Japan and Vietnam's Year of Friendship - Here I come!

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For those of you that didn’t know. 2013 is the ‘Year of Friendship’ between Japan and Vietnam.

So, quite aptly, the Japan travel specialists, InsideJapan Tours, created InsideVietnam Tours and launched in 2013. We didn’t actually plan to launch in the ‘Year of Friendship’ between these two great countries, but it is a pretty good take off platform.

Anyway, I am a Japan expert having lived and worked there for many years. I was wooed by its culture, the beautiful country and the people. It is all so very different to anywhere else in the world. I am yet to visit Vietnam - don’t worry, we have Vietnam experts who know their stuff and are as passionate about the country as I am Japan – but I have heard a lot of good things. So this week, I am heading off to the Land of Lotus Flower to extend the arm of friendship to our newly adopted country, Vietnam.

I will be meeting up with our head tour leader and the man who designed our Vietnam tours, Tyler Palma to travel from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi and take in the sights such as Hue and Hoi An, the cultural experiences and of course lots of good food. I will be doing all sorts from learning to cook Pho at 'our favorite' cooking class, discovering some very nice local food establishments and the odd bar or two, meeting Vietnamese bloggers and some of the great people we work with. I will be updating the blog as much as possible and expressing my (hopefully) new found friendship and love for Vietnam in the ‘Year of Friendship’.

I will then end my journey just before InsideVietnam’s very first tour kicks off, ‘Highlights of Vietnam’. So without further ado, it is 'Mata ne' to Nippon and 'Xin Cao' to Vietnam. Here I come!