The Circle Of Life

Once again, I’ve found myself back in Japan – I just can’t seem to stay away! A couple of months ago, I managed to find cheap tickets on Jetstar – only $300 for the Cairns to Tokyo flight. But… wait for it… this was for business class. Done! Flight was booked, I just had to survive exams and find a return flight! Exams were survived, finding a rerun flight was not so easy -the limiting factor was that I had to return for the family Christmas, pushing flights up to over $1500 one way from Japan. And so a plan was born – Melbourne – Cairns – Tokyo – Fukuoka – Osaka – Taipei – Singapore (bus) KL – Melbourne!

The short amount of time that I spent at a Cairns hostel reminded me why I love backpacking in other countries, but not so much in Australia. It certainly was very bare bones, but couldn’t be bet for the location. I had a wonderful short stay in Cairns regardless, spending all my time on the reef – cruise out there, a play at scuba diving, snorkeling and then a helicopter flight back to Cairns. Highly recommended.

Over the years, I’ve been to Tokyo twice – the first time although I had a great night out on the town, I spent the rest of my time hung over, and the second time the airlines had lost my luggage and I was stuck in Tokyo with just the clothes on my back in the middle of a humid, hot summer. Not great memories.

This time, I had a trump card – The Lion King was playing, and I was going. I rocked up to my hostel late at night to find my pre-order SIM card had already arrived. After a few teething issues, I managed to get it going, and the next morning I borrowed a bike and set out for theatre. And went completely the wrong way, ending up near the Emporers Palace and in amongst the embassy’s. What should have taken 1 hour managed to take me closer to 4 hours! And having not ridden a bike for over 3 years, I’m really feeling it now! The Lion King was just as good as it was in Melbourne – truly amazing. The costumes, the set, the singing, all of it was すばらしい. I managed to sit next to a small girl, who was quite impressed with (or at least not upset by) my humming and the small amount of Japanese songs I was able to partially sing!

Over 10 years ago, Asako came to Australia as an exchange student and stayed with us for some time. One of my aims on this visit to Japan was to catch up with her – not only has she gotten married, she’s also had a baby! So we planned to do a day of sightseeing around Tokyo with her husband Hirosuke and baby Seigo. First stop was the newly restored Tokyo Station. I arrived before Asako, and was suprised by the amount of Japanese people milling around taking photos of the admittedly beautiful station. It wasn’t until Asako & Hirosuke arrived and explained that it had only recently been completed that it made sense!

After Tokyo station we headed to Asakusa Sensouji (Asakusa Temple – often referred to as “jinja”, but this isn’t right!). Hirosuke explained to me that even amongst Japanese people, it can be difficult to differentiate between shrine (Shinto – Jinja) and temple (Buddhist – Otera). One way of telling is the presence of a smoking barrel (temple) or purifying water (shrine). He also explained thati red “tori” (gates) are found at shrines, but pagodas are found at temples. And at shrines you often clap before praying, whilst prayers are silent in temples. All so confusing! Basically, when in Japan (or any other country!) I look to see what the locals are doing, and follow their lead!

The road to the temple is lined with lots of little shops selling a wide range of souvineers. We stopped for some fresh zaiten manju – red been paste inside a small cake, yum! Seigo is still not sure of me!

After our temple visit, it was time to take a glance at the skyline. Here is Asako, Hirosuke and Seigo in front of the Asahi beer buildings. Notice the golden coloured building in the background, with the grey “frothy head” on top? We so need one of the buildings in Melbourne! Also pictured is the Asahi flame, said to represent the “burning heart of Asahi beer”, but colloquially referred to as “the golden turd” by many locals. Hmmm.

Lunch was the famous Asakusa tendons for us, and udon noodles for Seigo – who really got into it!

As it started raining, we jumped in a taxi and headed to the Tokyo Edo Museum. Perfect for a rainy day (or even for a super hot day I would imagine), the museum is well laid out and quiet. Plenty to see and learn – so much information about the history of the people and samurai of Japan. Here are Hirosuke and Seigo doing their best to carry me in the traditional viewing box.

Next stop was a Tokyo cruise, on the Himiko ship. Designed by Leiji Matsumoto, one of the best renowned Japanese cartoonists (think anime), it’s futuristic and a bit out of this world. From here we were able to see much of Tokyo from the waterways, including the Tsukiji Fish markets and Rainbow Bridge. We also saw the theatre that I rode my bike to the day before. I also managed to wear Seigo down, and get a bit of a cuddle!

After getting off the boat, we ended up at a shopping centre created mainly for “yummy mummies” and young people. This is the front of ANA’s “kidzania” – a kids play centre (think Crocs or Lollypops). It’s a little different however, kids that enter this world will be enrolled into “careers” – they will become firefighters, nurses, shop keepers and more. It’s basically role play for kids, where kids will even earn a salary that can in turn be used to buy small presents for mum. Can’t wait till Seigo is old enough to go here and I can tag along!

And finally it was time for yakiniku (Japanese style Korean barbeque) for dinner. We had a wide range of meats and vegetables, all grilled on the table in front of us. Poor Asako didn’t get much at all – she was too busy keeping Seigo fed.

After saying goodbye to Asako, Hirosuke and Seigo, I realised that I was only a few stops from “Gyoza World” – a mysterious and magical place said to contain thousands of styles of gyoza (dumplings). So even though I was absolutely full from our delicious yakiniku dinner, I stopped by to see what it was about. And I wasn’t disappointed – dumpling shop upon dumpling shop for as far as you can see. I managed to nibble on some cheese dumplings (yum!) – next time I need to head back with a few people and an empty stomach!!

And that’s the end of my time in Tokyo. I’m currently sitting in the airport, awaiting my flight to Fukuoka, to visit with my host families from when I was a high school exchange student (12 years ago!!)

Being bitten by underwater ‘mosquitoes’

Asia ~ Thailand ~ Krabi ~ Koh Lanta

Welcome to warm weather! I love Thailand! Finally I am no longer shivering from the cold Beijing winter (although it is a little chilly in some of the air-conditioned rooms). After a early early morning, I arrived at the new Bangkok Airport to meet my mum and Matt. The new airport is nice enough, although the walk from the where you get off the plane through to where you pick up your luggage is a little long… Never mind, met up with my fellow travelers and we caught up over Thai curry, before catching our flight to Krabi. Krabi was just a pit stop where we stayed the night before heading over to the ultimate destination – Lanta Island.

At the last minute, mum and I managed to find a beautiful resort area on the bottom end of Lanta, and it is there that we stayed for a couple of blissful days. On our first full day, Matt and I spent the day snorkeling at Koh Raa – beautiful. Of course, it wasn’t without drama – we caught a long boat to the diving boat, and after boarding the diving boat we found out that the engine was playing up. Never fear – the diving group had another big boat, which they quickly pulled up beside us. A little too quickly, as it turned out, because, as the boat was coming in along-side us, they hit the boat, causing all the oxygen tanks behind me to spill out onto the deck, knocking us over. Thankfully I’m a quick mover – I copped the brunt of it, but only managed to get a tank on my little toe. The snorkeling itself was awesome – we saw a heap of different beautiful fish, as well as a sea snake and a tortoise. We also spotted (and got ‘bitten’ by) a huge number of small jellyfish (‘mosquitoes’), which kept us scurrying out of their way.

The beach that we caught the boat from to go snorkeling

Whilst on Koh Lanta, we decided to hire motorbikes to scoot around. Our first attempt wasn’t so successful – they only had one spare bike, so we decided it’d be fine, we could ride with two people… Turns out we were wrong. First time on a bike, first time trying to balance on a bike – not particularly easy with two people. Fortunately, Matt chose the better option – he crashed the bike instead of taking us head first down a 50meter cliff into the sea… The next day we were able to hire a bike each (even mum!) and we headed off into the sunset on our bikes…

Matt & I on my bike

All of a sudden, it was time to leave. Unfortunately, our bikes had to be returned before we caught the bus to the airport – the bus was to pick us up at 6am, so it was with weary eyes (we went out to a funky outdoor club the night before) that we dragged ourselves out of bed at 4.30am… And proceeded to ride our bikes at a very slow speed into town (for we had just realised that we were dangerously close to running out of petrol – oops). As soon as we could see we were going to make it, we sped the last km and made it in time – phew!

And now I’m ready (I think) for the craziness of Bangkok – bring it on!

xoxo bobs

Phi Phi Islands

Asia ~ Thailand ~ Phi Phi Island

Well well well, another day another adventure. Tash and I are just about to leave Phi Phi Island, its been like a dream. After spending two nights on trains we ended up in Phuket (Southern Thailand). The trains weren’t tooo bad, the first one was a sleeper train, we had beds and everything. The second one, however, didn’t have any sleepers left (we didn’t book early enough), so we ended up on seats for a 13 hour train trip. Ugh. Oh yeh, while we were in Bangkok, on our way down here, I had my hair plaited. Blonde and Purple, almost down to my waist. Very different, have got quite a few comments.

Anyway… Phuket was different, we spent the time on Karon Beach, there was no evidence of the Tsunami there. People were really nice, but obviously hurting, it was so quiet, no tourists anywhere. Meanwhile, we managed to find a mexican resturant that sold jugs of mararitas for about $4. mmm. Tash and I have got quite accustomed to the local drinks, the beer (Singha is the best) and the cocktails (mmm Mai Tai is awesome). But dont drink the whiskey….

We also went and visited Katong beach, the destruction there was obvious. All the resturants along the main beach had been wiped out, but were well on the way to being re-built. Construction was happening all around and people were really happy to see tourists starting to visit again. When we were there, they were having a bit of a celebration, to get the tourists through, so we sat on the beach for a while, having dinner and drinks.

The next day we set off for the Phi Phi Islands. Ferry across was uneventful, after watching a horror movie on giant squid we kept our eyes open though… Arrival at Phi Phi Don (the larger of the islands) was, well, theres no way to describe it. The tsunami had really hit here. The main beach, which used to be a collection of beautiful beach huts, stores, resturants and bars was just sand, dirt and corrugated iron. Some of the stores were being propped up by who knows what, others were tumbling into the sea. On our way through town to our hotel, we could see that basically everything had been wiped away. Surprisingly, here and there were places that apeared not to have been touched at all. Scary.

Eventually we made it to our resort, which only survived because it is on a hill, the waters didn’t reach it. It used to have a bridge crossing the canal in front of it, but that was washed away. In its place stands three planks that we had to wobble across (with our huge, heavy packs!!!) to get to the resort. Tsunami aside, the island is absolutley beautiful. The beaches are white sand, the water is the prettiest blue you’ve ever seen. We spent four days on Phi Phi Don, with a visit to Phi Phi Lei. Phi Phi Lei is where the movie “The Beach’ was shot. We visited Maya Bay and did some snorkelling, there were fish everywhere. They all loved trying to nibble on my hair – i guess the purple and blonde is a *BIT* strange… Back on Phi Phi Island we went to a beach party on of the nights, where songs were sung and people were auctioned off for charity… All proceeds were going to helping the people re-build, so everyone was quite happy to drink up! We also had fire twirling, which was quite awesome. Met quite a few foreigners from around the world. I must admit though, Australians are definetly the loudest drinkers, that and the Irish, Tash and I pretended we werent aussie… Theres only so many times you can hear ‘Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie Oy Oy Oy’ in one night. There are about 100, maybe 150 people staying on the Island as far as I could see, an Island that used to have thousands visiting it, if anyone wants to take a holiday, I suggest Phi Phi, they definetly need the tourists, and its a beautiful place.

If you guys could see where I’m sitting to type ths email, its like paradise. I’m sitting on one of the decks at the resort, overlooking the bay, palm trees swinging in the breeze… Mmmm… Hope you’re all having a great time at home, next time I write, I’ll be in India, can’t wait, Indian food yum.

xoxo Bobs

ps Met some guys from England yesterday, they’re leaving for home today, its -4 Celcius over there right now, ugh! By the time we get there, it had better be warmer!!!