If you change the way you look at things...

"I'm not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do." - Anthony Bourdain, Chef and eater of the bizarre.

It's appropriate that my first blog entry for my trip into Japan is only one week away from the actual event and I feel like I'm thinking about all the wrong things. Normal people might think of things like "I really should study the map of the complex subway system so as to not get lost" or "have I confirmed my flight yet? Should I request a special meal?" Instead, I seem to be thinking about unusual details like "Should I pack vitamins? I mean, what if I don't really eat much fruit while I'm over there?" or "am I bringing enough money? What's the exchange rate today...dammit, if I had only traded it today I would have made 2,000 yen!" and let's not forget the ubiquitous "am I ready to use a squat toilet? Seriously, Matt, are you?" Perhaps it's these minutia that a seasoned traveler might ask himself, as if to imagine that a veteran of the far east would not need to bog their mind with such trivialities as "flight plans" and "emergency contact numbers." Right now, I prefer the term "seasoned traveler" as opposed to "stuck on detail."

Nevertheless, the reality of the trip still hasn't even hit home completely. I have pretty much everything that I'll need, save for a few toiletries, everything is paid for, things are confirmed, passport in hand, and I can even read all the kana that I could hope to. I feel like I could just as easily be packing for Maine or western Massachusetts and not Tokyo.

It all started about a year ago to date when I was having a conversation with a co-worker at the time, Kevin. Kevin, who had just returned from some spur-of-the-moment-whoops-I'm-going-now trip to climb Mount Kilamanjaro, was in the office as we talked about certain "trips of a lifetime." I mentioned to him how I have always wanted to travel to Japan ever since I was very young. I had always been fascinated by the language, the culture, the ceremony and the eastern mystique for some time. Yet, as I talked about the possibility, there was this notable hesitation in my words about this kind of adventure: "Oh, you know, some day I hope to go," "It would be pretty cool to visit; I've always wanted to check it out." Kevin, being the half-sensible, half-impulse kind of guy that he is, looked me right in the eye and said very matter-of-factly, "Look, just shut up about all this 'could of would of' stuff. You need to go and find a way to get there. You just need to make it happen and you need to make it happen now. So just stop what you're doing and just go do it. Figure it out as you go along, but you've got to promise me that you're going to do this." At first, I reluctantly nodded and agreed with him, still having as much trepidation about the trip as when I had first talked to him, but Kevin isn't the sort of guy that just forgets about these kind of things. Each day, he would keep asking me about how it was coming along, what kind of planning had I done, and so forth. Finally, at some breakthrough point, I came across the answer to both my plans: a language and cultural intensive course in the heart of Tokyo with residency in the city...for a month. And, it was affordable! To this day, I know that if Kevin hadn't told me to just "shut up and do it" that I probably would be packing for Maine or western Massachusetts and not Tokyo, Japan.

Sure, there are a lot of things running through my head right now - all of which are detail oriented and guessing into the unknown. However, it is as Dr. Wayne Dyer so famously says: "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." Truly, it's easy to get caught up in all the unknown variables and uncertainties of taking this kind of trip. Yet, even I have to remind myself that I'm doing something that I have wanted to do for years: travel to Japan. Once more, I'm going for a month to study - even better. Dang.

It's as Linda so famously loves to hear me say: I'm livin' the dream.