Tres brief:

It's off to Japan I go in about nine hours; I think I've packed everything I might conceivably need; I seem to have gadgets multiplying exponentially, but that's all part of being young and high tech and high maintenance.

Have four inches of booky goodness for my flights plus a million songs on my ipod. And yoga nidras. And a plug converter (helpfully suggested by my husband, who jets off to conferences ALL THE TIME and so has to stay at home with the pug while I finally get to go away).

Packed: 2 skirts of conservative length for conference attending, flat shoes (black ballet flats), up shoes (shiny black mary janes), plain cardi (grey), sparkly cardi (black), little black dress (black), more casual dress (black and white) and plane blanket (black). Hmmmm. My violin case is also black. Should probably edit to add black/white/grey/pastel singlet/tees ....otherwise I sound a little risque. And underwear. Der.

Hope no-one has anything against goths. I think I've unconsciously styled my packing on the capsule style of visiting Japanese teachers (monochrome).
Could have modelled on style of another...he famously packs neat jeans, trendy jeans, and seven v-neck sweaters. All the same style, just different colors. With black/white polo to go underneath as appropriate. No, he's not gay, but I suspect his wardrobe is meticulously maintained by his wife.

Taking own hairdryer because I've never found another to be quite as good and I have room for it. Frick. No, I'm not. 240 V and 100 V are not easily compatible. Oh well. Lucky my haircut is so amazingly awesome I won't need it. And the humidity will probably render it useless anyway.
And now I've just read a post by Extranjera which is plunging me into flying freefall panic. lol.

The upside: Our garden looks great. My dad is a cool guy who will make endless tip runs and lecture me on the importance of REALLY cutting back roses. And I have an ipod because my mother upgraded the ballet school sound system and I was obsolete. So that's pretty awesome. And our deck is nearly done! Stairs go in on Saturday and I will return to a habitable deck I can once more eat breakfast upon without fear of plummeting to the ground. Yes, the bruises still hurt. There you have it. Let the transit begin!