Plans have solidified / 予定ができました！

日本語は下の方に書いてあります。

Well, it's official sports fans. In one week, I will be starting my journey. It will start in London on Tuesday, 16 May 2006. I bought my plane tickets today at Advance Travel (warning: link in Japanese) in Shibuya today. I fly out of Narita on the 16th at 10:00, arrive in Seoul at 12:25, fly out of Seoul at 13:45, and arrive at Heathrow at 17:20 (all times are local to those cities).

That is of course, assuming there are no snakes on the muthaf*ckin' plane! ;D

The plane ticket was super-cheap. Advance Travel had an advertised price of 42,800 yen, which didn't include airport taxes and such. People had told me that the airport tax for Narita could run up to 20,000 yen. This turned out to be a bald-faced lie.

The final price was 48,040 yen!

Thanks to CouchSurfing.Com I have had 3 offers for places to sleep in London when I arrive. My plans after arriving are to buy a bicycle, a helmet, and a road map and basically tour Europe for the next several months by bicycle. I've had experience with this sort of travel in both Japan and the USA, so I figured I should stick with what I know. I'm starting in the UK because it has been about 4 years since I have been to an English speaking country and it will be nice not to have to worry about the language for a little while (well, barring any problems with British accents ;p ). After the UK, my plans are not solidified. One idea is to head directly to France. A friend has offered to let me stay for up to a week at his place in Paris. Another thought is to cross the Channel into Belgium, and from there go to the Netherlands, Germany, and then into Eastern Europe. I really don't know yet.

Anyway, these plans are rather different from what some of you had already heard. My original plan was to take a ferry from Niigata to Vladivostok, take the Siberian Express to Moscow, and then take another train to somewhere in Europe. Well, it turned out to be too difficult to plan from this side, and I had to have all of my tickets purchased before I could apply for a transit visa or a tourist visa for Russia.

However, that may be the route I take to come back to Japan if it turns out that I cannot find a cheap way to get from Europe to South America or Central America. It will be much easier to actually get my tickets in advance because I will actually know what the last leg of the trip will be (Moscow -> Vladivostok -> Niigata). However, I have not even come close to planning that far ahead yet, so we'll see what happens.

I'll probably post one more entry before I leave about my last minute preparations and such.

Wish me luck.

(the remainder of this post is in Japanese for my friends who cannot read English).

よし！予定ができた！一週間後日本を出るんだ。5月16日にロンドンへ行くよ！今日渋谷にあるアドバンストラベルで航空券を買ったんだ。すごく安かったよ。ホームページに書いてあった値段は42,800円だったけどそれは現地空港税が含まなくてもっと高くなるはずだった。現地空港税は10,000円とか20,000円ぐらいかかるとよく言われたけど、全然違う！

すべてで最後に48,040円になった！(^O^)v
すごいね！

という事で、16日の朝10:00に成田空港から出発で、12:25にソウルに着いて、13:45に出て、17:20にロンドンに着く予定なんだ。(その時間はすべてその場所の地域時刻)　まぁ、それはもしヘビが飛行機に乗ってなかったら…　(~_^)v

CouchSurfing.comに参加している人のおかげでロンドンに泊まる所ができた！ロノドンに着いてからの予定は自転車を買って何ヶ月間か自転車でヨーロッパを回るんだ。自転車の旅は日本とアメリカでやった事があるんで、これは一番いい旅の仕方と思う。なぜ最初はロンドンにしたか知りたかったら、俺は4年間ぐらい国語が英語の国にいなくて、ちょっと言語を気にしたくなかったから。

ロンドンからUKを回って、他のヨーロッパの国へ行くつもりだけど、それまでは予定がはっきり決まってない。

この予定はさっきのと違うね。最初はロシアへ行ってシベリア鉄道でロシアを渡ってからヨーロッパへ行く予定だったけど、ビザを取るのは面倒くさくすぎてそれをやめた。でももしかしてシベリア鉄道で日本に帰ってくるかも知れない。でもそれまでの予定は全然できてないね。

とにかく、行く前にも一回ブログを書くので、よろしくお願いします！

ではでは！(^_^)/~~