The flight is booked...

I will be leaving Manchester on the 19th of March, 8.55am. I will then fly to London, which will take a whopping one hour, and await my DIRECT flight to Narita Airport which will leave at 13:00. I will arrive at 10am the next day (in Japanese time), so around 2am for you guys in the U.K. I think that's right, anyway...

Organising life is quite a task! I successfully obtained my International Driving License today. It's very easy, as I live near one of the big Post Office branches. I took my UK license (paper and card), as well as another form of ID (passport) and a passport photo. It cost £5.50 and took all of five minutes (well, after the half hour wait to get to the desk, but they have a number-calling system which is nice!). So that's one thing done. Two, with the flights.


Now, I've found some omiyage (gifts) for the schools. Some lovely Whittards boxes with a selection of teabags, as well as some London Double Decker and Big Ben Tower shaped tins of individually wrapped soft toffees. Sounds perfect, I think. The problem is that I don't know whether it'll be 2 or 6 schools (or anything in between) so I don't quite know how many things to buy for each place... will they be too much? Not enough? Surely it's the thought that counts... right? All this talk of Japanese etiquette and tradition makes me quite edgy. I know that they won't expect we gaijin to follow all their customs, but I worry that they will dislike me if I do something "wrong" without realising it. It's a culture that could make somebody quite neurotic. Of course I don't know yet... I've never been there...

I've also sorted out a year's supply of bras. I have one suit and a few shirts, but it isn't nearly enough. I also need to start collecting flyers and menus... so all those take-away menus that I threw aside would come in quite handy now. Ah well.

If you look on the right of my blog, you'll see that I have prepared a countdown. Eeeeeek!