Four years of planning

And we're off ✈️

Konichiwa friend!

I know I said I wasn't going to send out an email until June, but I just couldn’t help myself.

We are on our way to Japan, landing in a future timeline. You're just waking up and we are getting ready for bed.

We've spent four years planning and saving for this trip. I can’t believe it’s actually here.

Building an itinerary for a trip in a country with an unrecognizable language, a city with 23 districts, and a train system that boggles the mind was an overwhelming task. I had no idea how to decide where to go, what to see, and how would get there.

So I did it old school. Any GenX person who traveled in the late 80s to the end of the 90s knows that before the internet we had two reliable planning tools: Fodor’s and Lonely Planet. I hit up my library and grabbed the guide books for Japan. I studied these books, stuck dozens of sticky tabs in the pages that mattered. I went from being lost to having a decent grasp of what this trip could look like. I highly recommend these travel bibles if you ever need to plan a trip. Fodor’s and Lonely Planet are as different as blinds vs curtains, but both are incredible windows into the places you want to see.

So as we wind down our first few hours in Tokyo, I’ll leave you with my Ghibli Studio character photo. I kind of absolutely love it.

Happy Mother's Day!

Sayonara for now.

Xo Dana