It has been an eventful 48 hours. I’ve been in Las Vegas the last 3 weeks for climbing and connecting with friends. Monday started with a drive from Las Vegas to Oakland. I arrived back home around 9 PM on Monday, February 3rd. A paper was left at the front door notifying me that the water would be shut off on Feb. 4 from 6 AM to 6 PM. Great. I moved the chaos from the contained space of my car into my living room. Once everything was inside I headed to the bedroom. I took a shower and embraced the warm water for a nice long bath.

Tuesday morning started off with a quick dentist visit to pick up new retainers. I wanted to make sure I got some new ones while I still had my company’s benefits. I went into the office and treated myself to a cup of my favorite. Ube latte, oat milk, extra shot. I ran into a friend while waiting and we ended up chatting for quite a while. Shortly after I had my exit interview which was much shorter then I anticipated. Mostly I just told them that I wanted to travel for around a year and that was that. I had lunch with one of my besties. We caught up on life. I shared the things I had planned for traveling. My team had a small happy hour get together. I got to chat with many friends. I also talked with people who I’ve had the pleasure of working with. I’ll be sad that I won’t have a seat next to some people anymore. And I’m excited for what’s to come next.

I got back home around 5:30 pm. I hoped that the water would be turned on soon. I still had everything from Vegas to unpack. I had nothing packed for Japan. I spent a long time wondering how I should pack for Japan. 3 Months. I’ve never traveled somewhere long enough to experience the seasons change. I eventually settled with 1 roller bag to be checked in, 1 large back pack, and 1 small backpack. Find my packing list here. After packing most of the items into the bag I checked the water. It was still off. I started feeling anxious that I would run out of time for laundry. The water ended up turning on around 8 pm. Just in time to throw the most some of my clothes from Vegas that I needed for Japan. I started on laundry, then I headed out. I met up with some friends for my last dinner in the Bay for a while. We ended up getting Marufuku Ramen.

I got home and finished up the laundry, finalized packing and finally got into bed around 1am. I woke up the next morning with a scratchier throat. It’s been quite mild up until this point but has now become more irritated. I stayed in bed for quite a while, rolling around until noon. I took a shower, did some final checks for my bags and headed off to the airport. After boarding the plane, I finally got started on this blog.