As hard as Ryan and I tried, we are still up to some ungodly hours organizing and packing for tomorrow’s 8:50 am departure. On the bright side, staying up late will hopefully help us adjust more quickly to Tokyo time.

What all are we packing in our 55 liter bags, you may ask? At this point, I have absolutely no clue! We have one week’s worth of clothing, some warm outer items for Mt. Fuji, and about 10 photocopies of our passports . . . I’m only a little neurotic. Ah, and of course we are bringing two epi-pens and printouts that say ‘I get sick from nuts’ in six languages. Take a look at all my stuff laid out on the bedroom floor before packing.

We’ve had a great time hanging out with friends in Austin this week. P&E invited us to dinner on Tuesday night, followed by a hike with the Strevigs on Wednesday, then watched the NFL season opener (sorry Ravens fans) with RDB and Julia, and enjoyed dinner tonight with Cheng, Negina, John, Shelley, Ella, Cisco, Tony, and Gloria. Thanks to Glo for organizing! We’ll miss all you guys the next few months!

P.S. Happy anniversary Kris and Dal!

If there were any spending barriers prior to today, they are no more. I’ve been on a tear booking flights and hotels throughout Vietnam, as well as a campervan in New Zealand. This was made possible in part (ok, mostly) by our great friends Shelley and John, Loan, and Ivan. They’ve all offered up some great suggestions based on their experiences traveling and even living in the area. So, why book everything today you ask? The answer is probably this simple: Nicole’s been out of the country for the past month, and she returns tomorrow.

In addition to catching up on all the trip planning I should have done a while ago, I’ll be doing the dishes (feng shui), cleaning the bathroom, picking up the Taco Bell crumbs left in her car, and probably taking my Terrapin license plate cover back. I’m not sure what happened to the Duke license plate cover.