It's Been Way Too Long...

First off, I should apologize to anyone who actually cares and reads this blog. I have been so awful about updating this blog. I've been busy traveling on medical school related business for the past two weeks, but still, I should have taken some time to organize my life and post some updates on here. By the way, anyone who is interested in my more general ramblings about medical school and life should check out my other page Paging Dr. Bad. 

Now for the fun stuff. I'm actually buying most of the rest of my gear for the trip right now on Backcountry. Anyone interested in doing any sort of outdoors activities should check out their online store. They have a ton of stuff, much of it on sale, and you can return almost anything at anytime. I also bought some items at my local Eastern Mountain Sports store yesterday, including another SmartWool merino baselayer, a SIGG water bottle, some moisture wicking socks, a pair of NorthFace shorts and a pair of convertible pants. I'm doing pretty well in terms of what I need, but it's coming down to the wire and I need to buy the rest of what I need ASAP so I can be sure I haven't forgotten anything. 

The gaps in places to stay I talked about in my last post (way back when) are still there, staring at me every time I check my list of accommodations. But that's OK. I'm going to bring a sleeping pad and bag as well as a Bivy. If Plan A fails (asking at the Tourist Information Center via my Japanese Phrase Book) then I'll try Plan B (looking like a nice, lost gaijin who needs a floor to sleep on). And if Plan B fails, well, I'll be sleeping behind a shrine or on the train station bench. But as the Walking Fool kindly reminded me, when I sleep outside, I need to be sure I do it in a place that doesn't have any signs warning me about the local bears! I'm not sure exactly what those look like, or if I'll even be able to read them, but I imagine they have a picture of an angry bear on them somewhere. Ahhh adventure. All I can say is I will make sure to stealth camp or sleep nojuku in a relatively urban/suburban area. Think outskirts of town or under the eaves of a train station rather than the middle of the bear infested woods.

So - I'm going to stop being such a bum and start posting on this thing regularly as my trip approaches. It's hard to believe that I'm only 2 weeks away from flying to another country to walk over 300 miles. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the whole thing, and I think that's OK. Tomorrow I'm going to talk a little bit about what I think traveling solo will mean to me; good and bad. I'm also going to post my plan for keeping in shape while I'm on the trip. On my other page I've been posting about my plan to gain some weight (think Vin Diesel not Oprah). Also look forward to my updated gear list in a bit, that along with pictures from a few of my training walks. Until then, thanks for reading.

Estimated Distance Walked Since Last Update: 65 miles

Total Distance Walked: 123.28 miles