Today we leave for Russia to start our journey to Japan. It has been a long time coming. Working for 2 years to save up the money to do it. Sad to leave our friends and family behind but being fed up with London and feeling like doing something a little different for a year can't be a bad thing.
We are travelling to Japan by train. We brought two massive rucksacks before we left Richards is 75 liters and mine 65 from northface. We would of taken smaller ones if we hadn't of had to lug all our work gear to Japan.
We packed suits, smart shoes and then your usual stuff, jeans, t-shirt, jumpers. We also brought really good walking boots/shoes before we left.
For the train we packed soups, plastic mugs and an English gas key to open the doors.
We bought money belts and quick drying towels. I think this is all we might need!

Flight to Russia
We booked our flight to Russia using Swiss air so we are flying via Zurich. They offered the cheapest flight we could find. We had to book a return which we won't use but our flights were £180 in total.
http://www.swiss.com/web/EN/Pages/index.aspx?Country=US

Trans Siberian train tickets
Our train tickets we booked using Real Russia. They were helpful but I would suggest sending them an email with trains you want to take and then ring them the next day. Make sure you get the name and the direct line of the person you speak to as they will have to check availability of tickets for you. We left it very late we booked our tickets on Saturday 7th June, which did mean some classes on the train are all ready full!
We booked a train from Moscow to Irkutsk, Irkutsk to Ulan Bator, Ulan Bator to Beijing. The first leg we booked a first class cabin as there wasn't much difference in the price from this to second class, also this is the longest leg of the train journey 4days and we didn't want to be stuck with total idiots! The rest of the way we are travelling second class.
Our train tickets cost around £580 each, not bad to get from Russia to China!
http://www.realrussia.co.uk/

Visas
We needed to get visas for Russia, Mongolia, China and Japan.

Russia
We used an agency as when we were leaving there was a big football match being held in Russia between two English clubs and the queue was so long. Also you need to have proof of accommodation, so a letter from a hostel!
We used an agency which is opposite the Russian Embassy, sorry I can't remember the name but it cost around £88, about £30 more than doing it yourself and takes the same amount as time 5 working days. They sort out the letter of invitation and all that jazz, you must need blank pages in your passport, passport photos and the money.
http://www.rusemblon.org/logon_en.htm

Mongolia
Well this is a tiny embassy and they are just happy to have you. £40 for the visa. The form was easy to fill out and we said that we had booked everything through Real Russia which at the time we hadn't so they don't seem to check the info we wrote. It was ready in 3 working days. Again blank pages and passport photo.
http://www.embassyofmongolia.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=193〈=en

China
Get there early!!! I had to queue for 2and a half hours. They are very fair as the embassy should close at 12 o'clock but if you are still in the queue outside they will see you. They mark the last person to join at noon so don't be late.
When we went to get our visa they had just changed the rules due the Olympics so things were a little more strict and people were being turned away crying!
We needed proof of accommodation, flights in and out the country, duration of stay, where you intend to travel. As we hadn't booked our train tickets we were lucky and our friends mother was living in China. So we printed out a letter of invitation, fake flights into and out of China, making sure they had the correct dates of when we would actually arrive. Wrote down an itinerary of what we might do. Blank pages needed and passport photos, and a little help from your friends thanks May!
We processed this visa in 3 days so had to pay extra it was £45.
http://www.chinese-embassy.org.uk/eng/lsyw/chivisa/

Japan
You do not need a visa to travel into Japan on holiday if you are from the UK. But if you want to work there you do.
I got sponsored by Berlitz so they sent me all the important documentation and I just took this to the embassy and £5 and 3 days it was done.
Richard applied for the working holiday visa. So you fill out the generic visa form and then in addition two documents, one with your reasons for going to Japan and the other is what you plan to do in 6 months.
So Rich wrote the documents as though when he arrived he would actively look for work whilst living in Tokyo and a short reason for wanting to visit Japan. This was rejected as they said it looked like all he wanted to do was work and this was a working holiday visa so he should be going to Japan as a holiday! So he re-wrote it in an Internet cafe, 6 months itinerary doing the most amazing things money can buy, his reason for coming, he licked Japans bottom, arse kissed as much as possible, and yay he got his one year working holiday visa. I must say this was very very stressful as we had a deadline to get into Japan by and if his application was rejected we would of been b*****ed. The working holiday visa cost £5 and took 4-5 working days.
http://www.uk.emb-japan.go.jp/

Visas
You are told not to book your train tickets until you have your visas! But in order to get some of your visas you have to have proof of your means of travel! It's a catch 22, when you look at flights online you can often print out the page with all the flight details before processing any credit card details. The moral of the story is lie, sad but true!

Money
We exchanged money through Tomas Cook - but later found out the ripped us off big time!