About to fly...

Well, we're about to leave in about half an hour from now to go to the airport. As I'm slightly pressed for time, I'll have to make this brief. I'm about to embark on the largest journey of my life. I've had wonderful support from my friends and family and I'd like to thank everyone who's been there for me and lent a hand with putting this all together. I love you all, and I hope to tell some great stories to everyone when I return (In the meantime, read here for more or less realtime coverage).
I've also had a great 2 days in Toronto hanging out with my Mom. She really has put up with a lot of obsessive compulsive type behavior from me, and managed to still keep her cool and has also been the most supportive person for me in this endeavour.
Yesterday, after we ate at some chinese buffet place (and I avoided the sushi and seafood like the plague sighting an oncomming daily diet of rice and fish), we all recieved fortune cookies. Ironically, they seemed to really fit..

My mom's fortune cookie read
You are a social and entertaining person - which is funny, because my mom is a clown and entertainer as a profession.
and mine said:
You will soon step foot on the soil of distant countries - I wont even point out the coincidence here as I don't want to insult anyone's intelligence.

Last but not least, at the last minute last night we went to a big wal-mart and I bought a new luggage suitcase as the existing one was too big and bulky. My new luggage is ultra small, compact, and portable. Yay me!
Well, my next blog post should be from Japanese soil, until then.

- Tim