It's only sand!

Yeah. Travelling light. It can sometimes cause a bit of panic.
I'm switching flights in Eindhoven, Ryanairs version of Amsterdam. Enjoyed a long coffee at Starbucks and walked around the airport a bit. Unfortunately, I realised about an hour too late that I had miscalculated my lay-over and could have maybe wondered of a bit longer. I thought about taking the bus into Amsterdam but it would have been a bit too tight for my taste.

So, here I am stuck on the airport and after checking that I can smoke on the airside, it hit me.

I am flying out from Amsterdam. The "drug capitol of Europe". Where I only spent 5h.
I have no clothes or pretty much any other personal stuff on me.
What do have, is quite a bit of cash(I haven't got a maltese account yet, so I'm on my way to deposit money to my account in Ireland).
2 phones.
Extra sim-card.
Some sort of IDs from 3 different countries. All with small variations of my name.
4 cartoons of cigarettes (they cost half the price in Malta, so my smoker friends might want some).
5 vials of odd coloured liquid(local liqueurs).
A small bottle of pink sand-hidden in a woollen sock(souvenir!).
Oh, and a notebook with scribbled calculations(did some work-thinking on the plane").

I've seen Border Control.

Thankfully, the security at Eindhoven didn't care. Let's just hope the same goes for Dublin...

"Traveling light"

So, this ended up being everything I need to pack/have with me.

Feels very light...

But Dublin tomorrow! I'll do my best to blog on the way, but otherwise :see you next week!

The Day before

I'm flying up to Dublin tomorrowmorning for a weeks holiday, and today I'm realising how many preparations I usually do before travelling and now...I don't seem to have any.

Everything that is stressing me is workrelated. Have I shown my backup everything she needs to do? Did I remember to move over all my responsibilities? Have they got access to everything they need?

I'm honestly a bit lost. I'm one of those who triplecheck my packings, and spend the days before making lists, start washing  up clothes I might need, pack/unpack/repack. Dubbelcheck, start over, check again. The night before travelling I'm still sitting tired and crying with all my stuff because I feel I'll never get everything organized before I go.

But. This time. First of all, clothes are expensive in Malta. Clothes are cheap in Dublin.

During the 4 months I've lived in Malta, I haven't bought a single item of clothing because everything seems so darn expensive. Since I've know about going to Dublin for a while now, I've postponed all my shopping to when I go there. And since I'm flying with RyanAir without checked in baggage, I need to count kilos. And I really do have a lot of shopping to do, my existing wardrobe really needs a huge makeover.

So,I made the smart choice of flying up with the clothes I'm wearing and an empty bag. At least, I think it's a smart choice.

Also, flying with only handbaggage does limit a bit your packings. I can't take my big bottles of hairspray and hairconditioner with me, because I can't take them on the flight. I actually left all those kinds of stuff with my old housemates in Dublin when I moved, with the deal that whenever I come to visit, I can always borrow the few drops of toothpaste and soap I'll need. Or go and buy a freaking hairspray for a euro if it's an emergency.

I've been broke until this morning, so I guess I need to pick up a few souvenirs. Which, actually, I might as well buy from the airport and kill the time that way before the flight. Done.

Since, in Malta it's not like walking to the street and you can hail a cab, I already ordered a cab for tomorrow, so I don't need to worry about that. At dublin end I can take the bus, I just need to take my buscard. Which actually still has enough credit to take me into city center from the airport.

And I already checked in to all my flights and printed out the boarding passes. That used to be a big stressmoment for me, but this summer I had 8 flights within a 3 week period, so I got pretty handy at that. EVEN when it's RyanAir.

My passport is always in my "day-handbag", so I don't need to look for that. I still haven't got a Maltese bank account, so I only use my Irish bankcard, so that is already in my handbag.

So my complete packing is pretty much the following:

• Both phones and their chargers. Which I can't pack until the morning.
•  My Dublin-buscard.
• Some souveniers. From the airport, so no packing.
• Mascara and my favourite perfume (a minitesterbottle so it travels alright).And they are already in my handbag.
• Passport and boardingpasses, already in my handbag.
• Clothes to wear when flying. Well, never yet walked out of the house undressed so yeah, I don't think this will be a problem.
• Book for the flight. I'm oldschool and like to read real books - which I always buy at the airport.

I must be forgetting something, ain't I? What am I forgetting?

And am I the only one who stresses about packing and pre-travelpreparations?

Not getting out of hand at all...

(I know, worlds classiest map,huh. I just can't find a nice and simple pinpointmapthing so I have taken a trip into an age 15 years ago and I'm using Paint. So glad I went through 3 years of studying audioVISUALcommunication for this)

 

I found a good appcombination now to sit at home and do my dreamplanning, and it's getting a bit out of hand, not to mention that I have some timetableproblems...

Original plan: Go to Tokyo for a week and visit Hello Kitty Land.

Current plan: Fly off from Malta to Beijing on August 18th, take a guided tour to North Korea on August 21-23rd. Take the night train down to Shanghai, arrive there the 24th. Somehow spend time in Shanghai and Seoul. Be in Osaka on the 27th, visit Nara on the 28th, take a night train to Tokyo. Visit Hello Kitty land on the 30th. Fly back to Malta on September 3rd.

Oh, and somehow fit in Battleship Island as well.

This really isn't working out right now. I know I'm trying to squeeze in too much in a too short time period, but. Gosh.

I actually have no interest in Beijing, but it seems like the only way to get to North Korea. And yes, for some reason I decided that North Korea would be cool. Found a 3-day guided tour for 800 euros,includes flights and hotels, so it doesn't seem that bad.

Also what is making my head hurt, is that the tour I found for North Korea is on August 21-23rd so that has to be a fixed part datewise. The other fixed part is Hello Kitty land on August 30th.

All good suggestions more than welcomed.

Who says abandoned is forgotten?

My lunchtimebrowsing today came up with a jackpot. I was actually googling for the odd museums in Ireland, and somehow managed to find a gallery titled "15 most breathtaking abandoned places in the world" at a site called Nster.com.

I'm really flipping through the gallery back and forth. And most of these places are actually visitable without being to outlandish!

One place that I'm definitely planning my trip around is this abandoned theme park in Tokyo. I can't wait to go there! With a camera! I want to climb on that rollercoaster and fool around!


And seriously, Skyfall is the only James Bond movie I've had energy to watch in about a decade and while watching it I was so impressed about the place where the villain (who's name I can't bother to remember but you know who I mean. Albino-Javier. You know.) hang around. And guess what?

It's a real place! I can go there! It's apparently called "The Battleship Island" and located in Japan, and it's number 12 on that same list as the Nara Dreamland.

I borrowed the pictures from Totorotimes who has a absolutely stunning photogallery from Nara Dreamland. I'm blown away. Have to get there.

Actually. I think I need to look into that site a bit more otherwise as well...

15 Most Breathtaking Abandoned Places in the World
Read more at http://news.nster.com/content175.html?b=1#U06RSpByHXP6wvEd.abandoned theme park

Malta in a picture nutshell

Malta,my current home.

It's sunny,but when it rains,like it apparently does in November, you start planning on getting boat to move around with.

Food is local(and cheap!),and even the simplest dinners turn into a wonderful adventure.

Malta is home to Cisk - the only drinkable and tasty beer I've yet met.

Morningciggs and coffee at work have turned into lovely enjoyments.

Being highly religious,you'll have beautiful churches all over the place.Love a nicely litup church in the dark.

Note.My only camera is the one on my phone,so not best quality pics.I also do most of my blogging from said phone...

Shanghai-inspiration

And it just so happens, that just when I started thinking about adding Shanghai to my Tokyo trip, I come across a wonderful timelapsevideo of the Shanghai skylines thanks to The Daily Mail (and Joe Nifas who made the video).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2510382/Stunning-time-lapse-video-shows-Shanghai-went-sparse-parks-iconic-high-rise-city.html

That's what I want! I'm a cityperson, as mentioned earlier. And cities at night, there really isn't anything more beautiful.

I used to live on the 8th floor at one point in Finland, and yes, 8 floors is the Finnish equivalent of a highrise, and every night I loved to go out on my balcony, have a cigarette and just enjoy the slow city traffic and the lights against the dark sky. To me, that was my daily meditation routine.

I wonder if Joe Nifas is hosting through Couchsurf... 
(where I just yesterday realized to change my details for the correct ones so that I could actually start to host people. You know, it's hard to keep up with things like "which country do I live in)