There are people that I know of who don't seem to be able to function in life without other people by their side, and if that was the case for me then I feel like I'd have to erase about half of my existence from memory.
Obviously, I enjoy doing things with other people, or having company, but I've always been of the mindset that if I want to go somewhere or do something and nobody else is available to be part of whatever I'm doing, then I'm not going to miss out just because I'm going to have to be by myself.
I would say that I consider myself to be quite an independent person, and I think part of that comes with being an only child and having spent a large portion of my life growing up with my closest family and relatives half way across the globe. Of course, that doesn't make me opposed to spending time with other people, but I'm fortune enough to enjoy my own company so I'm quite capable of spending time by myself if necessary.
Travelling around Asia by myself wasn't always the intention, but in order to find someone who would want to make that commitment would mean finding someone in the same situation as myself. During the latter part of my journey I have seen quite a few solo travellers, I'd say that at least 65% of all the 'foreigners' I've seen whilst in Asia have been in groups or with at least one other person.
I think being a soloist was something that I eventually got used to as the trip went on - doesn't mean that I enjoyed being by myself, just meant that nothing was going to change the situation so I just had to get on with it. I'm pretty used to spending days in England going out to different places alone, so it was something I was pretty familiar with although I can imagine for someone who isn't used to that situation that it could be quite a daunting prospect.
In my opinion there are pros and cons to being alone and with other people depending on what kind of situation you are in, but there haven't been many moments on this journey when I haven't wished that there was at least someone else around to share what I have been doing through.
Experiencing all of this alone is probably something that I will be able to look back on and be pretty proud that I achieved, although I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of people in my life who would expect nothing less from me knowing that this definitely isn't my first 'rodeo'.
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Bound for Heathrow Airport early on 6th February, I could hardly have envisioned how this journey would have gone.
This date (which despite lots of movements in my travels has always remained the same throughout - I'll explain why shortly) seemed too far away, and it's difficult to get my head around the fact that it is almost June and I have been travelling through this continent for more than a quarter of a year.
As time crept closer and closer to me leaving England originally things almost didn't seem real, and it is strange to consider that after all the years of planning and preparing for this journey, I am left with just a single week of my journey to go.
This very latest portion of the trip through Japan has definitely been one of the most enjoyable, fruitful and productive stages I've experienced.
Arriving from Beijing I have been fortunate enough to visit seven major cities and three different regions of Japan. I wrote a lot beforehand about how excited I was to go to Japan, a country I've wanted to visit since I was younger, and I feel a great sense of achievement now that I have finally been able to visit.
As they say "all good things must come to an end" (sadly), and after leaving my hotel this morning I was bound for Fukuoka Airport where I'd made arrangements to continue my journey to its last location which I hope will be a fitting finale for what I sometimes forget was designed to be a celebration of my 30th birthday.
The last stage of my trip involves spending a week in another country I've long lusted after visiting - Hong Kong. Now part of China, but with some definite British flavour, I'm not really sure when or why I first developed my desire to travel there, but I am excited for the prospect that I am heading to a place which has already developed a fondness in my heart from thousands of miles away.
Not only is Hong Kong special because of its status as the last place that I will visit, but for the second time on my journey I will escape the rigours of being a solo traveller.
During my week in Vietnam I was fortunate enough to be joined by my Mum, and in Hong Kong I will be accompanied by Sarah who has made the arduous journey from Manchester to Hong Kong in order for us to end what has been four months apart.
Her arrival from England has always been a major event highlighted on my schedule, and after counting down the days it is a relief that the time has finally arrived for us to be able to return to one another's side.
Before the consideration of being able to see one another even came into my head though, I first had to negotiate a complex journey of my own from Fukuoka to Hong Kong via Shanghai.
Getting to the airport in Fukuoka this morning was thankfully relatively simple as after checking out of my hotel I had to take the five minute walk to Hakata train station in order to catch the subway.
I haven't said much about either my hotel in Hiroshima or the one in Fukuoka, but they were both excellent and pretty much in line with any of the best hotels I've stayed in throughout my journey. I'd say that the run of eight hotels I've stayed in since leaving China is probably my best run of accommodation, I think it has a lot to do with the cities that I've been staying in, but also perhaps it shows that my decision making has improved throughout as each one was close to transport links and basically everywhere that I needed to visit during my stay.
Catching the train this morning it is strange to think that at the beginning of my journey through Japan I was required to use the air for pretty much every trip I took, but since then, trains, metros and subways have mostly been reserved for either entering or exiting a city.
Hakata station is actually only two stops (via the subway) away from Fukuoka Airport, and it was relatively quiet when I boarded and made the short journey at about 10:30am.
I arrived at the domestic terminal, and had to board a shuttle bus in order to get to the international terminal where my flight would be leaving from. From my impressions of it, Fukuoka airport seems quite small, but to its credit it does appear to connect to most of Asia as I saw flights to China, Taiwan, Korea and even the Philippines listed on the departure board.
The check-in desk wasn't open when I arrived and about five minutes before it did a tour party of Chinese people showed up and created a massive queue so I watched and waited until it had cleared before deciding to go and check in.
Rather bizarrely when I found it on the board, my flight was listed as going to Wuhan via Shanghai which reminded me of earlier in my trip when I was in Indonesia and took a 'via flight'. Hopefully the people destined for Wuhan are more aware of the brief stop than I was that day as I pretty much had no clue what was going on that evening. I'm struggling to remember where I was even destined for - Bali I think.
Not for the first time, or probably the last, I managed to get some non-English speakers in a flap as I tried to check-in for my flight. A bit like when I was in China heading to Taiwan there was some confusion as to whether I needed a visa to go to Hong Kong, and then the bashful lady behind the counter wasn't sure what I was referring to when I said that I was going through China in order to get to Hong Kong.
It all managed to get sorted anyway, and as long as I got a decent seat and by baggage was going to the right place then there's no complaints from me about the experience.
It is strange that despite 'belonging' to China that Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau have completely different visa regulations. Parts of Malaysian Borneo have exactly the same regulations as the mainland, but I suppose that's different because they are considered to be the same country, where as the three places I previously mentioned as just territories of China. Perhaps part of the deal about handing them back to China was that citizens of the UK would be able to visit without the need for a visa.
I'm pretty sure that you can stay in Hong Kong for 180 days (same as Japan) without needing extra documentation.
The flight between Fukuoka and Shanghai was pretty painless, and it felt odd landing in the Chinese city I'd travelled to less than a month ago. I had about a two hour wait at Pudong Airport before travelling onwards to Hong Kong. It was quite a strange feeling to be back around Chinese people, and experiencing their unique behaviours which I think everyone should take in at some point in their lives.
Having been in Japan for three weeks, it was interesting to realise that I have a much better grasp on noticing the language differences, and general behaviours than I did before.
I've always felt like I've had a pretty good grip on people speaking different languages, and my time on this continent has only strengthened that. I think I could definitely now tell if someone is speaking Chinese, Japanese or Korean.
It will be very odd when I go back to England, and can actually understand what people around me are saying. It's something I had to get used to when coming back from Korea in 2010 as well and it did take a little adjustment.
My trip from Shanghai to Hong Kong wasn't quite as smooth as the first part of the journey and all the good luck from earlier on in my trip relating to flights and airports probably caught up with me.
The two hour wait I experienced in Shanghai ended up being extended by about an hour as my flight only ended up boarded at the time it was supposed to take off (a bad omen for punctuality!) and then we ended up sitting on the runway for an extra thirty minutes or something with no real explanation.
When we did eventually arrive in Hong Kong we sat on the tarmac for about an hour and a half slowly edging our way metre by metre towards the terminal before eventually pulling up at about 9pm, close to two hours after we were supposed to arrive.
I'm not sure what the issue was, but I know that the weather in Hong Kong has been pretty bad recently, and it could well have had something to do with a number of flights being delayed. It's always a frustrating experience when you're not sure of the delays though.
It took a while to get through immigration as a large group of school kids had arrived at the same time as I had and they had to open up some more of the gates to get the few flights that had just landed through at the same time. Thankfully I didn't have to wait too long for my bag to come off the conveyor belt and when I got into the arrivals section of the airport there was a familiar face sitting there waiting for me.
Over 100 days after bidding her farewell on a cold February morning Sarah has arranged to come and spend the final part of this journey with me (sneaking in her first trip to Asia at the same time) bringing to an end months of relying on technology in order to be able to speak to one another.
Due to the lateness of my flight she'd had to wait for almost two hours so unsurprisingly her first response upon seeing me was to sarcastically look at her wrist and suggest that I took my time - I'm sure in reality she was pleased to see me!!!
Navigating our way through the airport we had to catch the Airport Express train to get onto Hong Kong Island which is where we will be staying. We had to walk to Terminal One in order to catch the train but it was pretty easy for us to be able to get a ticket and took only two minutes for the train to arrive.
From the Airport we made several stops before eventually reaching the train's terminus which was called Hong Kong, and then from there we had to make our way to the MTR mainline where we caught the train from Central to Causeway Bay which thankfully was only a couple of stops away.
I'd written down which exit to come out of at Causeway Bay and also the directions, but one of the two must have gone awry as we found ourselves somewhat lost in the humidity of the city which I'm not sure Sarah appreciated.
We walked back in the direction we came from and eventually found our way although when we did get to our hotel it took a couple of minutes to actually find the way in which was hidden from sight and also not very close to the actual sign for our hotel.
In the twenty or so minutes we'd spent walking around 'lost' Hong Kong had lived up to exactly the image that I thought it would. Like Japan and Korea, Hong Kong is a 'neon' country where signs illuminate the whole place once the sun goes down - this is definitely going to have to be something that I adapt to when I return to England as sometimes there are no lights whatsoever on the streets!
Even at almost midnight the streets of Causeway Bay, one of Hong Kong's many shopping districts, were packed full of people and after finding our hotel we decided to take a little walk around the block where we are staying in order to try and familiarise ourself with what was around.
As usual it seemed very daunting but now that there are two of us, and I won't be making these walks by myself I feel much more reassured about everything - not that there is anything to feel scared about in this multi-cultural melting pot of Asia.
We grabbed some food as both of us were hungry having juts been restricted to place food all day and then returned to our hotel which is kind of quirky in the way that it is set out and also in its decor.
After long travelling days for us both we decided to get some rest ahead of what is likely to be a busy week.
Over 100 days after bidding her farewell on a cold February morning Sarah has arranged to come and spend the final part of this journey with me (sneaking in her first trip to Asia at the same time) bringing to an end months of relying on technology in order to be able to speak to one another.
Due to the lateness of my flight she'd had to wait for almost two hours so unsurprisingly her first response upon seeing me was to sarcastically look at her wrist and suggest that I took my time - I'm sure in reality she was pleased to see me!!!
Navigating our way through the airport we had to catch the Airport Express train to get onto Hong Kong Island which is where we will be staying. We had to walk to Terminal One in order to catch the train but it was pretty easy for us to be able to get a ticket and took only two minutes for the train to arrive.
From the Airport we made several stops before eventually reaching the train's terminus which was called Hong Kong, and then from there we had to make our way to the MTR mainline where we caught the train from Central to Causeway Bay which thankfully was only a couple of stops away.
I'd written down which exit to come out of at Causeway Bay and also the directions, but one of the two must have gone awry as we found ourselves somewhat lost in the humidity of the city which I'm not sure Sarah appreciated.
We walked back in the direction we came from and eventually found our way although when we did get to our hotel it took a couple of minutes to actually find the way in which was hidden from sight and also not very close to the actual sign for our hotel.
In the twenty or so minutes we'd spent walking around 'lost' Hong Kong had lived up to exactly the image that I thought it would. Like Japan and Korea, Hong Kong is a 'neon' country where signs illuminate the whole place once the sun goes down - this is definitely going to have to be something that I adapt to when I return to England as sometimes there are no lights whatsoever on the streets!
Even at almost midnight the streets of Causeway Bay, one of Hong Kong's many shopping districts, were packed full of people and after finding our hotel we decided to take a little walk around the block where we are staying in order to try and familiarise ourself with what was around.
As usual it seemed very daunting but now that there are two of us, and I won't be making these walks by myself I feel much more reassured about everything - not that there is anything to feel scared about in this multi-cultural melting pot of Asia.
We grabbed some food as both of us were hungry having juts been restricted to place food all day and then returned to our hotel which is kind of quirky in the way that it is set out and also in its decor.
After long travelling days for us both we decided to get some rest ahead of what is likely to be a busy week.
Miss You
Aaliyah (2002)
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