Last Night :(

I have to be up in just over two and a half hours. I'd have gone to sleep earlier, but I need to tire myself out for tomorrow evening's plane ride home... that and I've been packing, packing, packing, after shopping, shopping, shopping.

There's almost no better backdrop for doing anything than Kyoto. It's historical, it's beautiful, and it's cosmopolitan. Like an exotic Paris with its grand avenues, its tiny streets, and its old world charm. We went there for none of this. Rather, we went so I could do a final round of consumer masness. I had to pick things up for myself, family, friends - you know how it goes. I wasn't very targeted, and I didn't have a list. Instead, I just explored various shopping areas and thought, "Ooh, so-and-so would love this," and bought up a bunch of random crap. So if you're expecting a souvenir out of this trip, don't get too hopeful - I just took the shotgun approach.

Besides, I mentioned before that I spent a ton of money on myself - particularly on photo-related stuff - so you get to see all the pictures. Alright, so I bought a king's ransom worth of random music-related things for myself, too. But I'll let you make copies, OK??

Today's biggest expense, though, was luggage. I had to get a couple of suitcases to bring back all the crap we bought. This is the most junk I've ever bought on a single trip. My mom, who's using one of the suitcases to haul her stuff back to the States, says it's the least she's ever bought. This doesn't bode well for future trips.

Anyway, I'd best get to bed. We have a super-early start, and my mom has engineered it so we're in Narita by 9:00 AM. Our flight out from there to San Francisco isn't until the 5 o'clock hour, so we're going to have a full day there.

I might have to buy another suitcase.