I concede defeat. I have been trying to keep the Spamurai up to date, but photographically speaking I am still stuck in the world of 2006. I'm up to about December 30th but alas it's already March 2007! Can you believe it? Since I set a definite date to return home time has rocketed into the future. So... I have decided to wave the white flag to time and am resolved to the fact that I will be putting most of the pics-to-come on this blog from my parental home of Epping, New South Wales, Australia... once I get there in a month's time.

So what's with the map? Well, that red line is the trip I'm planning to take as my last assault on Japan - the island of Kyushu. It's not set in stone, but I thought I'd share with you my excitement. Haha... set in stone. I only have one city's accommodation booked - a big achievement if I may say so myself - the website was entirely in Japanese and I had to stick each field of the secure reservation page into a translation website line by line! Took a couple of goes, but I got a confirmation email! Success! That city is Kumamoto - right in the middle of the trip, so up until yesterday I hadn't settled on the direction I'd do this tour in.

Well zooming in, I've decided to tackle things in an anti-clockwise direction (still fighting time I guess). I'll train it to Fukuoka (hopefully after seeing some massive limestone caves in Yamaguchi en route) and then go on to Nagasaki, Shimabara peninsula, catch a ferry and train to Kumamoto (castle town) then on to Aso-zan (the world's largest volcanic caldera) and onto the bath towns of Oita and Beppu. From there I hope to catch an overnight ferry back to Osaka.

All up it'll be about 8 days.

With all I have to do in packing up my apartment, tying up everything at work, saying goodbye to friends from various sources and making sure I have everything covered legally and logistically for nicking off back to Australia, I'm looking forward to this trip with a mixture of relief and high-stress if that makes any sense at all.

Well, winter is officially over, I believe. The plum trees are blooming early and my nose is already onto the fact that spring has sprung. March 1st - bang, I see my first blossoms and snart sneezing. Oh well. I still love spring. And with this weather I'm probably going to see Kyushu in full sakura-mode. Cherry blossoms!

So, with all this going on, the Spamurai may well be more of a ninja int he coming days and weeks. I'll try to update, but as I said - most will be coming from once I'm back on home soil. Not quite as romantic, but whatever!

See you soon...