As briefly mentioned in various posts on this blog, I’ll be heading to Japan for a vacation/class. The current count is 9 days until takeoff. I’ve got all the omiyage that I’m going to take with me. I’ve got plenty of clothes1. I’ve got my luggage. I’ve started planning how I’ll be packing for the trip and what all I want to take with me besides clothes (e.g. camera, sketchpad, sanity). I am getting very excited about this trip, but it still feels somewhat unreal to me.
In part because I still don’t believe I’ve got enough money to do this2 and in part because I’ve not been on an airplane since I was two. I don’t remember that flight but my Mom tells me that I handled it fairly well. The flight is one part of the trip that I’m not all that happy about as it’s fourteen hours in coach and while my legs do fold up; I’m pretty sure it’s going to be miserable for me. Of course, the worse part of the flight for me is that I’ve enjoyed watching too many disaster movies where planes have exploded, crashed, been ripped to shreds or something equally nasty happened to the passengers. It didn’t really help that I caught the episode of Mythbusters3 where they “fire a bullet into the shell of an aircraft to find out if a single shot can cause explosive decompression — and total aircraft destruction.”4 Eep!
1 At least, I think I do. I’ve got to get some laundry done first to get a better idea.
2 Actually, I don’t but thanks to my local bank; I can go and pay it off in installments. *whew*
3 One of the few TV shows that makes me glad I’ve got cable TV.
4 SPOILER: For the record, a bullet won’t do it. It took a shaped explosive charge to do any signifcant amount of damage to the plane, but even then Buster was still in the plane (though the roof of the plane was gone from that section). This episode was very slightly reassuring in that it takes quite a bit to really damage a plane, but still disturbing given my lack of flight experience.