Asian Kiwi taking flight

So I spent the last few days looking at all the different websites for the different airlines that service the different cities that I plan on flying to.

My head is now spinning. Everyone has pretty much the same format for booking a flight, ie. pick a start point, an end point and a day. Most have English versions of their sites which is great as English is virtually the only language I can read, except for one Chinese airline. I clicked the English button and a picture of their company logo kept popping up with Chinese writing under it.

Who ever thought that putting Chinese writing on a pop up that you get when you click "English" wasn't really thinking were they??? I clicked the #$^%$#%^$ English link cause I can't read Chinese, I just look Chinese and know sooo few words even a preschool Chinese kid would laugh at my vocab.

Anyway looking for all the different flight for the different legs wasn't as straight forward as I thought. Some legs are cheaper when combined with other legs, some don't have direct routes which double travel times, code sharing is a bit of a pain too.

How do travel agents do it? I think they just look for the first flight that comes up and say, "Here is the cheapest we got."

If anyone can suggest any airline that service Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan please leave a comment. I've pretty much looked at all the airlines that fly under the Star Alliance group cause I am a member of Air NZ airpoints, but money talks and I would gladly give up points if I can get a good price. Yeah, I have absolutely no brand loyalty and very easily swayed.

I got some quotes over the weekend to get some idea of my air fare costs. Seems that living in the middle of the pacific ocean nearly at the bottom of the world plays a big part in keeping my travel costs high.

The quotes I've gotten so far are Wellington > Auckland (Yea, Wgtn international only services Australian and a few pacific flights) > Singapore > Beijing > Auckland > Wellington.

About $2000NZD

I want to see as much of the countries I visit so I figure that flying over them won't show me much, so the plan is to travel by train around the different places I visit. Hope that will keep costs down too.

I'm starting to have the feeling that cause I'm almost island hopping, a lot of my costs is going to be flying from country to country. Idealy I would start from Japan and make my way down to Singapore, but thats not an option.

Gotta start thinking about accomodation and food as well.

Planning and budgeting owns me :o(

So we're leaving NZ on Friday the 6 April. That gives me.... less than 163 days to get my act together?!?!?!!!!

So I've decided on my destinations, based on interest and how much $$$ I will have. Time isn't really a constraint and I would travel forever if I could, but nothing is free and money will eventually run out.

I will have to go to Singapore and Malaysia first, to Beijing, China and then Xiamen, China. Singapore and Malaysia for a reunion with my mum's family and to celebrate my granfather's birthday, after which a few will go to Xiamen to my grandfather's home town.

He left China when he was quite young and only went back for the first time last year, this trip will be his second time back since he was a child. I have never been to China so I guess this part of me trip is a learning about my origins sort of thing.

Other pleaces I want to go(in no particular order): A few other places in China (like Xi'an, Shanghai, Dalian), Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and although I am born in Malaysia, I moved to New Zealand when I was 2 so I also want to do a bit of travel of my birth country.

Looks like quite a short list, but on a map the distances is quite a lot. Maybe I should get a smaller map, lol. I also skip quite a few countries which is unfortunate but maybe next time.

A couple of months ago my mother told me that we're going back to Malaysia next year to celebrate my grandfather's birthday. As part of the trip, we are going to China to visit my grandfather's home town.

I decided that this would be a great opportunity to do some travel around Asia.

Guess this will be a blog of my trip starting from planning and preparing to actually travelling and doing the tourist thing.

My starting point: Wellington, New Zealand