Right, it's way past my bedtime and I have to get my beauty sleep, so I shall try and make this a quick and painless effort. Since my last outing (I'm sure to go on and on about it at a later date so I'll not bother now. Apart from saying it was fucking brilliant) I have been slowly stagnating back at the old Gordon homestead, growing fat and stupid as the days dwindle past. Two months have come and gone, two months of stuffing my face with lush food and listening to the depressing tones of Townes Van Zandt and other country folk legends. It is time, as the man says, to get the fuck out of Dodge. Or Omagh, as the case may be.
And so to my present plan of action. Long have I wanted to visit the far off land of New Zealand, where rugby players dance (in a manly fashion) and whose list of famous people include celluloid scraper Jake the muss, prima donna Kiri Te Kanawa, and Justin Alves, superstar immigration officer. To this end I decided that my best course of action would be to try and obtain a working visa so I could go there, have a really good look around, and not have to return to Britain or Ireland for a long long time. Now, after much fussing and fannying about by yours truly, I discovered a New Zealand work/travel visa is the easiest thing in the world to obtain (5o quid and a three day wait). Now all that's left to do is get there........
Obviously the quickest, easiest and cheapest way to get to the other side of the world is to jump on a plane and bloody well fly down there; a little wait at KFC in the departure lounge, a few bad movies, a rubbery meal, immigration and you're there. No mess, no fuss. But we're not on about some rational and intelligent person here. This is me we're talking about. I seem to have somehow acquired this perverse taste for long and arduous bus and train journeys. Thus I intend to make my way overland as far as possible, heading deep into Asia. I am turning a days flight into two weeks of hell, a lazy jaunt from A to B into countless painful train journeys, one immigration checkpoint into a multitude of uncertain border crossings. And the irony is that I love flying.
So the plan as it now stands. I jump over the Irish Sea to see my bro in Manchester, touching down before my no-flying rule takes effect. A few days there and its off to Wales to see me sis, then down London way (by bus) for the 26th of March to catch a very early train to Brussels. I have 8 hours to play with here, so I can see a bit of the city before I get the 4:20 to Moscow! I'll watch europe speed past my window and not breathe fresh air until the terminus in the Russian capital. Superb. I have all my tickets booked and paid for up till now, so there is no backing out of this part of the trip - for my next part I'm still working out the intricates, but I think what I'll do is this: Trans-Siberian it right the way across the country to the port city of Vladivostok (6 days 5 hours on the same goddamn train!!!!) and then hightail it to Harbin in China. Considering how close it is, I would like to have a wee gander at North Korea just to make my little sis jealous, but I think I'll have to forgo that indulgence for the time being. After a few days in Harbin it's off to the Chinese capital with me, and after that....... well I haven't got that far yet. Maybe I'll pop in to Japan via Shanghai to say hello to the guys in Toyama, maybe I'll head to Hong Kong to stay with my friend Taka, maybe back to Kunming, maybe this, maybe that..... I don't know. Oh, and did I mention that I don't really have a lot of money.......
it's three o clock in the morning. I need sleep. 'Night.
