5 days and counting

Ok so i'm starting this a little early, but it is getting pretty close to me leaving and I wanted to update everyone on how my orgainisation/planning is going or not going depending on how organised you would be in this situation.

My flights have been confirmed, I am not a frequent flyer, I cant remeber the last time I was on a plane, so the whole checking in, luggage, not missing my flight is new to me. Luckily BA seem to have me in mind as I can check in online 24hrs before departure, decide on where I want to sit on the plane, and have the ability print out my own boarding pass. Hopefully this means its just a case of turn up at the airport, hand over my luggage then head to the bar before departure.

I'm flying from Newcastle to Heathrow before Narita, so i'm informed I hand over my luggage at Newcaslte and I wont see it again till Narita. I'll just be glad to see it again as im flying into and out of Terminal 5, the newest Heathrow terminal which is now has reputation of losing luggage and delayed flights shortly after it opened http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7322453.stm. I have not heard much in the news recenlty so hopefully this wont be the case (pun intended) on Sunday.

Things I still need to do, travel insurance, think I am going to go with STA the guys I booked my flights through its £80 for 3 months and I think having my flights and insurance booked through the same people will hopefully make things easier if anything goes wrong, unless they go bust.....

I need to get some money changed, I have done quite abit of research online and the best deal I could find was the post office, sadly when I go there im going to have to listen to half an hour of spiel about if I want insurance, or a credit card, or a phone card or something else I dont want/need. I got asked about it everytime I went for a passport application form, and me being me meant I had to get about 4 in the 6months it took for me to fill out.

I also need to clean my house, with being away for 3 months I dont want to be paying rent somewhere I am not living and the contract ends the day I leave, so just for once I would like to get a full deposit back. I have lived in 4 different rented houses through uni and moving to Leeds each one I didnt get back for various reasons, well 3, as one place was well shady so at the end of the year I made it so I owed them exactly what my deposit was. So if your a student wanting to move to Leeds dont go with leedsstudenthomes.com or yourstudenthomes.com as they are now called as they went bust and were on watchdog as the owner was stealing everyones deposits, well everyones except mine :P

I have my first few nights acomodation sorted out, staying at a place called Khaosan Tokyo Guest House http://www.khaosan-tokyo.com/en/smile/

It is just your standard backpackers I guess, it works out at about £10 a night which I dont think is bad at all for Tokyo. I chose this one mostly as there is a bar attached to it http://www.asakusa-samurai.com/asakusa-explorer/khaosan-bar-23.html so hopefully will be a good place to meet other people without to much effort and have a few cheap beers.

I think the main problem is going to be able to find the place, comming off a plane jet lagged then trying to navigate the Tokyo subway with the following "map" and "directions".

Luckily it looks like the place is near the Ashai beer HQ building which is going to be pretty hard to miss with some giant golden flame thing on it, a quick look on google earth and I have a good detailed map of where I should be heading from there. All in all it has not sunk in that this time next week I'll be in Japan, just two more days of work then I can really start thinking about and looking forward to it.