Our Chinese visas arrived today, which is exciting. I can’t believe I’m finally getting to go to China – it’s a place I’ve dreamed about since I was a kid and I’ve loved the food and culture for as long as I remember – I really hope China lives up to my expectations!

We’ve still got loads to do before we leave, from booking accommodation for our first couple of nights in Beijing to sorting out our American visas online and making sure we have photocopied and digital online backups of all our essential travel docs.

On top of that, I have a work trip to Florence next week with a quick stop in Pisa, it’s almost like a last minute unofficial mini-trip to make me even more excited! I read recently about the House of Cheese (aka the Casa Del Formaggio) in Florence and I hope to get five minutes spare to pop in and sample their wares (for those who don’t know, I’m a total cheese freak – in every sense of the word!).

Comparing insurance companies was a nightmare though as the only people who talk about their insurance experiences online are either those who have had a serious situation and needed emergency medivac or those who have been turned down after trying to claim something that wasn’t included on their policy meaning you only have people with really positive or really negative experiences.

I had a couple short listed but went with my gut in the end and picked the most ‘net savvy’ of the bunch. World Nomads let you organise everything online without making phone calls but have numbers available should you need them. They weren’t the cheapest out there, but I tend to go with slightly more expensive brands anyway, on the off chance that money really does equal quality. They seemed to cover everything that we needed and had the option to pay a little extra to add pricier items like my camera to the insurance (their included valuable insurance only covers up to a maximum of £250 for a single item).

Not sure how well they’ll actually perform, hopefully we won’t have to use them, but if we do, I’ll be sure to let you all know, no matter what the experience.

Tim Minchin is one of my favourite comedians, and I’m really chuffed that we’re going to get to go and see him perform in his home country. It’ll be interesting to see if he makes any ‘pom’ jokes that he may have left out of the UK tour

Yay!

The Chinese visa forms are very confusing as they contain both English and Chinese script and all sorts of crazy questions like, what is your occupation, with a choice including ‘business man’, ‘government agent’, ‘teacher’, ‘cleric’ or ‘other’. I had to go with ‘other’ as I wouldn’t describe myself as a business man – I don’t DO business as such, but I do work for a business. I have a feeling, ‘business man’ is what they count as anyone that works in an office, but I had no quick way of finding out, so I just put ‘other’ along with my actual business title. We’re using Oriental Travel for our Chinese Visas – they’re a bit pricier than doing it direct, but I don’t have the time or holiday allocation left to head over to Birmingham and spend a day queuing at the Chinese Embassy!

In other news, we now have every major item of our furniture and what not in storage. All we have left is to park our car up at my mums house and put a few last odds and sods in a box, sort out what clothes we’re taking traveling and then we’re all done! We may need to make one final run to the storage unit the day before we leave, but we don’t actually have enough property left to make more than one trip!

Now we’re in ‘the zone’ as it were, I’m hoping to make a few more posts on here with the progress of our traveling preparations. I’ve even put an ‘away’ message on my main personal blog so I can devote more time to this site. If I can just convince Steph to do the same we might start making some progress!

http://www.warburton.me/countdown/

We’ve also bought me a great pair of hiking boots ready for the trip, trying to wear them in by going for a long walk every day for as long as the weather is nice.

If all goes to plan, we aim to leave end of September(ish). It feels so far away at the moment, but I know it’s going to be worth the wait!