Geared up and ready.

My friend Chris and I will be backpacking Japan and Korea soon so I figure this first post will be a brief summary of our plans. I will add a more comprehensive itinerary later on. Our flight from LAX  departs on 12/22/12 at 12:10pm. We will arrive in Seoul at approximately 6:30 pm on the 23rd (Sunday) and will immediately head to our predetermined hostel since we will be arriving at night. Seoul is 17 hours ahead of us so it will take a little getting used to. My birthday is on 12/24/12 so we will be celebrating my birthday and Christmas (hopefully with my cousin Mike who is teaching English in Korea at the moment) in Korea. We will be flying to Tokyo on the 28th. We will be moving all around Japan from the 12/28/12 until 1/2/13. Our plans for New Years Eve at the moment is to spend it at the crossing in Shibuya. We fly back to Seoul on the 2nd and then back to the US on the 3rd. I'm planning on keeping this blog up throughout the trip and updating it with pictures and commentary. My goal is to update it every other day.

The picture below shows some of the gear that I will be using for this trip. Starting from the top and moving clockwise they are:
-Passport.
-Long sleeve shirt thermal
-Swiss army knife
-LED flashlight
-Cold weather socks
-Compression bags
-Asia outlet adapter
-TSA approved travel bottle set
-Key chain LED light
-Pac Safe steel mesh anti-theft backpack protector
-Wire ties
-Thermal pants
-TSA approved combination locks
-Deuter Quantum 55+10 backpack
-There is more but i'm too lazy to lay it all out =)

T-minus 10 days until we leave!