As it turned out, Pete and I only had a single day’s delay in Taiwan, and disappointingly it was largely spent at the airport.  The airline put us up in a hotel for the night though, and we managed to hone our table tennis skills for a couple of hours while the typhoon buffeted the windows.

We landed in San Francisco to bright sunshine and got lots of looks as we walked around the gay capital of America in matching Latitude t-shirts (one blue, one a distinctly faded maroon - nice).  It was a brief visit, but we were both rather taken by the beautiful bay area - and given that all our previous knowledge of the place came from Hollywood, we were just happy to see Alcatraz and the crazy hills.  Pete’s old housemate from Bristol happened to be on a placement there and showed us the sights and gave us a bed and a hot tub for the night - thanks Mel!

In the morning we picked up a hire car and began our trip north to rejoin Spike, Roxy and 50 degrees.  Northern California was warm and beautiful, and with a 20 hour journey up the coast ahead of us we decided to stop at a winery for some tasting, naturally.  We were (of course) sensible but it was a lovely place and we got back on the 101 rather reluctantly.

The coastal road is amazing - we drove through giant redwood country (and yes they are giant!), and up past beautiful coastline all the way through Oregon and Washington.  Sadly we had to do a fair bit of it at night and in fog, but it’s a long way and we had a date with Canadian TV to keep!

We arrived in Seattle for a very brief stop and jumped on the greyhound to meet Spike and get to Canada, the expedition is back on!

-David

Playing on the iPod: ‘Long road out of Eden’ by The Eagles

The Japanese leg of our journey is now over.  Pete and I got flights out of Nagoya this morning after a final week packed with work and play, and small triumphs like decyphering the TV remote so we were able to switch language and see half an episode of House!  It’s a crazy life.

In the few hours out of Japan things have taken a turn for the worse though.  The turbulent flight didn’t help either of us catch up on sleep after last night’s farewell party, and now we’ve landed in Taipei to be told that our flight to San Francisco (we’re taking the scenic route) is likely to be cancelled due to a typhoon, so we may be here for a few days.  Not ideal when there’s a Land Rover to be collected several thousand miles away on another continent!  We’re still in the airport and just about to go to hear the latest update.  Fingers crossed…

- David 

I know this blog entry has been a long time coming, and sorry about that, but in terms of travel you haven’t missed anything; we’re still in Nagoya.  The process of shipping a vehicle takes a bit longer than just the time for the crossing, and we hadn’t really taken that into account with our planning.  It has however - and this seems to be a recurring theme for our trip - turned out spectacularly well!

Steve, head of Japan Car Exports, as well as helping us immensely with the shipping, has sorted us out with somewhere to stay and been an all-round legend.  In return we’ve been able to help out doing some work for him while he has two of his staff away driving a similar route to ours in a minivan (I’ll stick to the Land Rover thanks).  It’s actually been a lot of fun driving little K-trucks around his yard, preparing and loading them for shipping, and we now have a good bank of random knowledge about these funky little vehicles!

Loading a container

The sea of trucks

Through Steve we also seem to have been adopted into the Canadian expat community and we just keep meeting really interesting, generous people.  One of the first guys we were introduced to was Lowell (a fellow Fellow of the RGS!) who has a seemingly endless supply of great stories, often from his work with Hope International.   He was just finishing a new house and needed a shed built, so we dug out our best carpentry skills and got to work!  Although we managed to drag ourselves away from toiling in the Japanese humidity to head out with him to a traditional Japanese bath and also to a lovely spot at the river near Toyota.

The shed that Team Latitude built

Down by the river

Lowell invited us to give a presentation about our trip to the Tokai Japan Canada Society, and it was a lot of fun talking to a bar full of rowdy Canadians, and less rowdy Japanese!  It turned out to be a very productive evening as the society very generously agreed to sponsor us, and we also got an invite to repeat our presentation at an English speaking cafe a couple of days later.  At both events we met lots more really cool people, and it’s that which has really made our time in Nagoya fly by.

Presentation from the TJCS

We’re set to leave though, having picked up flights yesterday.  Spike leaves tomorrow to catch up with some friends before Roxy’s ready for collection, and Pete and I will follow on Saturday.  We’ve all got brief stop-overs in Taipei, which should be pretty cool!

We spent this evening at Steve’s house for his young daughter’s birthday party, and she was very reluctant to let Spike leave.  It’s a good job we have a lot still to look forward to, or we might be equally reluctant to say goodbye!

Happy Birthday Emma!

- David

Playing on the iPod: ‘Baba O’Reilly’ by The Who