Another Mensa trip(le)

It is nearly time to set off on another series of Mensa gatherings and meetings.

Once again the Asian Mensa Gathering and the International Board of Directors meeting, where I attend as an official representative of Mensa Australia, are 2 weekends apart, and like last year there is a local gathering in the country hosting the IBD, which I will be attending on my own account. This year however I am covering all bases in a single trip instead of returning to Perth between them as I did between Singapore and Canada last year

The AMG is in Osaka this year. This will be my first ever trip to Japan - I haven't even done a transit. I will have most of 2 extra days there for some post-gathering tourist stuff before I head to the UK.

The IBD is in Old Windsor and the British Mensa Annual Gathering is the week before in Cardiff. I will be staying with a friend for a couple of nights before the BMAG starts so will have a chance to look around Worcester and nearby Stratford-on-Avon, Birmingham and the Cotswolds as time and energy permit.

The Mensa golf day follows immediately after the gathering and is held at Celtic Manor. This is where the 2010 Ryder Cup was played, although our game is not on the Ryder Cup course by one of the other 2 at the resort. It is not worth carting my own clubs around the multiple flights and train/bus and car legs of this trip so I have opted to hire some instead. They may potentially be better than my own since they are from Taylor-made.

The 2 days before the meeting starts will most likely be spent in Oxford, so there is quite a varied trip coming up.

There is also a possibility I may have a week in Scotland after the meeting, before heading home.

Booking this ticket was a challenge. I started looking in February at a travel expo. There were some bargains on offer but it was too far ahead to be certain of the dates. One option was to fly Cathay via Hong Kong with a side trip to Osaka. It was frustrating to find that the side trip from HK to Osaka was MORE expensive that flying from Perth to Osaka and back, even though the same flights were used as the HK to Osaka ticket. Ie they were effectively paying you to fly from Perth to Hong Kong.

Trying to find a reasonable combination on-line was also unsuccessful, since they tend to only have return tickets to a single destination.

In the end the trusty girls at Flight centre found a 3 cornered trip using Malaysian and Cathay which takes me to Osaka via KL, then to Heathrow via HK and home again also via KL. The transit times are also agreeably short with the longest one being only 2 hours. The price was also an acceptable addition over the UK return flight.

Malaysian has had a bit of bad luck recently (perhaps an understatement) but the chances of a 3rd incident must be minuscule. The more worrying possibility is a financial collapse, although that is raising its head as an issue less now than a month or so ago.