Being Pacific

 

The time between leaving the office yesterday and embarking on our travels today (with a fair amount of packing, bike ride and 5K run) amounts to around 12 hours, and may be a bit of taste of what is to come.  Seat of our pants, hither and thither type of travelling, I think, I think, I might be just getting a bit too old for this approach. The whole family united in travels again.

Anyway, we are where we are is the once upon a time opening of any great cock up so lets see where this one takes us.  The plan, for those still with me, is a 14 hour flight to Japan.  We then have the best part of 6 days in the Land of the Rising Sun, with a Parkrun and mountain venture the hopes in terms of activity, and much old and tech culture to juxtapose in between.  Its then 8 hours to Fiji, my long anticipated Robinson Crusoe bucket list destination, where the beards will be long and the hope is island culture, water adventures, remoteness and perhaps a bit of rugby if we can find some.  We are staying in a backpackery kind of place so very much going back to my roots if not island rootes.  A week later we move on another 8 hours to west coast of USA, no not Vegas (sadly), but San Fransisco where we might finally get to see Alcatraz.  Assuming we can get off then it is the long haul flight home.

So will see quite a few airports over the next few weeks and settled into one of favourite ones now, Heathrow Terminal 5 with the perfect setting for my writers musing. Blogs may be more snatched in the moment on this trip so keep an eye out. I will do them as have left my diary at home so the next 18 days will be the first in 40 odd yrs I haven’t written a daily diary entry. That chapter on that tome may be finally over. The first few words on this one very familiar though.. Reading Greggs and Heathrow Wetherspoons and you know a magical mystery tour is about to begin.

That is a pretty blank canvas to start things off, am sure we add plenty of colour en route.  That's about as specific as you are going to get from me, so based on the fact we are entirely on the Pacific Ocean this time, I'm am being Pacific.

Hello, Carys here back to give all my views on our next adventure, mostly commenting on food, sights and quality of public toilets. Hopefully I will have some valuable insight to provide this trip, especially as this is one I can’t express my excitement for without sounding stupid. So I’ve decided to look at it in the 3 stages (obviously by each country) so as not to overwhelm myself and be able to make the most out of this incredible opportunity. Therefore, we will start where we are starting, with Japan. Now arguably this is where I am most excited about as it’s been number 1 on my travel bucket list for many many years (currently among the likes of New Zealand, New York and Edinburgh). I’m trying to be completely open minded about what to expect as I imagine it will exceed any ideas I have already. But I’m determined to soak absolutely everything in, from the language to the food and the culture, and to enjoy the experience as something completely new. Starting with Tokyo, I’m hoping to make the most of the whole place and immerse myself into it all. I don’t have a whole lot to say yet but currently as we wait for the plane, I feel quite nervous, mostly from not having done such a long flight in forever and remembering how it can go, but also slightly exhilarated (Bryn’s choice of word) to get back into a type of travelling we haven’t done for about 5 years. Thank you all for joining us as always and we’ll see you on the other side! :)