Ayumi Hamasaki makes me wanna pack

As I type this I am listening to my Pandora under the artist Ayumi Hamasaki. I freaking love Ayumi Hamasaki. Seriously, I once spent $60 on a special edition album. I love her that much. Anyway, I have done a lot of errands and such getting ready and then procrastinated the actual packing until now. The only way I could get myself into the mundane task was by listening to as much J-pop and J-rock as possible. Oh and I totally had a break watching Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Inuyasha. My anime fandom has become slightly less since I graduated high school, but there are the classics and the new ones that remind you of why you ever fell in love.
Confession time. I was totally going to take pictures of my packing process and may still...using my crappy iPhone camera, but because my camera is weird it doesn't take SD cards larger than 2 gigs...I only have 4 gigs. Good thing I'm doing this blog otherwise I'd get to Japan and be pissed, "What do you mean you can't read 4 gigs? Stupid camera!" And then I would have to go on a long search to find an SD card that can be read and isn't an arm and a leg...and with exchange rate I'd be screwed. But luckily I still have one more day to remedy the situation
So what did I do today to get ready? Well, I got my nails did. It was awesome getting all pampered. I accidentally ended up with rounded nails, so I'm just pulling a '60s retro-chic look which with Mad Men being all the rage and showing in places like Banana Republic I can be the super fashionable American who is ahead of the trends....right...

I also got my toes done in blue which according to Instyle is the color to do for the summer. (Because you all really cared about how exactly I got my nails done right?) But I'm really excited about this whole shellac nails thing. We'll see if it can withstand backpacking.

Walmart is a time sucker as always. I went in there to get the mini-travel toiletries and ended up looking at shoes and a hostess gift for my big sis. I ended up getting some salsa made in San Antonio and I will also be giving her a jar of jelly my family canned. According to everything I read a hostess gift should be food or small. Something that would not impose on the household or take up space because of how small spaces tend to be in Japan. They should also be unique to your area. I figured you couldn't get more Texan than salsa and I couldn't be more unique than jelly canned from the farm with wild berries.
Now, if you are traveling outside of the country you have to take some precautions with your money. I went to the bank and discussed the best options with my banker, who is awesome by the way. She set up an identity theft protection, which is $1 for the first month at Wells Fargo and you can cancel any time. Considering I'll only be gone a two weeks it's not a bad gig. I also decided to use a combo of cash and debit card. I did consider traveler's checks but when I went to Europe it was a huge pain to find a place to exchange them into cash. It was also better exchange rate to use the atm. The fees were much smaller than the kiosks. This is my personal preference I know some people prefer the traveler's checks.
Anyway, tomorrow I get my precious yen and finish getting all packed up. O-O craziness yo!

 PS I did end up taking pics with my iPhone...in case you didn't notice.