I love packing, and moving in general. It gives me a chance to get rid of all the crap I don't need, to whittle down my posessions until I'm left with the things I can't live without. I've been slowly doing this for the past month or so and mentally figuring out what I'm leaving and what I'm taking with me. I still have another 7 weeks to go before I take off but I'm the type of person who likes to get things done ahead of time.

My entire life as I move to Japan has to be condensed into: 100 lbs of checked baggage, 22 lbs of carry-on baggage, and 22 lbs of a "personal items". It sounds like a lot but when you think of how much stuff you've collected over your entire lifetime, it ends up being not a whole lot. However, I've realized I can get by with a surprisingly small amount of stuff. I've already decided the essentials that I am taking with me: 1) my laptop 2) camera and 3) snowboard. Aside from clothes, I plan on selling everything I own and buying what I need when I get to Japan. Luckily there isn't an airplane weight restriction on the amount of Yen I can bring.

The one thing that's going to be a bit tricky is my snowboard. With Air Canada, the length of my board alone exceeds the maximum linear dimension restriction so it will cost me an extra $100 to take it with me. To get around this (and to protect my board from being bumped around) I invested in a travel snowboard bag. It's still in the mail but I'm pretty stoked about it. I've already bought my big 29" suitcase and decided that the snowboard bag would be my second piece of checked baggage. The extra stuff I can cram into the snowboard bag will be worth the extra $100. It will also save me the cost of shipping it over via snail mail (like I'll be doing with my books I need to bring with me..) I also figured the bag will come in handy later on since one of my life goals is to snowboard the mountains in New Zealand and the Alps in Switzerland.

So if anyone is looking for anything, John's stuff is for sale at bargain prices.