Sushi and Chips I do most profoundly believe that it is better to search in the maze and risk getting lost than stay and be in a cheeseless situation...i am thus off in search of some damn good cheese!

Greetings my furry little friends of near and far! How dost thou? I do hope I find you in the most joyous of moods, swinging from the stars and dangling your feet in the river of life! Forgive my over articulation, I am in somewhat of a joyous mood and with no local companion with which to annoy, I must write my excitement…and perhaps dance about it a little later, it’s still light outside and people might be able to see me. Let me explain my merriment! Today I have, as you say, dotted some I’s and crossed them there T’s in regards to my summer travel adventuretron. Finally my plans have been dipped in concrete and all that remains is for me to empty my penny tin, count my greens and, if needs be, rob me a bank or two. And boy do I have one helluva adventure planned! It would make the scurviest pioneer curl his toes in jealousy. I do not travel alone. My loyal companion will be Lady Nicola of Colchester. We have before braved many a snow peaked mountain and wrestled the bears in the valley of three…granted everything did go wrong when she was around, but I will look to the light when I say at least this time there will be no one for me to loose. Only myself…pants. So my adventure begins in the dead of night when I will board a country bus headed for the city lights of that hallowed suburban sprawl, Tokyo. Once there I will meet my friend and we shall set forth to taste, see, smell, eat , drink and dance with all things that cross our path. We are to take a short break in Nikko for a few star-filled nights with Zen Buddhist monks, cleansing our souls of our countless sins and finding meaning in….stuff. The early morning will call for yoga on a balcony above the trees and night will beckon us to….probably by this time, gin. We return to the city again, no doubt relinquishing our new found clarity and purity as soon as humanly possible and rapidly returning to our previously shabby selves. From here we make our way to the heart of old Japan, Kyoto. We will feast on temples and shrines and see geisha and rickshaws and bamboo and noodles and trees and other such Japanese ubiquity. We will spin a web of journeys around the area, frame our faces far too many times and walk our feet to blisters. On the first day of rest that August has we will board a boat to take us to the island of Shikoku, island of pilgrimage, tales, myth and tradition. We have caves to explore, a sea and tiny islands to claim and mountain-top monks to visit. When this is through we prepare for the most epic of journeys as we make our way back to the mainland, straight across it to the Sea of Japan where we board a much grander boat. What follows is a twenty hour journey hugging the west coast of Honsu and finally coming to rest on the northern most island, Hokkaido. We will watch the sun rise and set and sleep on tatami mat with 12 other voyagers and I undoubtedly will talk with the mannerisms of a pirate for an unsuitably long time. We are due to disembark at Otaru, the Venice of Japan and on this remote and wild land we will stay until I can figure out a way to get back to my humble abode- that just so happens to be situated in the most inaccessible place on the planet. Seriously, the moon would be less of a challenge! I feel that to truly experience this trip as the explorer I wish to be I must leave this laptop at home. I must not tap on these keys but scribble into a leather bound notebook with an old short pencil and take photos with the heart of artist and the eyes of a journalist. (hahaha) I shall not speak on the telephone, nor write sloppy postcards filled with ‘I wish you were hear’. Fear not, I will save my words and when I return from canvas shorts with a flip-flop tan and too much new jewellery, cleansed or un-cleansed, I will tell you all about it!