WOW! My flight to Japan leaves in twelve hours and I'm finally
getting around to making a blog for it. I'm really exited about it, but
it all seems a little unreal... I've never been out of the country,
never been out of the western states, never even been on a plane! This
time tomorrow I'll be on the last leg of my journey, getting closer to Narita airport, where I'll set foot on foreign soil for the first time
in my life!

For those of you who don't know, my name is Russell,
and I am a college student living in Ogden, Utah. I've always wanted
to travel, and so decided to visit Japan with a diverse group off
friends...who all ended up canceling for various reasons, usually
monetary. In the end, only me and one of my roommates, Alan, are making
this trip. We'll be in Japan for two weeks, and we'll visit about seven
cities, most notably Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo. Neither Alan
nor I have visited Japan, but rather than booking some guided tour, or
even going through a travel agency, we decided to just muck about
trying to figure it out ourselves. We each know a bit of the Japanese
language, with Alan just finishing up his second year of it and I my
first, both at Weber State University. That, combined with Japan's
habit of teaching all schoolchildren English, at least to a point,
should help us get by. Worst comes to worst, I've become fairly good at
mime-ing through language barriers, thanks to working at my Dad's
restaurant for about eight years. We'll see how well that will carry us.

In
any case, I plan on updating this blog every night, assuming whatever
hotel I'm at has Internet, by around midnight (about 3 PM here in
Utah), and I'll check my email at about the same time, so you can email
me at retrolutionary AT gmail DOT com. If I like you and I remember,
I'll try to bring back souvenirs, if you want me to send you a
postcard, email me with your address.

I plan on renting a cell
phone in Japan for emergencies, although I can't imagine anyone needing
to call me there, so I'll let the relevant people know the number when
I get it.

Well, I should get back to packing, but I plan to post
again before I leave with some pictures of the Nihon Matsuri, SLC's Japanese festival from a couple weeks ago, just to make sure I don't
have any problems doing so with my new (awesome) laptop.

Until then!

Russell