It's been a lifelong dream for J to visit Tokyo. He grew up on Nintendo and is a tech junkie. He's always looking for the latest and greatest. In college he decided to take Japanese and wanted to go to Japan as an exchange student. Unfortunately, it turns out J isn't so great at Japanese. He failed the first semester and after taking it over, just barely passed. His dreams were dashed at being a foreign exchange student. In my naivety I promised that we would go to Japan for our honeymoon. Then the time rolled around to actually plan our honeymoon and I started doing some research. Um...$&%#! Traveling to Japan is expensive! Not to mention we were already planning a destination wedding in Florida to save money. I went to J and gave him the bad news, it wasn't gonna happen. In hindsight, we should have just gone for it. His father graciously paid for most of our wedding and honeymoon and the money leftover went towards buying our house. I didn't want to spend the money on a vacation because I thought it would be wiser to put it towards a down payment on a home. I know it was, but now that the money for the trip is coming out of our own pockets, I kind of wish we had a do-over. So since the wedding we have been trying to save for the trip. Well things come up of course, like buying a house, so the saving wasn't going very well. Now that we've been in our house for a few months things have settled down and we are focusing on saving.
We have made a savings goal to put away $300 a month for Japan. We also decided that if any extra money came in (like J getting a bonus, or tax refunds) that we would split that between Japan and our regular savings. We are planning to take our trip in mid-April of next year. As excited as you can imagine J is about this trip actually becoming a reality, I think I might be even more excited! After a discussion between J and I this trip will mark the beginning of our TTC journey. I am hoping with everything I have that this will be a very short journey. How awesome would it be to come home with a little "souvenir"?! I know, I know, I'm trying not to get my hopes up. The odds are not in our favor, but still...it would be so awesome!
Planning this trip is now my "distraction". J is not into planning, he's more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of guy. But me, I'm a planner. I must admit, before actually researching and reading about Japan, I felt like this was much more a trip for J than me. I would just be tagging along. Then I started reading about Tokyo trying to figure out where to stay and what to do. The more I read and looked at pictures, the more I fell in love with the city. I can't wait to go and explore! We are spending six days in Tokyo and two days in Kyoto. I feel like if we are going to spend the money traveling there, we should see as much as we can, because who knows if we will ever get the chance to go back.
Since my sister-in-law gave birth, our families have asked if we will have a baby soon. I actually don't want to get pregnant now because I don't want our trip to be effected! So, this is the perfect distraction for me. I'm really glad I have this trip to distract me from one of these...
J with our nephew Chase
because if I didn't I think I'd be going crazy!
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