Day 1 Touchdown--"Welcome to the Big Apple" our super friendly head stewardess says as UA flight 905 smacks down on the runway. I had a feeling at Heathrow that this could be one of those coincidental meeting days when you bump into old friends at airports. Bang!! Mike Leigh is on the same plane to New York. It doesn't get any more coincidental than that. Mike & girlfriend Charlotte, bless me with a lift into the city of cities in one of those massive 'GMC...

This is a postcard from London with a few snaps fom home just so as I can work out the website. It takes for ages to upload the photos and I can visualise myself sitting in a internet cafe in central China for an hour on the slowest connection with four words of Chinese and no patience. Two weeks 'till take off on the big adventure round the world. Bought a travelling companion today; it has two wheels a long handle and can convert into a rucksack if I need to...