesday.  Though United that had the lowest airfare at the time, the flight will really be on a code-shared All Nippon Airways flight, direct to Narita airport on a newer Boeing 787.  This will be my first time on a 787, and looking forward to the experience.

Enough for now.  More to follow.....