Big news! Plus I need your vote for the Grand Final.

Jeffrey suspects that something’s up.

First up, before I get into why the blog will be unattended for 3 weeks, even though I’m travelling:

OMG. It’s the Grand Final. Frogdancer, who can’t walk quickly without starting to puff. Whose frame is fairly portly, despite her best endeavours. Who can’t catch a ball to save herself… Frogdancer is in the finals of the blog competition. OMG.

The voting is open for 48 hours, starting from Wednesday midnight Australian time (roughly). HERE IS THE LINK. Keyword: Mistake. Please vote. When the competition started, weeks ago, there were 128 starters. Now there’s 2, and call me competitive and vaguely patriotic, but I’d love it if an Aussie with a tiny blog actually took out the competition. It’s an underdog kind of thing. My competitor in the last round is a well-known blogger who works in the US military. *gulp*

Here’s the link again. I’m (maybe) slightly competitive, so I’m making it easy for you to leap onto it. 🙂 Plus I’m very helpful.

Ok. Now that you’ve (hopefully) voted… here’s why I won’t even know if I’ve won or not for WEEKS after the voting stops.

Ok. Guess where I’m going?

It’s a place that not many people go to. It’s a place with NO INTERNET. It’s a place where there’s one tv station run by the government. It’s a place that is described as ‘The Hermit Kingdom’ and the most isolated country in the world.

Yep.

I’m going to North Korea.

Yesterday I found the bg I bought t a little market in London, that I used all over the UK and Europe. I found some treasures inside it. my Oyster card from London, my Paris Metro card and the receipt for the entry fee to Kenilworth Castle. Plus some 3-year-old chewing gum.

On the tour we have 2 North Korean guides and an Aussie one. The Aussie one is the son of a woman I work with, which is how I found out about it. The Korean guides apparently love getting gifts of little luxuries that they find it hard to access over there, like hand creams, nail polish, lollies, chewing gum, toys for kids etc. I put together these little pouches full of goodies for them, plus a big bag of Costco trail mix. Apparently they love that.

I also bought other things to give away as we went.

Not having girls, we never had these in the house growing up. Nowadays, Evan21 uses them for his hipster man bun, but he tends to stick to more sombre colours.

I’ve written more about this on the other blog. I really wanted to do a full post on this blog, but it’s nearly midnight and I have to be up in just over 5 hours to drive to the airport. I’m falling asleep. I’m literally sitting up in bed, laptop on my lap, nodding off.

Please read the other blog post if you want to hear more about why I decided to go to such a sealed-off place. I honestly don’t know how much fun it’ll be, but I bet it’ll be interesting.

The blog will be quiet until April 21, when I get home. I can’t blog on my travels, with no internet, but I can blog ABOUT them when I get back.

Looking forward to seeing you then.