Well, as is no surprise to anyone who knows us, we have too much luggage. Way too much luggage. We started out with three max capacity suitcases for the four of us and three max capacity carry-ons. We are now up to 5 suitcases. For about a week, our trip became about the suitcases. Which ones could we leave for a couple of days behind in luggage storage. Which ones could we ship to our next destination, knowing that if we sent it to a post office (common in Japan), we might find no one speaking English there at time of retrieval.
Well, we finally amassed all 5 suitcases on the evening of our Okinawa departure, and in big American cliche form (big Americans, with big voices, and big suitcases and lots of big suitcases), we made it to our flight from Okinawa to Sapporo. I am officially a cliche. I really dislike being a cliche, I am a “when in Rome” type tourist and I was the opposite of when in Rome this time.
What is in 5 suitcases you might ask? Well, everyone in the family easily rattled off multiple items that were brought “just in case” and “just for comfort.” We have a pair, and 2 spares of everything, and then a few more. I think it is time to go down to 1 pair, and 1 spare. That will shave about 1/3 off our items.
In addition, Japan is the land of gifts. We get cute little gifts everywhere we go. We got a cute little toiletry bags for the kids at two hotels = four more little bags of stuff to carry. We are given cute kid slippers to wear indoors.
We also received nice (though not as cute) adult slippers too that are great for getting out of the shower. We love the Japanese toiletries. I didnt bring much in way of toiletries so I could pick up the ones in hotels and just use those. But there are so many, now I am carrying around bags of toiletries.
And then, of course, the Chandus. You might remember this from our earlier post?
The Disney purchases that are almost half a suitcase themselves. They are soft, cute and totally unnecessary.
So then of course, we had to buy this:
We are definitely taking lessons here about how not to be cliches next time, but in the meantime, we had a real problem. So, we took care of it by shipping home three boxes of household goods/purchases. We were very lucky, and with the help of some pointing, Google Translate, and general context (e.g. walking into a Japanese Post Office with two suitcases), we were able to get the three boxes shipped home. By boat, so we will see those items in September. No problem…which in and of itself should have shown us we really didn’t really need most of that stuff in Japan.
I’ve joined this adventure with only a small rectangular container of travel clothes. I wash an item or two every night. I do have a loud voice, though. Japan was lovely, as is Taiwan. As a nice bonus, no earthquakes!