three days and counting

...till I leave for 18 days in Japan.

I'm so excited! I have a glorious JR railpass which takes me pretty much anywhere I want to go by bullet train (so smooth, so quiet, so much more comfy than a plane while being nearly as fast). I've contacted people all over the place to catch up with. There are about three people I haven't found yet (the email addresses I had for them were mobile phone addresses, which have changed over the last four years) but I have people on the case in Japan, and will hopefully still get to see them while I'm there.

I'm going to just three live shows while I'm there - one is Carole King/Mary J Blige/Fergie, one is an indies band I like a lot (KING), and one is a band I've never seen before (that link's for you Roofshadow, in case you're curious what the boys are up to lately) but which features the guitarist and the drummer from my second favourite indies band ever, Plastic, which unfortunately broke up in July. They're just playing support (that is, they aren't new members, just fill-ins). I'll just be glad to see them play, especially 'my' drummer boy, Tsuki. The one other band I was hoping to see isn't playing while I'm there...sad.

I also plan to go to at least one place I've never been before and do at least one thing I've never done before. I just haven't quite figured out what those will be just yet. Suggestions welcome. (Ai, where did you see those fun monkeys??)