Have you packed yet?

Everyone has been asking us this question and well the answer is yes and no. I've started some packing but knowing me, I'll still be packing up to 2 hours before I leave, haha... CS will probably only start a day before? Lolz...

Other than the packing, we have been busy settling banking matters, which also reminds me I still haven't called up some of the banks yet. Other than that, we haven't really been doing much though CS is still staring at the budget! In any case, the only thing we know for sure is that we will be in Europe for 6 months, after that its still a little up in the air. Depending on the situation in Middle East, we may not go there at all. I am very keen to do the trans-siberian railway so that should be firmed though the dates may change. We are also going to collect our passports tomorrow for Israel so that should be fun. Hehe...

The foster sister?

Since the official sponsors aka foster parents have already introduced themselves, and done such a good job at it, we shall not introduce them again. Instead, we will introduce the foster sister that kit cat will be spending time with while we are away exploring the world.

Jiji, aka ms little ginger, came to stay with us for 6 weeks (yes, nothing compared to the 8 months kit cat will spend at her place) while S & HC were enjoying themselves. Actually S was enjoying herself while HC was busy with training. In any case, we gave Jiji her own room, or rather we kicked kit cat out of his room, and gave her the space that all teenagers need. It took us a while to get used to having 2 cats in the house but we got there eventually. Here's hoping that Jiji will not be the evil step-sister and bully poor kit cat and instead take good care of him while we are away.

Do keep a look out for the dear kit cat series that will probably appear on S's blog soon!

Presenting the official sponsors... ...

We’re the ‘S’ and ‘HC’ mentioned in the first post of this blog and will be the official foster parents of Kit Cat while his real parents take a break.

We shall be proudly sponsoring free hugs and much spoiling, access to all locations in our home, as well as a cat sister to play with (sorry CS & W, for the food and litter, we’ll be sending you the bill at the end of your trip).

As we have yet to iron out the fine details of the contract, all we can promise now is that we’ll be faithfully uploading photos of Kit Cat not only here but also on my own blog, and that there will be absolutely no spanking involved (even if he starts wailing uncontrollably and wants his own parents).

Oh we also solemnly promise not to secretly swop him with another black and white should anything happen *cross our hearts and hope to die*, so stay safe and bon voyage!!

The original idea...

I think the whole thing started out with our trip to Turkey where we met this Kiwi who was travelling with his family (sister, nephew, brother-in-law, mum) to Cappadocia and then to Egypt and Jordan (I think). Actually I barely spoke to the guy cos I was sleeping like a pig on the bus but CS spoke to him and he told me that the guy told him he travelled overland from Singapore to London many years ago. He basically flew in from New Zealand to Singapore and then took a combination of buses, trains etc from Singapore to London. At that point in time, there was really not much tourism and he said sometimes he will arrive at some remote village and had to knock on doors and see if people will take him in for the night. I remembered thinking that was really interesting and weird and really quite brave at the end of the day. On top of that, we were both trying to get our motorbike license (which didn't happened in the end, but that's another story for another day) and we were watching the Ewan McGregor show, Long Way Round, which was showing on NatGeo and thought well if he can do it, why can't we? The rest, as they say is just history.

The original plan was to do what the guy did, travel from Singapore to London, but via car instead of by bus/ train as he did. We then did a bit of poking around and realised that actually that was more common than we thought, quite a few people have done similar trips though they were usually ang mos. But then we found the Singaporean couple who did their 2 year trip via motorbike as well as the other Singaporean/ Malaysian couple who drove their Matrix from India to South Africa and it really seemed like a possibility. We then got down to business and well CS was really the one who worked out the budget and forced me to save up for the trip. So after 2 long years or well, actually 1.5 (?) years, we are finally going to do it.

Beyond the money bit, the first thing we had to do was apply for a long term visa for Europe. Being Singaporeans, we are lucky that we can stay in Europe for up to 90 days within a 6 month period, but beyond that, it was a bit of a blur how you can stay beyond that. After checking around and reading through, it seemed like our best bet was to apply for a Schengen visa which would allow us to do that. It then got a little tricky from there cos there is no Schengen embassy you can apply to since it is just a collective agreement between certain European countries to allow ease of travel and on top of that, since we would be moving around and not exactly staying at one fixed place, the application can be made to various countries. In the end we applied for it at the French embassy and I must say the experience was not exactly the most pleasant one. It was rather chaotic at that time cos they had 2 counters for both visa applications and collection of passports, but there wasn't really a system in place. Every visitor pass had a number but when you walk in, it doesn't display which number the counter ladies were serving so you have to peep at other people's passes to figure out who was ahead of you. On top of that, people collecting their passports could basically jump queue and go up to the counter to get their passport even though their numbers may not be up yet. There were also not enough seats so half the room was standing. I must say I thought that it was all quite chaotic. Luckily they have changed their system and now everything is by appointment, so it's much much better. In any case, we had to go in two times before they would take in our application and process it. The experience was quite painful and we had to go down to CID to get a letter from the police to certify that we have no criminal records. That letter took 10 (!) days to process and without the letter, the embassy wouldn't process the application. Luckily, all that is over now and we have our long term visas approved.

But of course, getting this in our passports is not the end of it. When we arrive, we have to fill in some form, send it to the French authorities, and then wait for them to contact us (no one can tell us if it's via phone, email or letter, we're guessing letter) and go for an interview (gasp!) and a medical checkup before we officially get our long term visa (whew.....)

Other than the visas, we have also gotten our international driving license. CS went down to AA to get it done the other day and he took my IC and driving license down as they needed it. And since I was still working that day and had to go to my client's place where I had to change for a visitor pass, I ended up carrying my passport with me to work that day. It felt a little weird carrying my passport and I think the security guard also got a bit of a shock. In any case, we also have our international driving license now.

For some reason, I had thought that it would be like how our driving license and IC are like, but its just a piece of cardboard with our photos in it, which looks rather homemade. Oh well, as long as it gets us by with the authorities.

16 more days to go? I'm still trying to figure out tickerfactory and putting it on the blog. Hmph...

Hopes and dreams

Wondering about what's next for me...

Canned tuna or chicken?

Finally!!!!

We have finally sorted out the blog look and feel and trust me, this looks plain but I think the simpler the blog the harder it is, or maybe I'm just not used to Blogger, LJ is so much better! Many thanks to S and HC who helped us out. This is a boring first entry but we have to start somewhere ;p

Tons of things to update about the trip, not sure where to start. This is just the beginning, watch out for more, hehe.....