One week and one day before I leave for Japan, and now I’m getting excited. Most of my classes are finished. My audit class, Art of China, continues through December. I’ll go to two more classes next week, and there will be three more after I return. I’m missing the time period that interests me the most, Tang Dynasty. I’m hoping I’ll have another opportunity to take the class–I confess, I haven’t given it as much attention as usual.

I am still working on my itinerary, but most of it is filled in. I have hotel rooms booked for the first three of the four weeks. I just haven’t decided how much of that last week I want to spend in Tokyo. My alternatives are Matsue, Nikko and Yonezawa.

I am keeping a detailed record of my planning in another blog, which I will use to record my trip as I travel.