I’ve long suspected that I secretly have travel ninja skills. That’s how I managed to end up with a personal patch of sunshine in New Zealand, for instance, or get free money from Air France, or find a flight home from Morocco in the middle of a volcanic eruption that shut down airspace over half of Europe.
Well, thanks to my friend Sam, I now have my very own miniature travel ninja.
His name is Watarimono, which I’m told means “wanderer”, “adventurer” or “explorer” in Japanese.
So far, Watarimono seems to be the perfect travel companion. He’s quiet and stealthy, as ninjas tend to be. He takes up very little space in my bag. And he even has his own bed.
He seems to quite like cheesecake, ice cream and earl grey tea.
Watarimono is going to be accompanying me on my trip. I expect that he’ll make himself useful by finding me ways to pull off awesome travel ninja feats, like finding me the last seat on a full train, scoring me free upgrades, or allowing me to squeeze just one more sight into a packed day.
Or maybe he’ll just amuse himself by jumping into all my photos.