I woke up Wednesday morning and thought to myself "today is finally the day"... It was finally the day that my five-month adventure begins with my girlfriend, Harmony.

We were flying with China Southern Airlines and, all in all, it was a pleasant experience. The seats weren't very comfy, but we slept for most of it. I didn't have a working TV, but a hostess gave me a Samsung tablet instead. We didn't get vegetarian meals, but this was probably the fault of the travel agent.

After the eleven-hour flight, we found ourselves in Guangzhou, China. Next, we had to find our way to the correct terminal and, then, we could indulge ourselves in a pizza each - what we thought would be our last western meal. Aside from the restrictions on the Internet and how ill everyone sounded, I quite liked China and was happy to spend the next five hours there.

Our next flight was two hours long and, again, we slept right through it. Then, we must've spent an hour getting our passports stamped and our visas sorted. Thankfully, our taxi driver patiently waited until we were finally ready.

First impressions of Hanoi were good - the spectacular skyline, somewhat European architecture and the many palm trees. Our hotel on the other hand, was over priced, pretty gross and far from what we expected. That night, I got no sleep. I was anxious and I was half way around the world. But I was being silly and I had to just go with it. A lot of things surprised me over the next few days. My expectations were blown out of the water, I forgot about my worries and I quickly fell in love with Hanoi, and Asia.