To me, our trip was always divided in to 3 portions: the initial Asia tour, Australia/New Zealand, and the final Asia stops (Bali/Maldives/Dubai).  The last two are not equal thirds date wise, but the first portion just about was (25 days of 76 total).

Well, we are now heading out from Singapore and moving on to the Australia/New Zealand portion.  Here are some scattered thoughts on traveling:

At this point, I’d say we did a pretty good job packing.  It was tough because we needed a wide range of clothes – from formal to beachwear and from winter to summer clothing.

Our Bags all packed

We did ship some stuff back from Tokyo.  I sent my winter socks, down jacket, and the suit I brought with me (because I got the new one).  Alyce sent back some of her winter gear but kept her down jacket.

Two thing we definitely have too much of – at least at this point – are plug adapters and media.  I have not had to use a single plug adapter yet, even in Koh Lanta…I packed three.

I also brought about 4 TB’s worth of movies and tv shows on my two external hard drives.  We have barely watched anything from those.  We just not have had much time to watch anything between all the things we have been doing and keeping up with the blog.  When we have watched TV, it has been mostly the TV shows we already had on the ipad.  I still would have done it the same, as I wanted the two hard drives to back up our pictures.

I don’t know that I underpacked on anything.  We hit a lot of stuff just right (underwear, T-shirts).  We will have much more access to laundry facilities in Australia/New Zealand, so the most difficult time (laundry-wise) should be behind us.

I was a little worried that I overdid it with camera and computer gear…We have about 30 lbs worth of gear.  I’ll probably try to post in the future on what we brought, but it includes 4 cameras.  That said, we’re using all of it – a lot.

As far as being removed from “normal life” for four weeks now…It has not been a problem at all for me.  The thing I miss most is our dogs.  Unlike family, you cannot talk to them on the phone, and they do not understand that we are on vacation and will be coming back soon.  But, I know they are being taken great care of at home – so that makes it a lot easier.

I miss family and friends, but – to be honest – I have been communicating more with yall through Skype and this blog than I probably would have been if we were in Baton Rouge.

This should not be a surprise, but I do not miss working.  I miss the people from work, and I feel a little guilty for leaving some of my coworkers during a busy time.  But this trip was a once in a lifetime deal, so we had to take it when we got the shot.

We have really enjoyed Asia in general.  It has been surprising to experience just how different all the various Asian countries have been.  Each country had several unique things about it, but all the Asian countries we visited seemed to have the same core values…just a respect for others and others’ privacy/stuff/etc.

Maybe that is why everywhere we’ve been has been very safe.  There really has not been any point that I felt unsafe…and we have rode buses/subways, walked all over various areas in the cities.  Even in some of the poorer areas of Thailand, I did not really ever feel unsafe.

While we did not have any major issues due to the language barrier, we are really looking forward to being back in 100% English speaking countries.  Singapore was a preview (80% of the country speaks some English), and it was very nice to actually be able to converse with people.

We have been very fortunate with weather so far.  We had no rain for the first 24 days, with one day of snow – which was actually nice.  In fact, our last day in Singapore was the only day our plans were altered by weather.

Australia and New Zealand will be the more adventurous/outdoorsy portion of the trip, with much less big cities.  We’ll also be flying less and driving on our own for the first time…It will be a nice change of pace.

Our next post will be from the Southern hemisphere.  See yall from there.

P.S.  Scroll down for some other new posts.