After over a year of planning, we are off! Today we set the course for our next adventure. We are embarking on a 25 day cruise, with 10 additional days of land travel. We will have 5 days in Singapore before the cruise and 5 days after, in Tokyo. In between we will visit Thailand, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.
When Alan retired, we made a commitment to see all 7 of the continents before he turned 70 . Asia was the fourth continent on our bucket list. We still have South America and Antarctica to do. Technically Alan had fulfilled the Asia goal the year before he met me. In 1980, he took a 6 week training course in Japan. I too have fulfilled my Asia continent goal, while traveling on a portion of the World Cruise in 2023.
On that trip we met so many widows who hadn’t made it to their 50th Anniversary, with their spouses. We also met many people who had become infirmed by illness or injury before they turned 70. We decided to do our long distance traveling with as much speed as financial resources and health would allow.
Just six weeks ago we returned home from a trip to England. The known stressors that we would be facing on that journey, had made us move up to business class. If you know anything about us, it is that we are very frugal. Business class is not a luxury we have never indulged in, until recently. As soon as we completed that flight to England, we instantly began to search if we could upgrade for the Asia trip (our longest flight yet). Alan realized we had some unused mileage points and combined with a good flight sale, it made the tickets attainable. These two bodies are not as young as they once were and this extra space and the ability to lay down means that we will hopefully arrive to our destination refreshed and ready to start our vacation.
When going on a long cruise, we don’t travel light, we pack for comfort and convenience, which means we likely bring too many things. On this trip, we have 4 suitcases (2 large and 2 medium) and our carry-ons. For clothing, I have my list pretty well established and I could probably get by with a single suitcase. It is the room organization, which takes up so much space in our luggage (as I said, comfort and convenience). You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you I am carrying laundry pods, paper plates, snacks and a full service first aid and medical kit, but I am! I will share more about our packing lists on another post. Normally we buy these things at our starting port when flying, but they will be a little more difficult to source in Singapore, so we have them in the luggage.
The other benefits to flying business class, are that we are able to take 70lbs per suitcase. I don’t recommend this, as ultimately it will be us who is lugging the cases around. For the benefit of others, we still try to stick to the 50 lb rule. My cases for this trip have all come in around 40-45 pounds and we will be shedding many consumable items as we travel.
We had been so incredibly prepared for this trip. I began packing about six weeks ago, just after we returned from England. Weeding out the things we didn’t need and adding in a few new things we did, such as a snorkel and mask. What I hadn’t counted on was a freak snowstorm to disrupt our plans. When we saw the storm was expected to dump 2-3 feet of snow, Alan changed our flight plan to leave a day early (Sunday). The airline cancelled those plans on Saturday morning and re-booked us on the original Monday flight from Traverse City to Chicago. By then it looked like travel would be impossible, the airline just hadn’t realized it yet. With about 15 minutes notice, Alan decided to hire a rental car in Traverse City and gave me 2 hours to be ready to go. It was the last car available! This was Saturday night, just hours before the storm was due to begin but still nearly forty hours before our connecting flight in Chicago. I’m pleased to say that I had the car loaded in record time! My organization had really paid off. We closed down the house and set off for our six hour commute to Chicago.
In the interest of time, I will detail our journey to Chicago in a different post but needless to say we made our flight bound for Tokyo, roughly on time (Monday morning). We were delayed an hour as they de-iced the plane, twice. It is a 13 hour flight with a 3 hour layover, then we will travel another 7 hours on to Singapore.
The meal on the flight was a choice of Asian or Western cuisine which on All Nippon Air means we still only had a choice of a variety of fish based items. Knowing how fussy we are for “basic” foods, we had stocked up on Subway Sandwiches! Our hope was that we could eat these for our dinner. I think it will be terribly amusing when we pull these out, in Business Class. It gave my mother a chuckle to hear we have a cooler with us. This too is part of our cruise supplies. We love creating impromptu picnics in port (or on a plane).
At 4:30pm local time, we landed at Haneda airport in Tokyo, Japan. We were now officially in ASIA!
We will have just a two hour layover, since we are a little late. Once again we will be taking advantage of the International Lounge. While sitting in the lounge, we spent some time dreaming about the countries we would see on this trip…Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
We keep pinching ourselves that we are actually here and beginning this Asia adventure.
By the time we set off for Singapore, our old butts were really beginning to drag. While only 6:30 pm local time, it was now 4:30 am our time. We still had a 7 1/2 hour flight to our final destination. Our only goal on this last leg was to sleep.
We arrived in Singapore at 1am local time. With the 12 hour time difference we were now pushing our 27 hour window. With the stress of the additional travel days, we were ready for our hotel.
When we travel, we take each section in bite size chunks. We still had Customs and Immigration to clear and our past experience with Singapore had not been pleasant, they are notorious for long lines. Three days before we set off, we were required to complete our visa online. With the significant time change this meant we did it in the hotel before setting off for the flight. The new digital entry has now made the whole process relatively stress free and fast.
After picking up our bags (which thankfully had all made it), we were met by our pre-arranged taxi driver and whisked away to our hotel. In 20 minutes we were there. In 45 minutes we were checked into our room and in bed. The time is now nearing 3 a.m., which was 3 p.m. at home. We have a full day of adventures planned “today”, so we need to get a few more hours of sleep before we set off. Goodnight or good morning, depending on where you are in the world! Welcome to our Asian Adventure!