As we are going to three countries that demand visas, I thought I would start this process early.

China

I’ve been to China before in 2006 and the procedure is simple: You need to have a real one page visa included to your passport, this means sending your passport (or taking it to) the Chinese embassy of Helsinki.  Along with your passport, you need to send a passport picture of yourself and the form of application. The fee of the visa in 2009 was 40euros. You will be asked questions like “Do you have aids or leprosy?” (if yes, then don’t even think about coming to China)  and you need to provide your plane tickets.  Also, if you are a journalist of any sort, it’s probably best to mention it… Just tell them that you are a tourist. You never know with the Chinese, their paranoia is quite world known. The visa is valid for 3 months after you get it, so be sure to book it in the time frame of your trip. The bonus of 2009 is that you cannot send the passport and application in with a mail, so make sure you have a relative in or a visit coming up to Helsinki.

The bunch line is: Finland – Because life is not difficult enough!

Australia

For Australian visas, there’s plenty of websites that try to charge money for it. Better to use just the immigration services of the Australian government.  If you are just visiting and not immigrating or working there, then you should get eVisitor Visa for free. They also email it to you, so no big trouble getting one immediately. It  allows you to travel to and from Australia any number of times over the next 12 months. On each visit to Australia you can stay for a maximum of three (3) months.

USA

Well, I’ve never been to America before, but I have been told what to expect. Apparently, if you visit Canada while coming from and going to USA, it doesn’t really count like leaving the country… Thank goodness. You can find out pretty much all you want to know from from the US embasy in Helsinki.  There is a Visa Waiver Program which allows you to enter ‘without a visa’ for business or tourism, but only if you are eligible meaning that you don’t have a disease, criminal record, swine flu or other barrier of entry. Of course you also should not have had anything to do with the nazis or helping them. At the end, it’s a pretty easy procedure. They accept you online. Of course I am prepared the customs to be quite nasty. The day that I will arrive to the american soil, will also be the longest day of my life, lasting something like 47 hours. It’ll be something to write about at least I suppose.

We’ve been together in Japan before in 2007.  Back then we were mostly traveling on buses and planes, so we had no real need for Japan Rail Passes. However this time, we’ll be mostly going around by train, so we decided to get the passes.  My husband’s 21-days pass will cover the whole stay, my 14-day-one I will not activate before my Shorinji Kempo training camp ends and I start moving around. Shorinji Kempo headquarters is situated in the small village of Tadotsu, in Shikoku. However, while I kick around in incredible heat, the fantastic railsystem of Japan will take my husband to see other parts of Shikoku. It’s only something like four hours to Hiroshima if he fancies to go back to Honshu.

In Finland, if you are looking for these passes, a good bet is “Japanispesialisti.fi“, although there are other travel agents who will get you the passes. There’s an online order with this one though, which meant that I could get mine something like 20euros cheaper than via kalevatravel for example.

The prices of these passes in summer 2009 were:

• 7Days – 220eur
• 14Days – 352eur
• 21Days – 620eur (First Class)

There’s two classes, ordinary (2nd class) and Green (1st class). We are happy to be in the second class.  Japanese trains are the most punctual in the world of course and my experience of the bullet train (Shinkansen) is that it’s usually very peaceful and clean but of course, fantastically fast. It’s good to keep in mind that these rail passes can only be bought from outside Japan, not after you’ve entered the country.  Also you need to be in Japan for a tourist visa, not to study or work. You can order it three months before you enter Japan. What works for the Buddhist monks certainly works for me!

This Blog is about a journey around the world by a Finn and her British husband. Most people take a year to go around the world. For us, it is a matter how how long we can be away from our lives aka our jobs. My husband can work on the road, but I had to consider it carefully. At the end, I calculated my holidays and put together two months. That is how long it’s going to take us. We are traveling on One World 4 continent tickets, so heading from Europe to Asia to Australia to North America and home. This is the adventure of a lifetime that we wanted to do because we are still young and have relatively little to worry about back home (no kids, no current sick relatives). Also the situation in the world, spring 2009, has showed that nothing is certain in the future: If you don’t live in the NOW, there might not become another chance.

This website is to document the journey from the planning throughout the trip. I decided that LiveJournal was not going to be good enough this time. No. I searched for a solution that would take me off my misery of pure html, but still flexible enough to support my solutions. I hope I have found it in WordPress. This is my very first post.