Welcome to Japan

Jeff here, we made it to our first destination last night at around midnight (after about 24 hours of being awake). It is 5:45pm at home, and 9:45am the next day here. Our drive over to Vancouver was uneventful and the roads couldn't have been clearer. Our first night we slept in the car and when we awoke, we stopped off at the REI and the University Bookstore in Seattle before continuing out of the States.
Our flight was good, but when we touched down in Narita International Airport just after the bank had closed and we were unable to exchange our money. We were able to buy a rail line pass, but because we didn't have money, we couldn't use the payphones so we were on our own finding Kim's house. When we finally did find her house, she wasn't here because she was actually waiting at the Yokohama train station. We were able to get someone to give her a call so we could meet up and when she got here, we went straight to sleep.
We are going to spend some time here before we move on.

Updates

I updated the KMZ (KML) file, so it should give a better idea of where we are going. Still not finished, Nathan is planning the S. Korea portion so that hasn't been added. The Philippines portion involves a lot more wandering about that individual locations like Japan. As you can see though, there are a few specific locations we want to get to.

Despite what you've all heard in the news lately, we aren't going anywhere near where most the violence is happening.

The Japan portion is pretty much done, just need to convert all the information I have in the KMZ file to a portable text format that I can print out to take with us. (How to get to places, how much the cost, when they are open etc..)

If you noticed I added orange as a color, these are just locations of interest for us to remember when traveling, such as major transfers at train stations. ferry routes etc... Don't want to miss a transfer and end up a few hundred miles in the wrong direction.

Gear list

I've been getting a bit tired of working on the planning of the trip, regarding where to go, how to get there (how to get there is what takes forever),what festivals are happening while we are there etc... So I took a break from all that the last 2 days.

The first day I went out to my mom's house and helped put up the christmas tree and decorate it. We have a tradition as it were (though in past years I've been away or unable to fulfill) of putting up special ornaments (my mom has giving me one every year). It was nice to spend the day away from planning and I got free pizza! -Well worth it.

The second day I decided to prove what a number of people have been denying I can do. Which is to fit all my gear for 4 months in a pack. The below is an incomplete (though mostly complete) list of the things I'm taking with me. the only things not one the list are things I haven't gotten yet which I will try to list separately.


To start off - I would just like to say.. "Only real men post pictures of their undergarments on the internet for millions to see"
-4 pair cotton socks (cause I dont have any real moisture wicking socks)
-3 pair wool socks
-2 pair neoprene socks (2mm and 0.5 mm)
-3 pair boxer briefs (better "support" than boxers)
-2 pair standard fruits


ordered from left to right top to bottom
-1 cotton teeshirt
-1 cotton/polyester long sleeve
-1 polyester long sleeve (which I have since decided not to take)
-1 polyester tank top
-1 polyester teeshirt
-1 cotton/polyester zip off pants
-1 nylon zip off pants
-1 Gortex snowboarding pants
-1 Nylon/spandex (thats right... spandex) tee shirt

This is what it looks like all packed up. The bags they are in are "space bags". You know, the kind that you can vacuum seal. We decided to use these for the additional waterproofing. The little blue bag on the right is a small dry bag. I wanted to have a separate waterproof bag for 1 pair of socks, neoprene socks, and boxer-briefs, just in case (not all my eggs in one basket as it were).

This is the "extra" stuff
-First aid kid (far larger than I'm betting were going to need and way to much stuff in it for me to list out suffice it to say we are well prepared.)
-Needle/thread, electrical tape
-Iodine tablets/extra lighter
-Various clips and straps (for repairs to our packs)
- drawstring line
- 1" webbing 30' / x1 compression strap
- Irish tin whistle
- Misquito netting hat -Poncho - Duffle bag (for puttign our packs through the airports without them gettign damaged) - Rope 50' -Hand towel / 2 books/ deck of cards

-Winter coat treated with DWR (Durable water repellent) and removable fleece inner liner
-Beanie cap /face mask / ear warmer (also usable as a neck warmer)
- Crocodiles (heavy waterproof version of Gators)
- Snow gloves / Mid-wight gloves (which can fit into the snow gloves) / fingerless work gloves




- x2, 2Ltr hydration bladders (4ltr)
- North Face Hydroseal waterproof hiking boots 200gm of thinsulate rated to -40
- Lightweight webbed shoes
- Sleeping bag (North face *snowshoe*) rated to 0 degrees in compression sack
- REI 1.75" sleeping pad, R-value 4.2 with stuff sack



- Packets of instant oatmeal (I put these in ziplocks)
- Beef Jerky (though we will have to get that their because customs wont let us through with meat products)
- Trail mix (subdivided into smaller bags)
- Protein/fiber bars
- Green tea / tea ball
- Pork and beans (because no camp is complete without them)
- Whole wheat spaghetti
- Sauce bottle (not filled)

-NRS T-zip dry bag. This is a waterproof, air tight. Duffel that can hold my entire pack,. you can kind of see the pack above it. The shoe is in there for scale. I got this for when we need to swim across rivers or around otherwise impassable areas along the coast. I might come back and not even have needed it. But hey, this is all a learning process.



This is what it compresses down to, again the shoe is there for scale (size 11). The green sack is the compression bag for it.



-I couldn't take a picture of my own camera so this is what it looks like.... Sony Handycam dcr-sr60

-This is what the portable hard drive I got to store 4 months of pictures and video looks like. Waterproof to 3 meters and shock proof up to 1 meter. Its on its way in the mail.

So when its all said and done this is the result

Rough estimate is that its about 55 lbs with the 4ltrs of water Which means I'll have to carry some of it on the plane with me (40lb airline limit).

So I hope that answers two questions,

-What are you taking with you?
-How can you fit all that into one pack?

Planning (The trip) kml files

So I started working on these .kml files about a month ago.(.kml files are what we use to show all those little pins in the application at the bottom of our blog.) The first file I had ended up getting lost in my comp crash. I lost about 30 hrs worth of work. Now I keep back up files. Basically the process has been going like this: We started with the overall path that we were going to take. Starting in Tokyo -> Kyoto -> Shimono -> Busan (S.Korea) -> Seoul -> Manilla (Philippines) and then back the same way. From there I utilize a combination of Google earth, the web, and some guide books to figure out anything that's even remotely close to that path, say within 100 miles either direction of the main train/bus/walking route we'll be taking.

I'm going to upload the .kml file (points of interest) as it is right now, just for an update. This is by no means finished, but it will give you a general idea of the places we are potentially going to see. I color coded the pins (or am in the process of doing so)

The pin color is associated with how badly we want to see that spot. Green = must see / Yellow = Will probably see / Dark yellow = will only see if we are bored

The text color is associated with the time frame that we will see these. Pink = in the spring (on the 2nd leg of the trip) / White= in the winter (on the initial leg of the trip) Yellow = either winter or spring or both / Blue = time sensitive (need to be there at a specific day and time)

It might not look like much but I have close to, or over 100 hours spent on that bit of planing.

Unfortunately the plug in we have doesn't have any of the comment data that I put in the place marks, such as how to get there, times of operation, cost etc... But it will show you all the places we want to see and in a rough sense, when we will see them.

Planning (personal life)

Wow there is a ridiculous amount of preparations to make for this trip. I'm not just talking about where to go what to eat and how to get there. I'm talking about everything that I have to take care of here, at home. Even more so since I bought some property, so I made myself a little laundry list. The list of course does no justice to the amount of time and number of phone calls to complete each item but I'll just say, a long time.

+Property+
-Set up property management while I'm away including all the permissions they need.
-Pay the water bill through May
-Pay the Garbage bill through May
-Set up loan payments.

+Personal+
-Complete my health insurance application (Which ended up falling through, much wasted time for nothing)
-Apply for use of vacation and PTO time @ work
-Request an extended leave of absence from work
-Set up automatic payments for my student loans (Some loans are still in deferment and I can set them to auto pay till after I've left, Grrr.)
-Pay storage unit up through may (I ended up just paying for the year)
-Appointment @ the travel clinic for immunizations. (Hep A, Hep B, Typhoid, Tetanus, Meningitis) *Wanted to get Rabies but its $650 and Japanese Enceph was $500*
-Set up someone to do my taxes while I'm gone.
-Get the rest of the gear needed for this trip
-Update my passport
-Ensure all of us will be able to get the proper Visa's for each country
-Extend my credit limit (just in case)
-Set up a cancel date for my Internet
-Set up a cancel date for my phone.
-Set up a blog (Jeff did this, *Applaud*)
-Christmas shopping!
-Move out of my place

So all of these are about done by the time I'm posting this and I'll just have to make sure I don't piss off any rabid monkeys.

A bit of history

So Since the planning of this trip started way before this blog ever appeared I've decided to post a bit of a history. These aren't updates per se and are by no means detailed but it should give some info about the planning of the trip.

So I've decided to make my first post here as a history of how the trip came to be. Its one of the more frequent things I'm asked by everyone. It started with just me, visiting a friend in Japan. But I've been to Japan before so I wanted to see something different. Since I've graduated I've picked up my scuba diving a lot more, making more frequent trips to Seattle to dive. (I'm pretty lucky to have a friend out there that I can stay with.) So I figured I would go to the Philippines to do a bit of diving.

I've always wanted to go to the Philippines, not just because its a tropical region but because it seems like there are more places that would be less touristy than Hawaii, Jamaica etc.. It seemed like there would be more out of the way places to go where you wouldn't be getting stuck in over priced tourist traps. Also, it was close (relatively) to Japan.

One of the rules of diving (which I frequently break due to circumstance) is that you should have a dive partner. Since diving was my plan I asked Nathan if he wanted to go with me on my trip. He talks about adventure traveling etc.. Honestly it was more of a joking invitation at first but when he seemed receptive to the idea it became more of a reality. Cash on hand was of course and issue but after thoroughly lying to him about how much it would cost (the original quote was $3,500 i think) he agreed to go.(hey what are friends for if not to make you commit to something under false pretenses.)

So now it was a matter of how to best go about getting to the Philippines. When I research something I tend to be quite thorough about doing it. While I was looking at plane costs etc to get to the Phil's i figured out that we could actually save about $300 each if we took the ferry from Japan to S.Korea and then took the bullet train to Seoul and flew to Manilla from Seoul. (I won't even tell you the number of hours it took me to stumble upon that particular route). Any way that route worked out great because the ferry to Busan left from a town called Shimono, which put Kyoto directly in our route!

About this time I decided to ask Jeff if he wanted to come on this little tri--country excursion. Again almost jokingly but again surprised when he agreed. I guess with his school schedule etc it all worked out well. We did have to postpone the trip a bit though. Originally we had planed on Nov 2009 - Feb 2010. So to meet Jeff's school schedule we pushed the dates back to Jan 2010 - March 2010.

Even those dates were changed as I was able to convince Nathan and Jeff that if we extended our trip to start in December we could see new years in japan and if we extended out return until mid April we could see the cherry blossoms as well. Then after a few more hours of scouring for the best price out dates became Dec 28th 2009 - Apr 15th 2010

The choice to backpack through these countries came out of necessity and a lack of funds. Remember I originally quoted Nathan and Jeff about $3,500. Well, throughout the planning I kept raising the estimate, only a little at a time. "Ya man only 4 grand and the trip will be great... Ya this is going to be an amazing trip for only 4500 bucks, no no man I've always said it was going to be 4500." lol

Well eventually they caught on that I kept telling them more and more and we had to settle at around $5,000. $1500 for all the plane tickets about 500 for gear and then 2500-3000 for..... everything else, which puts us on a budget of about $25 a day. .

So that's the history of how a simple visit to a friend in Japan became a 4 month long tour through 5 countries (we fly out of Canada, and have a really long layover in China)

Google Earth Paths

I figured out how to host a google earth kml file on the blog. I am using the EmbedKMLGadget, and hosting the KML file at www.mydatanest.com. You will have to download the Google Earth Plugin in order to view our paths.

Gearing up

We're currently gearing up, in preparation for our trip (our flight is on Dec 28th). We've been backpacking to Stanley hot springs to test our gear. I've been camping a couple more times with Alicia also. For gear, I'm still looking at buying a WhisperLite International stove, and some nylon zip-off pants (dark colored).