Week in Japan so far

Well I have now had a week in Japan, and am sitting at the laptop probably unwisely while writing this during a tunderstorm.

Last Saturday I went out during the day with my Sister, and then went to a festival in the evening with my brother's sister-in-law Mariko. It was spectacular, and throughly enjoyable, even with it raining all night and having to stand up for 3 hours to watch it.

On Sunday we had Yukiko's birthdya party (my Sis-in-Law) at her parents place, this was fun and good to catch up with the Otsuka's again.

Monday I decided to take a 10.5 hr tain trip up to Morioka (7 different trains from Ueno station - 9 from my bro's place). Finally arrived at just after 10pm.

Tuesday I wanderered around Morioka to see the sights that the city had to offer - not much really, and had completed it after about 5 hr's including walking 15km's and stopping for lunch. Nice city though, just lacking on things to do.
As a result of finishing the city so soon, I ended up back at the hotel room and read my book, this also unfortunately mean that I finished my book.

Wednesday I travelled another 11 hrs to get back to Tokyo, unfortunately since I had finished my book all I had to do was listen to music and look out the window and doze occasionally - this made for a very very very long day and trip. I also didn't get back home until about 13 hrs after I left the hotel room because of transfer waiting times etc.

Thursday was Yukiko's birthday and we went to Costco and the outlets stores for some shopping - finally can now say that I have been to and into a Costco store.

Friday (today) I met up with Vanessa again and we went to Shibuya for the day, had lunch and looked around the area.

The last week here has been full of rain and thunder/lightning storms. Last night I was woken up at about 4am but some massive claps of thunder - very cool though, however also means that I will most likely not be able to get to Mt Fuji and climb it this time around because of all that has been happening with the rain etc.

Oh well these things happen and Mt Fuji will just have to wait until the next visit.

To Hong Kong and Tokyo

Was sitting in my bed in HK unable to sleep when I wrote this entry.

Had a good flight from Adelaide to Melbourne and onto HK. Was seated next to a nice young girl on here way to England for a study exchange program for 6 months. We hit it off fairly quickly in regards to being able to talk to each other without any issues, and ended up having a good few conversations with each other all the way to HK between movies and sleep.

Unfortunately she got motion sickness on the way, but luckily for her she ended up with a number of good people around her and nice air-hostesses that were willing to help her out to make sure she was ok, which she was grateful for.

Only ended up watching 1 movie on the flight to HK and 1 TV program as there wasn’t much I wanted to see and it was the old just run and watch it as it happens system not the new on-demand system. So I ended up reading most of the way will a very little and light snooze thrown in.

Arrived into HK on time and eventually caught the airport bus to my hotel. I love HK airport for it’s efficiency and being able to get through Customs in next to no time.

On Tuesday I left the hotel and caught the train out to see the Big Budda. You have to catch a cable car or bus out there once you get the Lantau Island. I caught the Cable car up was a nice and relatively smooth ride with a great view, and the bus back down. The Big Budda was big, and busy and 250 steps up the hill. Apparently it was a special day, which meant that the cost of the cable car was slightly more than normal – but the bus on the way down wasn’t any dearer than normal, so I go figure.

From there I have now arrived into Japan, on a flight which was hit by a reasonable amount of turbulence, but was overall good. Was greeted into Japan with a thunderstorm, which was nice as I love thunderstorms. Had a nice first day here, spending time with my Bro, Sis-in-law and nephew.

Off to England

To anyone who has been looking lately I have not posted anything for a while, mainly due to that fact hat I have been just back in Adelaide doing what I use to do.

Now however I am off again over to England to do a Working Holiday for a couple of years there. On the way I am calling past Hong Kong, Japan to visit my Bro & his family and Sis. Then from there onto Vancouver and Seattle to visit friends, then New York and Toronto to visit the cities and a friend over there...then finally in 5 1/2 weeks I'll land in England to continue the o/s working experiece I began last year in Canada.

I am looking forward to it, but to travel with currently 2 big bags for 5 weeks is going to be an interesting experience. I'll try to keep this more up to date while I am away again and my Flickr page will be updated with all the latest photos of the places I have been to see.

Over all it should be an interest experience visiting the mother country and making my way again in a strange and new country.