Why am I here?

I promise I'm not going to get all existential about it.

Rather, like the good engineer/scientist/accountant that I am, I'm defining the scope. Establishing the parameters. Setting out my hypothesis. Which means you, dear reader, will understand why I'm doing this and whether you're likely to be remotely interested in what I'm intending to write about.

I have (at least) two fabulous trips coming up in the next nine months: In a little under three weeks, I begin a two week solo holiday in New York city. No kids. No spouse. No worries!  And then, from the first of January 2012, we will embark on a three week tour of India (with kids and spouse, and my sister, and my parents). We may yet make it to Japan in September (my sister-in-law lives in Tokyo with her family), but that's going to depend on how things are going post-quake/tsunami/nuclear reactor meltdown.

Most of my travel has been to developed countries - NZ, Europe, US - so I am expecting India to be a pretty full-on culture shock. And something that I want to record and revisit, so it doesn't all end up a jumble in my mind. To do that, I will need to keep a travel journal, and a blog seems the most straightforward way to do that. The NY trip will be a dummy run, a test of the waters (and the technology), to see whether this non-writer can sustain writing a daily journal without boring myself witless. I hope I don't, but if I do bore you, dear reader, well that's just stiff sh!t. This blog's for me, but you're welcome to come along for the ride.

ETA: Oh, and I'm pretty sure I'll go back and edit posts. Often.  Because I can.