The ball is rolling...

There has been a whole load of drama over the last few weeks,
which I wont go into...
But lets just say that it meant that I couldn't think much about a letter JW got last week,

but it's all settled down a bit now, so I can really get excited because....

JW'S PAPERWORK CAME BACK!!!

So now there are a few more formalities to go through, and then we really are GO!

I'm so excited, but also pretty nervous, because of all the stuff we have to do before we go

The ball is rolling though!..................

Sayonara Japan?.

I did a lot of thinking this weekend...

About routes and money and dates- all those things Ive been stressing about for a while...

I did some working out, (I hate maths) and tried to think realistically about what we can do with the budget we have, that seems to be getting tighter every time I work it out.

So, basically to cut a long story short, I figured out that to stay and travel in Japan, we would have to more than double our daily budget that we were planning for places like China, Vietnam etc.

This would mean that our trip into Japan would have to be really short, and we'd have to cut out lots of stuff we wanted to see,
not only this, but we would be staying in dives the whole time and wouldn't be able to stop worrying about money.
And considering how much it would cost to get to and from Japan, and the cost of the rail pass to travel around when we are there (around £400 for 21 days EACH!) I realised that we wouldn't be able to afford to do it with the budget we have...

So I'm pretty sure.... that for this trip.... we will have to take Japan off our itinerary :(

I'm gutted, Japan is one of the places Ive always wanted to go, and I was really looking forward to places like Tokyo and Hiroshima...
But I'll keep the guidebook and information I collected, and hopefully we will do a proper trip there, when we can afford to do it properly.

So Sayonara Japan... For now.

I want these...

How cool are these?
They are like flash cards that you can use when travelling, you just point at the pictures!

I love it... really want to get them

I do still want to try languages though, I think its always worth the effort of trying to communicate with people, even if it is as difficult as Chinese.

Photos of Tibet

Came across some photos taken by British invader John Claude White in 1904
This one is of some Tibetan nuns...

Mid- Autumn Festival

I walk through China town everyday on my way to and from work...

This week, I noticed they have put up loads of lanterns that look amazing, and after a bit of googling I found out it is for the mid- autumn festival, which falls on the autumnal equinox- when the moon is at its fullest.

There is a weird story associated with the festival about Houyi and Chang'e...

it goes a little like this...

Once there were 5 suns in the form of 5 three legged birds (so far, so strange) they one day clubbed together and started to burn the earth,

A prince ( Houyi) was commissioned to shoot down the suns with a bow and arrow, and he shot 4 of them leaving only one (our sun)

As a reward the king gave him a pill of immortality, but warned him to break the pill up and only take a small piece at a time, he took it home and hid it in a box.

One day his wife (Chang'e) came across the box containing the pill and decided to take it to see what it was (never a good idea)

Because she took the whole pill, she overdosed and floated high in to the sky until she reached the moon, as the pills effects wore off, she was stuck there.

So, now she is still stuck, and there is this rabbit on the moon (duh?) who is trying and trying to make a new pill so she can get back.

(pic above-The princess with the rabbit on the moon!)

How random eh?

Anyway, so people put up lanterns and eat mooncakes...