After a rather fraught drive up to Birmingham, including lots of roadworks and speed restrictions, managed to check into my flight on time and am now sat on my flight ready to go.

I think I need a good stiff gin and tonic while on this flight to settle my nerves as I was getting quite nervous when we hadn’t arrived with less than 2 hours to go!

On to Dubai then onto Taipei to see the wonderful Michelle!

Packing is finally completely done! My first two nights are booked and I will do the following ones once I have decided exactly where to go, which is weirdly freeing.

Last time I went abroad, I had already arranged my accommodation for 6 months, and had an airport pickup arranged along with a stay in a luxury hotel which was rather enjoyable; this time, will be making my way to a youth hostel, but first will have the great pleasure of seeing my friend Michelle at the airport itself!

Absolute essentials are all in my hand luggage – key things to note for those of you who know me are the factor 50 suncream, dark chocolate, and plenty of reading material!

Backpack weighs in at 10.5kg in a 38L backpack which isn’t too bad for 4 months(!); could definitely be lighter but I know I’ll lose some clothing along the way. Hand luggage is another 3.5kg which is annoying but what can you do!

I will be flying with Emirates to Taipei via Dubai. Will be arriving there on Thursday pm their time, am UK time. Planning on sleeping on the 1st flight and being awake for the 2nd flight to try and bypass any possible jetlag that might try to come over me.

All that is left to do is to go to sleep, have a shower tomorrow morning, and then head to the airport. If I don’t update before my flight, speak to you from the other side of the world on Thursday!

On my penultimate day in the UK, managed to go and visit some family before departing! First port of call was to see my ‘fairy godmother’, aka my auntie. Some nice choccie biccies and some fizz later, off to see grandparents which I am really glad I’ve been able to do.

All my family, no matter how geographically distant, have been so supportive and I’m so thankful for all of them. Will endeavour to stay in touch!

Today I have been doing a few last things before heading off:

1. Student loan – have been making sure that is all sorted and that I won’t be receiving any threatening letters while I’m away. It takes a lot of time for them to do anything so I started this process about 2 months ago with them.
2. New current account – still waiting on the PIN but will be using Norwich and Peterborough as they have a debit card account with no fees on overseas cash withdrawals – result!
3. Informing banks I am going abroad so they won’t try to block my card quite as much.
4. Sorted out what basic jewellery I will be bringing with me (and by basic I mean ordinary not ‘basic’ :P).
5. Set up proxy on my main debit account as my mother, so she can reactivate my account if they block it.
6. Added a Skype subscription plan so I can make calls to landlines from Skype while overseas.
7. Got a case for my iPad to try to protect it.
8. and most importantly… met up with some of my best friends to watch Star Wars!

Getting excited now!