I am currently counting down twenty-four days until departure for Seoul and Tokyo. I'm also more or less a nervous wreck. The flights are in order, the hostels are booked (finally), and now the panic is starting to set in. How am I going to handle a 24 hour trip, including a fifteen hour flight, without going completely postal? By packing properly. I've never done a flight like this, so I might be going a little overboard, but I'd rather be over entertained than forced to speak to the person next to me.

1. 13" Macbook Air, 2. Fjallraven Kanken in Green, 3. The Body Shop Mini Lotion
4. Travelling Tissue Packs, 5. Gatorade, 6. iStore World Travel Adapter
7. Mini Umbrella, 8. Tea, 9. 642 Things to Write About, 10. Black 64GB iPad Mini.

I guess this is where things start to look like overkill. Bringing a Macbook Air and an iPad Mini? Considering I'll be gone for two and a half weeks, plus will have a daunting thirteen hour layover during my return, I'm pretty sure I'm going to want my laptop. I'm going to attempt at blogging while overseas and trying to do so from a tiny iPad mini screen is just going to infuriate me. Plus the Kanken can definitely hack holding everything.

If you're stuck in a plane for more than an hour, your body is going to act out passive-aggressively; say hello to dry skin, dehydration, cramps, and stuffy noses. Creams and lotions in mini-size keep your hands soft and provide you with a little massage session. Gatorade (or Vitamin Water) is the number one thing to keep when travelling in my opinion. When you're running around and needing something to drink, going for juice or Gatorade is your best bet for getting rehydrated with a few extras. Cut back on the soda, you'll thank me later. It sounds really silly, but I keep compression socks rolled up in my bag to put on when I get settled on the plane. I really hate having my shoes on when flying, so compression socks help when it comes to avoiding major cramping and keeping my feet warm. Bring Kleenex, because drool and the sniffles aren't cute when hovering above the clouds.

I did the adult thing by buying a world travel adapter instead of relying on using those of others, and got lucky with buying an iStore one which is much cheaper and more compact than the Apple set. While to be very honest with you in saying that I don't think they have all the adapters you'd need for a round the world trip, it's definitely a good start for the more popular destinations.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy it's a towel. On Earth, it's an umbrella. Don't get caught without one. You never know what can happen.

Tea might seem a little unnecessary considering you've already got Gatorade, but a few tea bags can go a long way for settling an upset stomach mid-flight, avoiding gas, and as a nice send off before leaving the plane. Coffee jitters 30,000 feet in the air can't be cute.

I mentioned a few blog posts previous to this one that I was having a bit of trouble with getting any writing done, so hopefully all that airport time will pay off. 642 Things to Write About is a quirky spin on an idea bank lumped together into one big book. The dream is that one of these ideas will actually materialize into something and I'll finish an award winning novel during my trip (HA!).

Other honourable mentions waiting to be stuffed in my bag include number9dream by David Mitchell in trade paperback, Benadryl (for forced sleeping/time difference adjustment), the splendid in-flight kit from NPW (which comes with an inflatable neck pillow, ear plugs, eye mask, and a pouch to hold it all), and my Muji notebook and pen set.

Labels: asia 2014, blog, japan, south korea, travel