{"id":220,"date":"2009-03-26T08:10:30","date_gmt":"2009-03-26T12:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/?p=220"},"modified":"2009-03-28T10:06:44","modified_gmt":"2009-03-28T14:06:44","slug":"packing-pearson-praying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/archives\/220","title":{"rendered":"Packing. Pearson. Praying."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The time is now 8am and I&#8217;m a bit worried about not being at the airport yet, since flight AC001 to Tokyo leaves at 9:30am. At least I checked in online already. Gulp.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m surprised to find that even en route to Pearson I&#8217;m still not possessed by that breathless excitement that everyone else who hears about my trip seems to feel. My coworkers &#8211; especially the ones who have already visited Nippon &#8211; have been nearly apoplectic with telling me stories of the awesomeness of Japan, and how badly they want to return. Amy waxed poetic about the restaurants and, well, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.howtogetlost.com\/category\/japan\/\">everything<\/a>. Darren kindly offered up maps and guidebooks and tried valiantly to suppress the fact that he&#8217;s dying of jealousy. Steve related several animated stories of language barriers, cultural differences and the joys of people watching. But I just can&#8217;t get, in the words of Mr. Obama, &#8220;fired up! ready to go!&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>At this point, it&#8217;s likely sleep deprivation and worry about catching my plane. I fussed about with packing all night. There are photos (to be posted shortly) of my suitcase with only the things I&#8217;m bringing for the friends I&#8217;m visiting and it was already crazy full. Stephen and Skye had better shower me with love for being their mule &#8211; they&#8217;re getting toothpaste, hair products, packets of Crispy Crunch, maple cookies and a queen-sized wedding quilt. Heather is getting some much-needed pharmaceuticals. The real story here is that my suitcase is going to be nicely empty once I give them all their stuff, so put in your requests now, people!<\/p>\n<p>Okay, here at YYZ now, time to run through security. Wish me luck&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/pipesdreams\/sets\/72157615943158474\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lh4.ggpht.com\/_KOjj4nL_qnQ\/Sc4tYmG_DWI\/AAAAAAAAB4o\/OKcqdjh00zU\/s800\/Japan%201.jpg\" width=600 \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The time is now 8am and I&#8217;m a bit worried about not being at the airport yet, since flight AC001 to Tokyo leaves at 9:30am. At least I checked in online already. Gulp. I&#8217;m surprised to find that even en route to Pearson I&#8217;m still not possessed by that breathless excitement that everyone else who <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/archives\/220\">[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[415],"tags":[420,417,419,418],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan-trip","tag-excitement","tag-japan","tag-packing","tag-yyz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pipesdreams.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}