This year I thought I’d share some of my explorations in Travel…

First off, I did plenty of travel. This year I traveled to (sometimes multiple times):
New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Phillipines, Japan and Malasia. And around Australia to Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Cairns, Byron Bay, and many others. All told about 26 weeks away.

Worst situation while traveling. Once again, a stop over story. Returning home from Malasia and routing through Singapore I had a 7 hour stopover. Now I hate stopovers anyway, but this one was extra special as it was between midnight and 7 am.

I knew this would be the case when I booked the tickets, and I thought – incorrectly it turns out – Singapore being an international hub, would have the business class lounges open between those hours.

Next time (and I’ve said this several times already in my personal history) I’ll book a more direct flight…

Best situations in transit:

Shopping in China.

Traveling through Malasia for the first time. On arrival the city didn’t touch me. The food was great, but I can find great food almost anywhere. It took about a week for me to get a real feel for the country.

Practicing my language learning in Japan. Both encouraging and disheartening all at the same time. Encouraging because I had the ‘tip of the toungue’ feeling while listeining to certain conversations. Disheartening when I compared that to listening to the news.

Being slammed into the Aikido mat over and over again in many and varied cities.