So I started packing up our wardrobe today.  Boxes and boxes of stuff I won’t need while we are travelling and needs to go in storage.  Amazing how many clothes you forget you have.  I have minimalized my toilet bag so that it fits in the 70 litres that is our backpack rolling bag.  I’m looking forward to being so limited in what to wear again.  Does it stink?  Nope ok then it’s good to go!

Today was a booking day for the few things that we have decided to sort before we go.  Booked Hotel in Hong Kong… had a lot of awesome choices and ended up going with Hotel Jen! Finally someone listened to me and named their hotel JEN!! It has a swim up Jen bar! The restaurant is called Jen!  Don’t care if it’s in the wrong part of town (not sure what the right side of Hong Kong is to be fair).  It’s called JEN!

I have successfully applied for a Vietnam Visa (although need to wait 72 hours for confirmation that it worked).  They only asked me one question (apart from passport details etc.) “What is your religion?”. Athiest, Agnostic, Jedi and Pastafarian were not options fyi.

Have also booked a place in Hanoi for when we arrive.  Daisy from the front desk has just emailed me to say how happy they are that we have booked with them and would we like them to pick us up at the Airport.  She also wanted to advise that apart from the family suite and the mini suite none of the rooms have windows.  Funny when you look at the photos you don’t notice that until you look back at them.  Never mind, $60 a night you can’t go wrong.

Cuba Visa proving really tricky.  Because we are going via boat from the USA the Cuban embassy in NZ says that their visa won’t be valid to board the boat (only if we fly).  The Cruise Line isn’t able to process  our visa for us because we aren’t Americans.  I’ve emailed the embassy and I have high hopes that everything will be fine :-).  We can’t be the only kiwis to cruise to Cuba!

Anyhoo.. our first adventure starts on Thursday when we fly to Queenstown for Warbirds over Wanaka.  This year we get to take Barrie and Dawn into the corporate tent.  They are really going to love it!  (I love a good airshow especially when it involves corporate tents).

The countdown is on… tick tick tick tick tick

So we’ve spent $1000 on luggage.  Nigel now has a slash proof, chip evading locked up the yinyang daypack.  He will be responsible for the passports and the chipped creditcards and I will be responsible for the medivackit! (I made that word up it’s supposed to sound like a mobile medical evacuation kit which I actually do travel with).

I have a really awesome new daypack and we have both invested in Osprey wheeled backpacks.  Full harness for walking over cobblestones and crappy (literally) pathways yet wheeled for jaunting through the airports.

Nigel and I have worked out that we will buy teeshirts along the way.  Otherwise it will look like our entire trip happens in one day as we are always wearing the same clothes.  I always say that everyone else seems to look so fashionable and lovely in their travel pics whereas I always look the same.  I have decided this will be our signature piece on social media #sameclothesdifferentcountrybutwedontstink.

We are off on the soft launch of our trip this Tuesday.  I’m off to Oz with work and Nigel will join on Friday.  It all starts here for us! Wahooo!