I'm preparing for rehearsals starting again and, thinking ahead, I know I have to consider things like packing and shopping for travel essentials. I'm putting that all off just for now, so I thought I would spend some time doing something important, like clearing the memory card in my camera and camcorder.

This time last year I was working on a show that visited South Korea and at the end of the tour I took some time to visit nearby Japan. The camera and camcorder have hardly been used since. Both countries were very interesting places to visit and, although we were working for a portion of the time, we did get to see some spectacular sights. It was incredibly hot and humid - at this time of year Seoul paricularly has a high percentage of moisture in the air - and wet clothes never dried. Funny the things you remember about a trip.

This is the Royal Court of a palace in Seoul - apparently the Korean royals lived in and around this complex right up until some time in the 80's. You can just make out a slightly raised pathway leading up to the steps at the front of the building. This is the King's path, and no one except for the King was ever allowed to walk it, his advisers and officials would have to walk on the lower paths either side. I marched right up the middle.

This is some of the company enjoying a traditional Korean feast - just in case you're not hot and sticky enough, they cook the food right in the middle of your table, whilst you sit on the floor wishing the tiles were cooler. We were treated to this by the organisors of the festival at which we were playing, and it was a great night. The food was basically strips of pork which you wrapped in lettuce leaves with bits of vegetables and seasoning. The vegeterians and non-red meat-eaters, like myself, ate our own weight in wilted lettuce. In Korea the food was often hard to identify and very few waiters or shop assistants speak English (we were told that anyone who spoke English invariably got a job at the airport). I managed to stay alive thanks mainly to the easily identifiable, and strangely nutritious, goods on offer at the shamelessly Western-style Seoul branch of Baskin Robbins.

This is me loitering outside a shop in a backstreet of Seoul. Sadly, the shop sold only baked goods and pastries. Trades Description Act ...

Ah, this is Japan now. We stayed in Kyoto and Osaka, but this is taken in a small town called Nara. Nara is home to the largest wooden structure in the world, which houses this giant Budda. You probably can't get a sense of scale from this, but he's big enough to carry 14 men on his outstretched palm. I have better pictures somewhere. Nara is probably the most amazing place I've ever been to - a very spiritual place where Budda's sacred deer run free and walk past like cats and dogs do at home. I remember that, while taking a picture similar to this one, I looked down to find a deer with his nose in my trouser pocket, eating my map. It's a wonder we ever got home.

Finally, another town in Japan - Hemiji. This is the ancient castle and we climbed to the top. Again, it's difficult to get a sense of scale, but it's a wooden building about five storeys high on the top of a hill. You navigate the building in your sock soles, like most places in Japan. I don't know if it was because of the slippery floor, the endless wooden staircases, the amazing views from every window or the intense heat (they allegedly had no air conditioning in ancient Japan) but it took us about three hours to get to the top floor. There was some kind of religious significance to the top floor, and some people had made the pilgrimage in order to ring a small bell and say some kind of prayer. It was only when we reached the bottom again that we noticed that fellow travellers had had their visitor's book stamped with a special seal on the top floor to prove they'd been up to the top. I had never been so hot in all my life, so I vowed to stamp my own book when I got to the nearest Baskin Robbins.

There we go, memory card all cleared. And I'm in the mood to travel again. That might have worn off before we even finish in Galway. That's quite far enough from here.

This is my journal. Those of you who know me will be aware that I am a theatre composer and have recently written and co-created a water-based production of the Hans Christian Anderson classic "The Little Mermaid". The show has just finished an acclaimed tour of my native Northern Ireland and is about to head off round the world ... and I get to go along for the ride!

So, with a busy year of travelling ahead, I've decided to record the adventure for posterity - and by way of keeping in touch with all my loved ones at home. The show re-opens at Galway Arts Festival from 13th July before we head off to Taiwan from 21st July. We visit the Little Mermaid's home country of Denmark for a three week tour from 21st August, although I leave the show there to take a holiday in the States from 5th - 20th September. By the time I get back to Ireland the show should already have played at the Dublin Fringe Festival and I rejoin the company for a tour in China from 1st October!

There are more international dates to be announced, so I shall keep this journal up to date with news as I get it. I hope the journal will let all of you know what the company is up to and how the show is going - and I'll try to give you a little flavour of the many interesting places to which we are being sent. If I can get the world's PCs to co-operate with me, I'll even post some pics! And do say hello - it will make me feel like I'm at home.

To end this, my first posting, here are some production shots from the show that is taking me round the world - and you can get more information on "The Little Mermaid" on my web site at www.pbmusicals.com, including a Trailer for the show in the Downloads section.