Who is going to Japan soon?

Who is going to Japan soon? Me. For a holiday.

When I walked into the Japanese embassy at 3.00 pm this afternoon, I was astonished to see only two people applying for visas. One was a Malaysian Chinese man holding three passports. The second person was a guy filling up a form in Japanese. There were no runners from travel agencies carrying dozens of passports unlike in December 2009 when I had to wait 3 hours for my turn to hand over my documents, today it only took 5 minutes.

My flight will to Tokyo will be on Saturday, 2 April. I am expecting an near empty airplane.

I will spend one week in Japan in Tokyo and Kanazawa. I wanted to visit Kanazawa back in Dec. 2009 when I spent three weeks in Japan. The main attraction is the well preserved houses and other buildings from the old Edo period. However I could not find the time as I was traveling and spending time in five cities (Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima and Osaka) and Kanazawa is not in the bullet train (Shinkansen) routes.

From Kanazawa, I will fly directly to the second leg of my trip to Seoul . I plan to spend about 16 days in South Korea.

I have bought some essentials for my trip :

1. Face mask ; 1 pair in case the level of radiation increases in Tokyo or Kanazawa.
   
   
2. Six AAA batteries for the blackouts
   
   
3. Two small LED flash lights
   
   
4. Two packs of Panadol each with 8 tablets

A few more things that I plan to buy and bring along:

1. Rubber gloves
   
   
2. Possibly ; 2 x 1.5L bottle of water
   
   
3. A whistle.
   

2011 Update

My first post for 2011. It's been ages (4 months) since I wrote a post. A few things since Penang BR, (2010):

Running.
I am still running but it is getting harder to be motivated. On a typical weekday, I run about 4 km on the treadmill at the gym. I am getting fatter for sure which makes it harder to run. I plan to run some races this year but have to wait until I get in enough shape.

Running Mom has retired from running. I have no plans to stop running.

Work
Usual, 8.00an to 5.00 pm but usually its up to 5.30 when I quit to head to the gym. From 1 April, flexi hours will start but it won't change my schedule due to the traffic jam problem. Why does almost everyone drive to and from KL?

Traveling
It seems I never stop traveling. I am going to the Ukraine (work related) this evening. I am going the same town ; Sumy that I went in February. It is a dreary small town in Ukraine. The worst thing is it takes 3 hours to get there by road from the nearest airport in Kharkov.

Holiday
I had to cancel my planned holiday to Korea in December 2010. I went to Dubai instead for work. But I have booked my flights to Japan and Korea in April. Although a major earthquake and tsunami hit North East Japan yesterday, I will still continue with the trip.

That's it for now. The taxi is coming in 2o minutes time.