Vietnam

Just got our Vietnam visa's, so that's a relief. In our original daydream, we weren't going to Vietnam - it was a late addition when we decided to spend less time in Japan to cut costs. What we didn't look at was the weather in Vietnam when we'll be there. Apparently it's typhoon season.
Could be interesting...

Talking of Japan and costs, I've just bought us a 7 day Japan Rail tourist pass (which is cheaper than buying tickets inside Japan), for £550. Ouch!

Lucha Libre on Tour

Our friends Boot and Whitby sent us these Thumb Wrestling Luche Libra masks, and I loved the packaging so much I couldn't bear to use them. But I think it'll be quite fitting to take them 'on tour'.
If you want to know what your Mexican Wrestling name would be, enter your real name in the Lucha Libre name generator at www.tinyurl.com/2eb3mt

Berlin

Seeing as I'm abroad this week (working in Berlin) I thought I'd test if the iPhone can be used as I'd hoped. Skype on wifi works great, so cheap calls are a goer. And if you're reading this then I've managed to take a snap, email it and blog it. So all I need is to find free wifi signals as we go along, and not to lose, break or have the phone stolen.
I'll give it one month....

Flashpacking

I wanted to avoid taking a laptop (too heavy to carry every day, and too valuable to leave in a room). I was out of contract on my mobile, so I've just switched to an Apple iPhone, which means all I need to access emails and web while away is a wi-fi signal. And we'll have games and music to keep us amused on those inevitable long journeys. But the main incentive was that I can use Skype on the iPhone to make international calls for pennies. Hurrah.
Camera wise I'm planning on taking a DSLR with 3 small prime lenses. Not having a laptop means I'll have to carry a fistfull of CF cards until I get back. So, for the purpose of this blog, any illustrations will be pics taken on the iPhone, which should be fine, but don't expect any art.