I've only been talking about the BIG TRIP for about, oooo, 10 years now so it's kind of a shock that I am now actually here. Travelling. Overseas. Despite the six months of planning, twelve months of saving and ten years of procrastinating it's still feels as though it's all come so suddenly!
The plan - take twelve months off but basically keep going for as long as I can. I'm not much of a 'see the sights' type person, rather I would like to spend some serious time in places to get an idea of how it all works. I'm also planning to do as many course as possible. Courses in ... well anything.
When I tried to explain this to friends, relatives, the odd stranger who happened to be close by when I need to talk, the example I always gave was - glass blowing. Why glass blowing I hear you ask? Well to be honest, I have not thought very much about glass blowing in the past but I figured that if someone was offering classes in it, then that would be what I would like to do.
So, here I am in Tokyo with a 12 hour stopover. I decided to go walking this morning and I stumbled upon (not literally you understand, that could have been unfortunate) a little wooden building, large enough to stand up in (well for me to stand up in but I'm not very tall) but on the whole looking like a kids' cubby house. As I was looking at it, a Japanese man came over to me and explained (in broken English but to be fair his English was a hell of a lot better than my Japanses) that he had built this hut to house his upcoming exhibition. And what was he exhibiting? What was his artform? You guessed it - glass blowing! Unfortunately I won't be here to see it but I'm definitely taking this as a sign that glass blowing will feature significantly in this trip somehow.
Well, off to the USA now for my Shakespearean course. Hope to have some further glass blowing tales to tell shortly!
