Nothing to see here

A cable car looms out of the mist

As I mentioned previously, the Japanese are justifiably proud of their transport system. Once you can work out where you want to go, the journey is always accurate and on time. You just have to look at a station platform to see the pleasure Japanese take from the sheer act of travelling (I mean day trippers here - commuters in Japan are like commuters pretty much everywhere). Lined up at the appropriate spot for their seat allocation, clutching bento boxes and weak cold tea drinks, the respect they have for their transit systems is in marked contrast to those of UK travellers - they really have a sense of pride in their railways, for instance. As a result, the journey can seem as enjoyable as reaching the destination - they really are great travellers. With this in mind, Japanese transport companies (and there are many) have come up with special ways for their customers to travel. Things like super executive coaches cruise the roads, 'Romance Cars' give lucky passengers a driver's-eye view of the railway, and there are special circular routes that give views of a large natural attraction (like Mount Fuji) from a number of different forms of transport.

Dad doing a crossword on the cloudy cable car

The last one of those is one that we indulged in. We bought a 'Hakone Free Pass' - which despite the name cost Y5,500 (GBP27). This gave us unlimited hop on-hop off use of eight different kinds of public transport running in a circular loop near Mount Fuji, that took a whopping 11hrs to complete. We started at Shinjuku, and spent two hours on a rattling commuter train to the small town of Hakone-Yumoto. The actual Hakone loop started there, so really the ride from Shinjuku was an extra (if you like commuter trains). At Hakone-Yumoto we changed to the Tozan train - a steep three-carriaged tram that rumbled slowly up the hill. Apparently this stage of the journey was full of wonderful forest and mountain views - but the whole vista was hidden in a thick layer of grey cloud, so we couldn't see anything apart from a few trees. At Gora we changed again onto what the Japanese call a cable-car, but we would call a funicular railway. This took 9mins to ascend the hill, where we got on a ropeway (cable car) for thirty minutes. That's a long time to spend on a cable car - but halfway along at the high point of the mountain voyage (Owakudani) we had to get onto a smaller cable car and trundle along again.

Waiting in the rain to board the pirate ship

By this time the cloud had become all-enveloping, so we sailed through a cloud that was grey in every direction, like being inside a dull bubble - with no idea of the views we were missing. Actually that's not strictly true, as at every stop we saw magnificent posters of the very same cable car cruising past picture-postcard views of Mount Fuji, and Alpine-esque views. We had to be content with seeing Fuji-san this way, as we could have been pulled along within inches and not seen it. At the end of the cable-car section we transferred onto - of course - a pirate ship, and set off on a jaunty 30min cruise down Lake Ashi - again, shrouded in cloud and rain. Still, it was a pirate ship, at least. At the end of the Lake was a bus waiting to transfer us back to Hakone-Yumoto and the 'Romance Car'.

The Odakyu 'Romance Car'

Yes, the thought of another two hours in the commuter train gave us the idea of upgrading to the 'Romance Car' and zipping back to Shinjuku in style. I'm still not exactly sure what is romantic about it - but the driver sits upstairs at the front in a Boeing 747-esque cockpit, leaving the front of the train un-obscured for the passengers lucky enough to be sitting in the glass-enclosed nosecone. Amazingly, we were some of those lucky people, and spent a fun hour and a half looking out of the front and imagining what it would be like to drive. This is the appeal for the Japanese, of course - and helps explain why train-driving simulations are one of the most popular computer games series here. It goes back to that love of travel - it's the same reason why train staff are immaculately presented and have a genuine pride in what they do. When the system runs that well, it's only natural for the people that use it to enjoy it also - no matter where they go. That rubbed off on us, too. For although we essentially spent 11hrs on a moving conveyor belt and saw next to nothing of what we came to see - we still enjoyed it. It was because the Japanese were enjoying it, they came for the ride as much as the views - and who were we to disagree?

Playing together in the sea

Manta Ray at Kaiyukan

The tagline for Kaiyukan - Osaka`s Aquarium - is that visitors can 'enjoy the animals as if they are playing together in the sea'. Well, I`ve been to many aquaria in my time, and never felt that about any of them. Although many of the exhibits at Kaiyukan were good, I only felt like jumping in because of the masses of schoolchildren around. It seemed like every school in the Kansai had planned an outing. Now I`m all for kids learning about marine life - it's how I started after all - but when each tank has three rows of kids in front of it you lose enthusiasm pretty quickly. Instead of lots of small-sized tanks with many species, Kaiyukan has gone for the large tank = big impact method. Some really are incredible - the central tank is a whopping 9m deep (30ft) and houses, amongst other things, a whale shark. Roughly 15ft long, the poor thing cruises round in a circle followed by an ever present flotilla of smaller fish.

The Japanese Giant Spider crab

The aquarium also had about a dozen dolphins in a tank, two 5ft long Aleutian Sea Otters, three species of penguins in a special Antarctic chamber (with real snow falling), and all the other usual aquarium suspects. My favourite - and if you know me this won't come as any surprise - were the deep sea crabs. Not just any crabs either, but Giant Spider Crabs - the first time I've ever seen them alive. Most had hand-sized bodies and spinldy legs a few feet long, but there was one monster the size of a bsaketball that had legs as thick as my forearms. Goodness only knows how old it was. They moved around really slowly, as if in slow motion, and the tank was perfectly lit to give them a ghostly, alien appearance. This one tank made up for all the razed schoolkids before - it was incredible.

Hikari Rail Star Shinkansen - a thing of beauty

Later that day we left Osaka and headed for Tokyo. One incident that happened to us serves as a useful example of the Japanese pride in customer service and willingness to help. We used an automatic ticket machine to buy a one-day subway pass - but when we tried to use it the inspector at the ticket barrier looked at his watch and took them off us. The last time something like that happened to me, it was on the Budapest metro and I was fined for having an invalid ticket - so when he marched us off to the 'Station Master`s Office'I was wondering what was going on. Inside were a number of officials, and one took the tickets, opened up what looked like a petty cash box, and counted out what we had paid for them - which he then gave to us. He put on a peaked hat, and motioned for us to follow him outside, so we did. It turned out that we had paid too much for our tickets - on Fridays a special offer meant they were Y200 cheaper. The ticket guard had noticed this, realised it was Friday, and asked the station master to get us the discounted tickets to which we were entitled to. He led us to the ticket machines, and took the correct money. pushing the buttons and giving us the tickets. All this because we had inadvertantly paid Y400 (GBP2) too much for our subway passes. Would this help have been given anywhere else? Somehow I doubt it.

From old to new

Miyajima from the ferry, with red torii visible

I opened the blinds of our ryokan this morning, to the sight of three foxes sitting in the grounds of the temple over the road. Black and brown - instead of the European red and white - foxes in Japan are seen as sacred, but are also believed to be able to posess people by entering them under their fingernails. At any rate, presumably they had free run of the temples on Miyajima - as do deer and monkeys - although we didn't see any of the latter. I enjoyed staying on Miyajima - at the risk of descending into travelogue cliche it was good to see a bit of the 'real Japan'. As our ferry cruised slowly across to the mainland, our departure signified the end of our week-long stay in ryokans, and back to hotels.

Osaka Castle

Not that I was complaining - I'm used to $20 hostels with one shared shower for 25 people, so to stay at places like the SwissOtel Osaka was a real pleasure. Staff were still incredibly subservient, but instead of a couple of kimono-clad old ladies there were dozens of attentive Japanese in white gloves and uniforms. Our 22nd floor room looked out over the expanse of concrete and neon that was Osaka. We visited the castle, Osaka-jo, a concrete reconstruction of one of the great Shogun-era fortresses. The displays inside were wonderful, and did a great job of getting across how central the castle was to the many battles of the time. Designed to be impregnable, it lasted for only 32yrs until 155,000 samurai destroyed it, under the command of that man again - Tokugawa Ieyasu. There were a few handwritten letters by him, signed in 1615, the year of the 'Spring Battle' of Osaka.

The Ebisubashi area of Osaka at night

In the evening we wandered around the futuristic Minami (South) area of the city. We ate Okonomiyaki, sometimes referred to as 'Japanese pizza', cooked on a grill plate in front of us by two chefs. We were the only people in the restaurant, and it was really good food. Afterwards I had a walk around the Dotonbori nightlife district, which was a rampant culture-shock compared to the previous night`s solitude on peaceful Miyajima. Dotonbori is all neon, flashy shops, pachinko parlours and gaming arcades. Famed for the large neon signs and gaudy atmosphere, the best example is the crab restaurant Kani Doraku - to advertise it's wares there is a 20ft high mechanical spider crab above the entrance - and tanks of the unfortunate crustaceans with short futures just underneath.

I like Osaka - it felt like a city that hadn't become touristy or Westernised. Of course there were Western restaurants and shops, but it felt different to Tokyo (although I love both). I went int oa few gaming arcades, which all seemed to follow the same general pattern. On the ground floor were those fairground machines where you have to manouever a wonky grapple arm to pick up a prize - only they were completely modern and there were dozens of them. The prizes were still cheerfully crap though - toys, action figures, packs of baseball cards. I've yet to see one with a better prize than the one I saw at Portobello in Edinburgh with packs of 20 Benson and Hedges wrapped with a five pound note. Mind you, I'm guessing each place knows it's target audience.

Upstairs were smoky gambling areas, mostly electronic horse-racing simulators. Tired-looking men were sitting there using the touch-screen monitors to place money on the outcome of a computer game. In the basement level the entertainment was strictly for girls - everything was pink and there were photo booths everywhere. Apparently the thing for teenage Japanese girls to do, these booths (roughly twice the size of passport photo booths) served a similar purpose, only less functional. Each had a choice of funky backdrops, and mirrors galore. I'm not exactly sure what happens inside the curtain, but looking at examples on the outside the girls essentially make themselves up and take pictures of each other. Judging by the crowds, it seems incredibly popular.

The giant crab at Kani Doraku

The final nightlife aspect I looked at but didn't sample was pachinko. Not because I didn't fancy it or wasn`t looking glamorous enough, but because I hadn`t a clue what was going on. Pachinko is played by feeding steel ball bearings into the top of an eletcric machine, and collecting any that make it to the bottom. The more balls you get, the bigger your prize. The parlour I went in was an amazing assault - massive, loud, utterly confusing. Rows of these plastic machines stretched off in every direction, with people mutely watching their balls drop, as it were. I recognised the dead-eyed stares of serial addicts from my visit to Las Vegas. The noise was incredible - the metallic clattering of countless balls was deafening, but it was almost drowned out by the electronic jingles each machine produced. Coupled with loud J-Pop muzak, and the whole experience was amazing. I just wish I could have had a go - I sat down at a machine, but the instructions were all in Japanese and none of the numerous slots were taking my coins. Still, it was good just to take it all in, and if I wanted to end on another travelogue cliche I could say that it summed up Japan quite well - being a baffling assault to the senses, yet interesting and compelling - but I don't, so I won't.

Hiroshima

The A-Bomb Dome, Hiroshima

I don`t think it`s possible to enjoy a trip to Hiroshima, unless you deliberately avoid any atomic-bomb related sites. You could just treat it as a vibrant, busy city and spend time in the shops, parks and galleries. But, of course, sadly Hiroshima is far more than that. As long as we have a recorded history the city will be associated with one awful moment on the 6th August, 1945. At 8:30am an American bomber dropped the first nuclear weapon ever used in wartime, aiming for the distinctive T-shaped Aioi-bashi bridge in the west of the city. They only just missed - the bomb detonated a few hundred metres to the south-west, at about 500m off the ground. Directly underneath was the three-story Industrial Promotion Hall, a lrage domed building by the river. Everyone inside was incinerated immediately, but the ruined structure somehow survived. Renamed the A-Bomb Dome, it was left as it was to remind people of the destruction of the attack. It was our first port of call, and a sobering introduction considering what was to come.

The memorial to Sadako

Over the river is Peace Memorial Park - a once-busy residential area on a triangular island. Almost totally obliterated in the fireball, today it is full of trees and memorials to the people that died there. 25,000 Korean POW`s were imprisoned near the river when the bomb exploded. They were all killed, and there is a memorial to them - only recently relocated from an out of the way location. We saw children praying to the memorial to Sadako - a 10yr old girl who survived the blast only to develop leukaemia. She started folding paper cranes in the belief that if she folded 1000, she would be cured (the crane being the symbol of longevity). She died before she could complete them, but her classmates folded the rest for her.

Model of the size of the Hiroshima atomic fireball

Children were everywhere in Hiroshima. Like Miyajima the day before, there were hordes of kids in matching uniforms all being marched around by teachers. Inside the Peace Memorial Museum they were everywhere, acting pretty much like kids on school trips anywhere. Of course, this wasn`t anywhere, this was a museum depicting the effects of a nuclear holocaust. It was without doubt the most harrowing thing I`ve ever seen. From the detailed series of meetings taken by Allied leaders to select a bomb site (Churchill wanted to drop one on Germany, but the Americans persuaded him that the risk of the Nazis obtaining the secrets of the bomb if it failed to go off were too great to risk, so Japan was chosen), to the model and photographs of the aftermath, it was just awful. But it`s something that you need to see. Everyone should be made to go there - especially world leaders. The pitiful sight of scraps of blackened clothing next to photographs of real children were too much for me. Stories of kids setting out for school on a normal day only to be atomised without warning are bad enough - but when there are photos of those young children with a solitary belt buckle or charred tricycle it becomes too much. But it really does its job - it convinces you (if you needed any convincing) how awful nuclear weapons are, and how awful war is. I just wished the schoolkids who were there had paid more attention - but then the thought of being caught up in that horrific scenario is as remote for them as it would have been to those children setting out for school on the 6th of August, 1945.

To the island

Your author in the ryokan, Kyoto

Our longest stay in one place came to an end after five nights in the ryokan in Kyoto. After one last trip up and down the eleven sets of escalators at the jaw-dropping station it was back on the Shinkansen and off to Hiroshima. Tokyo is a great city, but Kyoto seems more like a typical Japanese city - at least my perception of what a Japanese city might look like before I came here and saw one. That's not to say I prefer Kyoto - I like them both for different reasons. There's nothing of the action-packed megacity in Kyoto. Slowly walking around the temples, shrines, and narrow backstreets is by far the best way to see it. It`s possible to get a small idea of what Japan used to look like, something that is very hard in Tokyo. It is a wonderful place to explore, and if you only have time for one city in Japan - it has to be Kyoto.

Shinkansen lining up at Shin-Osaka

A mere 15mins from Kyoto is Osaka, where we changed onto another shinkansen heading west towards Hiroshima. The mightily impressive fast trains have their own private track, so can run at super speeds neatly spaced at 10min intervals. The JR Rail Pass we had was incredible value - for the price of one return trip from Tokyo to Kyoto (you really do pay for the premium travel experience), we get unlimited use on all JR trains, shinkansen (apart from the mega-fast Nozomi type) and ferries, for two weeks. All you have to do is flash the passport-sized bit or card and walk through the ticket barriers. I can't recommend them enough.

O-torii at Miyajima at low tide

At Hiroshima we changed to a local train and got off at Miyajima-guchi where a JR-owned ferry to 10mins to cross the short stretch of water to the island of Miyajima. We opted to stay on the island rather than in a hotel in Hiroshima, and it definately paid off. Our ryokan was small and basic - much less than the one we had left in Kyoto - but it reflected the small island perfectly, and had everything we needed. Miyajima is heavily forested, and apparently has excellent walks - although there were notices up that one of the main trails was closed due to a typhoon-caused landslide. The low grey cloud hung on the serrated hilltops, and light rain fell as we made our way through the small town to the main attraction. Originally the entire island was sacred, and commoners who wanted to go there to worship the God of the Sea weren't allowed to set foot on the land. So in 593 the priests built a shrine over the water on a series of linked, covered boardwalks to ensure pilgrims could safely visit without causing trouble for them by touching the land. But how would the boatloads of worshippers be able to pass through a torii gate in order to enter? Well, build a giant torii in the bay, so they could row underneath it as they approached. This was done, and the floating torii of Miyajima became one of the most famous sights in Japan - in fact, it's another of the "Three Great Views".

...and at high tide

It is extremely impressive, standing anchored in the mud about 50m offshore. We managed to see it at both high and low tides - the former being more visually spectacular, but the latter enabling us to walk over the mud right up to it. It really is colossal - 16m high, 10m in circumference (the main pillars). The familiar vermillion colour really　stands out against the sea and mountains. The present torii was built in 1875, and the base of the pillars were surrounded by coins dropped as offerings. The mud was also home to countless small crabs, snails and hermit crabs, which I spent a long time watching scuttle around feeding as they went. Oh - and I also saw a hand-sized giant centipede in a pedestrian underpass, and the world's largest wooden rice scoop (7.7m long, 2.5 tons), so all in all it was a pretty successful day.

That evening in our ryokan we were treated to Kaiseki - a Japanese banquet. Many courses, small amounts, but amazing food. I kept a list of what we ate, so here it is...

1. Small fish fillet, one prawn, small pickles
2. Miso soup with two tiny prawns and fish chunks
3. Sashimi - mackerel, octopus, squid
4. Giant marine snail mixed with avocado served in the shell
5. Cold bacon on ice with a sesame dressing
6. Entire small fish, deep fried
7. Rice and more soup
8. Tea
9. Green tea-flavoured ice cream

The oldest capital

Kofuku-ji temple pagoda peeking over the trees

The second most popular tourist attraction in the Kansai region (after Kyoto) is Nara. In early Japanese history the country had no permanent capital city. With the death of each Emporer the capital was moved accordingly. Only the influence of the new Buddhist religion spurred reforms that led to the establishment of the first permanent capital in 710 - and the place they chose was Nara. However, only 75yrs later a lowly priest managed to seduce the Empress, so it was decided to move the capital again - to put the female royals out of reach of the randy clergy. So Nara lost out to Kyoto, which became the seat of power until Tokugawa Ieyasu moved it to Edo, as I mentioned previously.

Kazuko and me at Kofuku-ji

In Nara we hired a volunteer 'Goodwill Guide' - members of the tourist information service that act as free guides for tourists. Ours was a kindly middle-aged lady called Kazuko, whom we had arranged to meet at the station. She spoke excellent English, and it turned out had visited the UK twice so she could specifically go to Edinburgh - albeit because she was a mad-keen fan of Harry Potter, and wanted to see where they were written. I tried to be as polite as possible about this - I can't stand that bloody wizard. Still, she knew a reasonable amount about Edinburgh so we talked about that for a while.

Nara's main historic sights (and there are plenty) are located in a large park at the foot of a hill. Having Kazuko with us was great, as she explained in detail about everything we saw. The hill, Wakakusa-yama, is ceremonially burned every January to purify the soil - but Kazuko also said it was so the monks can`t hide up in the bushes and indulge in 'unholy deeds'. It seems their reputation has remained over the centuries. The park is home to over a thousand deer - thought to be the messengers of the Gods and therefore devine. They wander around nonchalantly eating leaves and chasing tourists foolish enough to buy 'deer crackers' for Y100.

Todai-ji - the largest wooden building in the world

We walked through the Kofuku-ji temple enclosure, most of which had been destroyed by fire over the years - but there was one remaining small, dark wooden building dating from the 8th Century. At the other end of the scale, size-wise, is the astonishing Todai-ji - the largest wooden building in the world. The current one, built in 1709, is actually one-third smaller than it used to be. It`s hard to get across the sheer scale of the place - it was just incredible. Inside is one of the largest bronze statues in the world, the Great Buddha - or Daibutsu. Kazuko explained all about the history and religious meanings behind the statue which was 16m high and weighed almost 450 tons. To one side of the statue is a small hole in one of the massive wooden supporting pillars. Apparently the same scale as one of the Buddha`s nostrils, if you can fit through you will achieve true enlightenment. Predictably, it was the kids who were going for it - I didn`t fancy my chances. I guess I`ll have to become enlightened by some other means.

Nigatsu-do, and the flaming balcony

We finished the walk by stopping at a large, blackened, two-story building called Nigatsu-do (February's Hall). Every March (not February), the monks go through an initiation process where they carry enormous flaming torches around the city. These things are the size of small trees, and are hauled from Todai-ji to Nigatsu-do. Here they climb up to the balcony (causing the roof of the wooden staircase to blacken) and wave the burning torches off the verandah. Apparently firemen are on hand - but incredibly people gather underneath the temple and wait for the flames - if you get dripped on by embers you'll have good health for the rest of the year, although probably not immediately. I asked Kazuko if the temple had ever caught fire as a result. "Oh yes," she replied cheerfully. "But they rebuilt it, of course".

The Bridge to Heaven

Amanohashidate - the bridge to heaven

The Japanese are fond of compiling lists of their most highly-prized national assets. Helpfully written as a series of top-threes, there are the three greatest castles, gardens, moon-viewing locations, Hello Kitty theme parks, etc - and sights. Being fond of the odd sight I managed to fit two of the three 'Great Sights of Japan' into the trip, and the first of those we visited today. The town of Amanohashidate is a two-hour train ride north of Kyoto. This was good in itself, as it allowed us to see rural and coastal areas of Japan we would normally blast through on the Shinkansen. The actual town of Amanohashidate (which I discovered has the same telephone dialling code as my hometown in the UK) is divided into two parts, almost 4km away, on opposing sides of a coastal bay. What splits the halves is what people come to look at - and in an unusual way (but more of that later).

The town`s name means 'The Bridge to Heaven', and the connection between the halves is the bridge - a long, narrow sand spit covered with almost 10,000 pine trees. Unfortunately we arrived in the rain, and walked through the soggy streets to the start of the sand spit. Looking at the shops on either side of the road, the main industry appeared to be drying seafood - every one had a rack of flattened, crispy squid and fish. One had a large, translucent, octopus dangling from a coathanger, swinging around in the breeze looking more like an octopus-shaped kite than the real thing.

Ice-cream or squid on a stick? Tough choice...

It took about 45mins to cross the sand spit, walking along a gravel path that ran up the centre. The rain eased the further along we got - but the people didn`t. There was some kind of sponsored walk going on, so we walked against a continual flood of people all the way. Either side of the bridge boats cruised up and down, ferrying people around who wanted a more direct route. They docked at the far end of the spit, in front of the Kono Shrine. It seemed to be a shrine that worshipped turtles, as several of them were sitting in a watery pit at the main entrance. At the other end of the shrine enclosure were more dried squid shops and a funicular railway to a viewing platform at Kasamatsu Park. We rode to the top - sadly the individual seat chairlift was out of action. The view at the top was well worth the effort - and by this time the rain had stopped.

Dad looking at the Bridge in the proper way

The sand spit cuts across the bay on a diagonal, and although the surrounding hills were obscured by cloud, we could see the whole thing. The correct way to view the Bridge to Heaven is 'Mata-nozoki' - by turning around, bending over, and looking at it between your legs. If you do this the spit is supposed to resemble a bridge climbing the sky to heaven. Well, to me it looked just the same, only upside-down. The blood rushing to your head might be a clue as to why some people think that it looks like a bridge to heaven, but I really couldn`t see it. It was great fun though, and good to see everyone having a go, young and old. After descending the funicular we got a boat across the water and caught a train back to Kyoto.

The flashy and the simple

The Golden Temple of Kinkaku-ji

It seems that the desire to outdo your neighbour is a pretty universal thing. Whether it's buying a fancier car, having an extension built, or covering your temple with gold, getting that edge over your rivals is something that is sought the world over. When Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu planned a retirement villa in 1397, gold was the obvious choice for an outside colour scheme. Constructed on a reflecting lake, the Golden Temple of Kinkaku-ji is one of Japan's best-known sights. As expected, everything in the temple grounds is simply yet perfectly arranged, to maximise the visual impact. The care taken with these historic sights is wonderfully obsessive - at every temple or shrine we've seen countless gardeners, crowd directors, cleaners, and ticket inspectors. What we often can`t find are information guides - my Lonely Planet devotes two paragraphs to Kinkaku-ji, and there were no English maps available so we were reduced to wandering around guessing as to what it all meant, which was sad as the temple was breath-taking. The one piece of information I did find out was that the current temple above was built only in 1955 - a monk so obsessed with it's beauty burned it to the ground in 1950, presumably to stop others from looking at it.

The Zen rock garden at Ryoan-ji

The frustrations that we felt at Kinkaku-ji are universal at Ryoan-ji. The highlight of this Zen temple (founded in 1450) is the garden. Not just a regular garden, Ryoan-ji has the quintessential Buddhist rock and gravel garden. About the size of half a tennis court, the garden consists of 15 rocks adrift in a sea of carefully-raked gravel. The Japanese don't know what it means, as the designer - who remains unknown - never explained what the meaning was. One thing that is apparent is that no matter where you stand, you can't see all 15 rocks - at least one is always hidden.

Detail of a wall at Nijo Castle

The next stop for me was Nijo Castle. I'd wanted to look at a non-religious old building - and Nijo-jo was constructed in 1603 by one of the most infamous of all Shoguns - Tokugawa Ieyasu. Tokugawa came to power in 1600 and moved the capital to Edo (present-day Tokyo). He introduced a strict regime, took control of ports, mines and cities, and closed the entire country to foreigners. For the next 268yrs Japan developed in complete isolation. Any Japanese who ventured abraod were executed immediately if they returned.

Obviously being an important figure Tokugawa had his enemies. He met rival warlords at Nijo Castle in specially-designed rooms. You can walk around (but not inside) these today, and see exactly where these supressed nobles knelt to pay their respects to the Shogun. Wary of assassins, Tokugawa had the floor constructed so that every footstep produces a squeak. Tiny hooked pins under each floorboard rub against eachother, making it impossible to creep silently through the corridors - they are known as 'Nightingale' floors. Also in the castle are fake sections of wall made from thin paper that show the shadow of any would-be assailant, trapdoors in the ceiling for armed guards to leap from - and in the long meeting hall itself, the Shogun would sit at the far end next to a secret door. Inside were heavily-armed Samurai, ready to spring from hiding and defend their master from any surprise attackers. These methods must have been efficient - as despite a life filled with bloodshed and slaughter, Tokugawa died of natural causes in his sleep, aged 74.

Philosophy and religion

The Heian Shrine, Kyoto


Japan has two major religions - Shinto and Buddhism - and most Japanese practice at least both (and some Christianity and Confucianism as well). Kyoto has hundreds of shrines and temples, many dotted in the forested hillsides that ring the city. The Nanzen-ji temple in Eastern Kyoto is a good example. Originally built in 1291 it was razed during a civil war in the 1400's. The buildings there today date from 'only' 400yrs ago, but walking around the huge pagodas it seems as if they have been there for many hundreds of years more. We paid Y500 (GBP2) and climbed a two-story gatehouse - in our socks as it is part of the Buddhist temple building. Another Y500 bought us tea in an adjacent building - but it was very different to a cup of Earl Grey and a digestive. We knelt, shoeless, in front of a waterfall framed by a dark green garden. A kimono-clad woman appeared and knelt on the tatami matting in front of us, presenting us with an earthenware bowl of foamy green tea (ocha) and a carefully wrapped sticky sweet.

The Tetsugaku-no-michi (Path of Philosophy) is apparently a good place for a contemplative stroll. We wandered along as a route between temples, looking at the cherry trees the Japanese have a particular fondness for, and the small fish, swimming frantically against the strong current in the stream. The path finished at Ginkakuji, created in 1482 as a weekend retreat by a Shogun. He wanted to cover the two-story pavilion in silver, but the tough nature of the Shogunate life claimed him before he could sign the cheque. The grounds were interesting though, being dominated by moss. There were labelled displays of the particular 'very important moss' that carpeted the forest floor. Gardeners were on hand, performing minute weeding underneath the trees.

Just one of the dishes for dinner


Traditional Japanese guesthouses are called ryokans. Ours is reasonably modern in parts, but the rooms are all tatami matting and you sleep on futons (pronounced 'huton' as the Japanese haven't an equivalent for the letter F) laid out on the floor. We changed into long cotton yukata robes printed with a jazzy white and blue pattern. Dinner was served in our room - just my Dad and me seated at a low table, with the elderly hostess distributing our food. After carefully (and exactly) arranging our dishes, she bowed and left us to it.

The food was amazing - almost like a Japanese form of tapas - many delicate bowls and plates of sashimi, tofu, egg, soup and tempura. It all looked far too good to eat, the preparation time must have been incredible. It all tasted good as well - despite over half of what we ate being simply unrecognisable. Of course you can identify a raw prawn (they melt in your mouth as you eat them) - but there were blobs of this and cubes of that which we couldn't even determine if it was animal or vegetable. It's an odd experience eating something that you can't identify - but certainly makes dining more exciting...

Toyko - Kyoto

Train lunch - Japanese style


The literal translation of the word 'Shinkansen' is 'new trunk line'. Not as exciting a meaning as it could be perhaps, but riding on the bullet train (a phrase which isn't used in Japan) is about as classical a Japanese experience as you can get. I'm not going to start the obvious comparisons with rail travel in the UK - but let's just say it woiuld take many, many leaves on the line to delay one of these things.

We arrived at Tokyo station early enough to buy an obento (boxed) lunch. After taking our allocated position on the platform (oh yes), the white torpedo-shaped train cruised slowly alongside. The journey to Kyoto took about three hours, but seemed faster - probably because of the scenery belting past the window at about the speed of sound. Every member of staff who passed through our carriage bowed to the passengers - from the guard to the young lad pushing the drinks trolley.

At first glance, Tokyo and Kyoto seem at completely opposing ends of the spectrum. The one exception is Kyoto station - it has several layers of platforms underground and then a nine-floor retail arcade on top. The pictures I took cannot possibly do it justice - imagine if the Death Star had a shopping mall - that might give you some idea of what it looks like. As I said though, that's the exception - the Kyoto we saw from our taxi (which in itself was immaculately presented) was very different to Tokyo. Admittedly we've only seen a fraction of each, but the first impression I got of Kyoto was the old age of the place. Of course, this is because Kyoto was deliberately avoided by the Allied bombers during WWII - you can only imagine what Tokyo would have looked like today.

Playing hunt the Geisha in Gion


To get a better idea of what Kyoto itself used to llok like, we joined a walking tour of the old Gion districts of the city. The guide was an ex-Canadian footballer (soccer player) who moved to Kyoto twelve years ago and married a geisha. Not surprisingly he knew an awful lot about the often-misunderstood profession, and was keen to quash some preconceptions. Geishas aren't prostitutes; they aren`t forced into their lifestyle; and apparently anybody can hire one. It`s not an easy process though - you need to become a member of a teahouse, which only happens if you are sponsored by a member and then attend dutifully for several years without incident.

Teahouses sign geishas like a sports team - and if you are well-liked you have a chance of hiring their star players. They sing, dance, play instruments, serve food and drink - essentially making you feel special. For this you can expect to pay several hundred dollars for the evening, assuming you are trusted enough to be left in their company. The walk was very interesting - I hadn`t a clue about the role of a geisha - but when we actually spotted one the mood instantly changed. They don't mind being photographed, apparently, and we saw a couple walking to their evening appointments - which prompted a barrage of photographs and the walk became something of a duck hunt.

The best part by far however, was when the guide (who was over 6ft and 20stone, by the look of him) hurriedly ushered us to one side of the street. Tottering in our direction was a wizened old man in sunglasses and a battered yellow t-shirt. He was walking a small dog, and a man my age dressed in black was qiuetly at his side. Our guide nervously whispered that this was a retired yakuza gang boss, and that we mustn't take pictures of him. Everyone obediently lowered their cameras as the old man approached. 'Good Evening he said, and turned the corner, his minder checking the road for cars.

Old and new Tokyo

All you can glimpse of the Emporer`s Palace

A later start today, thankfully, and a chance to sample the buffet breakfast laid on by the Shinagawa Prince. It took place in a huge dining room, with various self-service food stalls. You could choose from Western breakfast with the usual things like bacon and eggs - and spaghetti, for some reason, or two types of Asian food. We all went for the Japanese breakfast as we`ve become used to the style - miso soup, sushi, rice, small pieces of pickle and egg. It was pretty good, although the curry I tried from the Chinese stall tasted a bit odd. Maybe it was having it for breakfast.

We took Mum back to Narita airport for her flight to London, and then came back to get our bags from Shinagawa and transfer to our new hotel in Ginza. This is the older part of the city - part of the `low city` where the original merchants lived. Today it is full of swanky department stores - a different kind of merchant activity. Our hotel is nice enough though - no aquarium but it`s got all the right things in the room, including another eletronic toilet. I`ll have to write something about that at some point.

We took a short train ride to the Imperial Palace and had a look at the corner of one building that you can see. The Palace is only open on two days out of every year, so for the rest of the time you`re reduced to craning your neck at a distant (and probably unused) wing. The grounds are an odd mix of acres of gravel for parades, immaculately manicured lawns with clipped trees, and a four-lane road that is constantly clogged with rumbling traffic. An odd place to put a road, but I suppose it`s no worse than Buckingham Palace and the cars that run around that.

So we had our old parts of Tokyo - in the evening we took the train to Akihabara. Also known as `Electric Town`, it is an entire city area crammed full of electronic shops, computer games showrooms, model and curio shops, and costume shops. We wandered around for a while staring at the neon and flashing from every angle. One shop we went in was the 7-floor Radio Hall, which sold every kind of plastic toy imaginable. You know those large plastic spheres you see outside newsagents for kids to put in a pound coin and get a large plastic egg with a toy inside? This place had a floor of just those. To my joy, I found one that dispensed models of crabs, and stuffed in Y200 (GBP1) as fast as I could. Despite wanting the spider crab, I got a swimmer crab, but it`s still the best crab model I own. Another shop we went in - Aso Bit City - also had seven floors, but of different types of models. You had a floor of cars, then planes, then remote-control cars, then boats and ships, then model railways (where I lost Dad) and above that toy guns. The top floor was a shooting range, where you could try out your purchased weapon. Tokyo is one amazing city...

Photos from Tsukiji

Here are some bonus photos of the scenes at Tsukiji fishmarket, to give you a better idea of what delights were on offer. This picture above shows a group of workers scything a tuna carcass in half using what looked to me like a ninja sword.



These cockle-like shellfish were about the size of a large potato each. Obviously popular as there were only two left, I can't imagine what you would do with them. Well, cook them and eat them, I suppose.



This colourful jumble of fish are the much-prized fugu - blowfish (or puffer fish as we would call them in the UK). According to things I've read, the actual taste is a bit bland - but they are eaten for their excellent texture and of course the sheer thrill of eating something poisonous that has the capacity to kill you. People do die eating it - albeit not that often. There's apparently a famous fugu saying that you should always let your dining companion take the first piece...



Arm-length sized squid all neatly laid out - everything was very well presented.



We arrived at 8:30am and a lot of the action was over. It seemed to me that the best bargains had gone early. We were wondering what happened to things like this head, and thought that there's probably someone who buys things like this for fish stock or animal food. I doubt much is wasted.



Live crabs trussed up for easy boiling. It was hard for me in places - I'm a fan of marine things of course - but I do like seafood, so of course you have to know things like this happen. The sushi breakfast we had afterwards was wonderful...

Tsukiji and Asakusa

Plenty of blood and guts at the fish market


So, fishmarkets. I remember going to the indoor fish market in Preston when I was young and staring at the fillets of cod and haddock behind the glass. A few years ago I went to the Sydney fishmarket and saw the computerised auction of prawns and seafood. Today I added another fishmarket to my collection - and one that is surely impossible to top. Tsukiji fishmarket in Tokyo is simply staggering. Every day 2,500 tonnes of seafood are sold there (a bit more than bought by the old women at Preston market). The daily bill for all the fish sold comes to Y2.9billion - that's GBP15m (or US$26m for my American readers) - and they only trade for 5 hours. GBP3m per hour in marine life. Amazing.

The market is just as I imagined - maintaining the theme I was talking about yesterday. It was frantically busy and seemed completely chaotic, but was very organised at the same time. Each stallholder had a set area of floorspace, and a tiny wooden hut at the back where a person sat to take the money. We arrived at 8:30 (it opens at 5am) and already a lot of them had sold out, shut up and gone home. As for what was on sale - just about anything. From bags of 1cm-long see-through baby eels to tuna heads the size of sheep. All kinds of fish, both dead and alive, shellfish - including mussels almost at long as your forearm, crabs, octopus, squid.

Walking between the narrow lanes of stalls was a mission, with buyers and workers rushing everywhere. Motorised pallet trucks zipped all over, transporting white polystyrene boxes around. Outside a mountain of these two stories high was piled up - after all, 2,500t of fish need a lot of boxes. We wandered around trying to avoid getting in the way, and just looking at the sheer variety of things on offer. One thing I wasn`t prepared for was the blood - all over the hanger-sized building men were hacking and chopping, using lethal-looking axes, knives and hooks to dismember unfortunate creatures who were only swimming around that morning. But hey, I`m no hypocrite - we went for a sushi breakfast at the market and it was amazing.

Beatiful pagoda at Senso-ji temple


After Tsukiji we walked for a few minutes to the Hamarikyu-teien, or detached palace garden. It was here that the early shogunate hunted ducks, and so wanted a more picturesque setting whilst they were waiting for the birds to fly into their nets. The garden sits on the edge of the Sumida, and is surrounded on the other three sides by skyscrapers. From there we took a boat ride up the river to the old shopping area of Asakusa. The river cruise was interesting, but both sides of the Sumida have been channelled, dredged and built up so much it was very industrial. Still good though - interesting to see how people live so close to the water.

Asakusa has been a centre of entertainment, religion and shopping since the 13th Century, and is one of the parts of old Edo (Tokyo in the time of the Shoguns). We walked around and looked in the millions of small touristy shops on Nakamise-dori before the giant Senso-ji temple. Another Buddhist temple, this one is for Kannon - the Goddess of Mercy, and was founded in 628 after two fishermen pulled a statue of her out of the Sumida. A temple has stood there ever since. It was interesting to watch people praying - unlike yesterday`s remote temples Senso-ji is bustling and active. You could pay Y100 and take a paper fortune from a drawer - they can be either good or bad. Mine was a 'Regular Fortune' - apparently 'talk with tongue entangled by your getting drunk gives no unpleasant impression to others'. That's always good to know. My Mum had two attempts and my Dad one - all three were 'Bad Fortunes' of marriage and financial strife ahead. Fortunately if you tied the piece of paper your fortune was written on to a nearby wire rack, it negated it and you were back to square one - with nothing bad hanging over you. Handy that...

Ohayo gozaimasu

Detail of the roof of Engaku-ji temple

Well here I am. I`m writing this on a kanjii-enabled keyboard on the 7th floor of our hotel in Shinagawa - the Shinagawa Prince. I`ve only seen hotels like this when I was in Las Vegas all those years ago - it`s enormous. There are thousands of rooms - the hotel is divided into about half a dozen buildings and has it`s own shopping mall, aquarium (with shark tunnel and dolphinarium), two cinemas and an IMAX, two bowling alleys (two!) and sixteen restaurants. It`s mammoth - essentially a city within a city - within a city, as Shinagawa is huge as of itself. Anyway, we arrived with no problems from Sydney, as overnight flights go it was reasonable. The plane had a party of 104 Japanese schoolkids returning from language schools in Australia, but they were down the back of the 747.

So what are my first impresssions of Japan? Well, I`ve spent so long planning this trip, reading about it, etc, that it was pretty much as I was expecting. That`s not to say it was a disappointment - the exact opposite, it`s amazing. Tokyo is so vast, so busy, so hyped with energy. The 25th floor view we have overlooks the grey tower blocks of the central city, merging with the smoggy haze hanging over the city. In the distance we can see the Bladerunner-esque lights of Shinjuku glittering away. Eveything is fast paced, people bow to you, taxi drivers wear white gloves, there are vending machines everywhere, Japanese TV is bizarre - it`s all present and correct. You just have to go into a supermarket and see how alien a place you`ve arrived in. I can`t wait to explore more tomorrow.

Dad at the Tokeiji temple

Today was by necessity a slow day, as we arrived off the plane at 6am. We converted our JR passes - the multiple-use rail ticket that covers all of Japan`s JR railways for two weeks - and were given an immediate train reservation for the Tokyo express that left within three minutes. So after legging it down to one of many platforms we were soon winging our way into the city. Fortunately our hotel is near the station, but unfortunately we arrived at 10am and couldn`t check-in until 1pm. So we left our bags with them and had a GBP15 cup of tea in the cafe before taking a train trip. Oh - that`s GBP15 for three of us, by the way, not each. We caught a local train from Shinagawa via the port city of Yokohama to Kamakura - an early centre of the Buddhist faith. We spent the afternoon wandering amongst leafy temples and cemetaries, looking at crows, eagles, and amazing butterflies. The trees looked ancient - some of the sites were constructed in the 1300`s. After a few hours the tiredness set in and we returned to the city. It was a short, but good, introduction to the Japanese way of life (and death) and was a great way to spend an afternoon. Tomorrow is the first full day, and it`s going to start nice and early...(again)

Near to the off...

The pre-dinner photo


Well, these are now the last days for me in Australia - tomorrow I'm off to Tokyo. I spent most of the day today sorting out my stuff - which to be honest didn't take all that long. I made a conscious decision not to acquire the usual amount of crap that I tend to do when I'm living somewhere, as I knew I'd have to either throw it away or somehow carry it all home. In the end I had to buy a small suitcase-type thing to take care of the overspill from what I'm taking to Japan. It only cost $18 (GBP7) though, so no great expense. Even so, it took me a few hours to organise what I am going to need over the next couple of weeks and what I'm not. Oh - and in the afternoon I watched the AFL Grand Final and cheered the mighty Swans on to their first Premiership for 72yrs. Go the Swans.

Tonight I went out for dinner in Surry Hills with my flatmates (see picture above taken beforehand), to a very fancy Thai restaurant. The prices were similar to the French place we went to a few weeks ago but the portions were about twenty times the size. I ate so much that when we went for a drink at a nearby pub I could hardly finish it. Unlike me, I know. Anyway, so that's it for my stint living in Sydney. Tomorrow it's off for two weeks in Japan - which I can't wait for. I've been planning this for so long that when our plane rolls up to the terminal in Narita I'll be hopping about like a 3yr old at Christmas. Expect lots of photos and a fair bit of blogging. Oh yes. After the two weeks there, I'll be back in Sydney for 24hrs (the 11th October if you're taking notes) and then from there it's a flight to Seoul and another overnight stop on the way back to London. Bring it on! See you in Tokyo...

WA Coast day 4

Taking photos at Shell Beach


The four days went very quickly, but I always knew it was going to be a fast tour. The final day of my trip was more relaxed than the previous three - we set off at 10:30, for one thing. I had a wander on the beach at Coral Bay before we got underway. We drove up to Exmouth and checked into our holiday park hostel, which was pretty good value for $20. Exmouth was founded in 1967 to support a US submarine tracking base. We rolled through it and round Cape Vlamingh (he of Rottnest Island fame), which today houses the mothballed Harold Holt Communications station - the Australian Prime Minister who vanished off the face of the earth whilst out for his morning swim in the 60's (not here though). Today they site is abandoned, and lies rusting under the unyielding sun. The peninsula is famous for more than that however - the Ningaloo Reef lies off the Western tip. The Ningaloo is Buzz Aldrin to the Great Barrier Reef's Neil Armstrong, but is quietly becoming more popular. The big draw there - apart from the usual coral - are the Whale Sharks that cruise lazily up the coast from May to July each year. Wrong time of year for us, though.

We stopped off at Turquoise Bay - a beautiful snorkelling spot. This was your classic tropical reef beach - white sand, clear water, warm breeze. Steve the driver produced a battered box of snorkelling gear, and we all had a go. Although being a pretty rubbish swimmer, I saw a few different kinds of fish in waist deep water - although it would have been great to go out over the reef - I'm just not good enough to negociate the currents. Still, it was great to see the fish that close up, and I can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon, really. It was great.

On the way back to the holiday park things got better, though. We drove up to the Vlamingh lighthouse and Steve produced a box of wine and a pile of plastic cups, so we had a drink and watched the sun go down over the Eiffel Tower-sized communication pylons. Out in the bay, a series of splashes caught our attention, and suddenly a humpback whale breached the waves and crashed back into the sea. It was stunning - they were a long way out, but we were high up enough to see them all coming out of the water. Every 30 seconds a whale would come up for air, or splash out of the water. We saw two go almost completely out of the sea before slapping back with a huge white plume. That more than made up for the cancellation of my whale-watching tour in Kaikoura (which seems like such a long time ago). We weren't as close as a boat trip gets you, but these were wild whales splashing around in the afternoon - and we were up on a hill overlooking the sea it felt as if they were putting on a show for us. It was breathtaking - and a great way to end my trip. I flew back from Exmouth to Perth with a huge smile on my face...

WA Coast day 3

Dolphin checking out the crowd at Monkey Mia

Another dawn start today, but a chance to get as close to wild animals as you can get without jumping in the water. We saw a few native species on the trip - kangaroos (two of them boxing), a wombat, emus, wedge-tailed eagles, whales (more on that later), and dolphins. Just east of our second overnight stay at Denham is a place called Monkey Mia. 'Mia' means 'place of' in the local aboriginal language, and the Monkey was an early trading vessel that anchored in Shark Bay. For years a group of local dolphins have arrived at the beach each morning and are quite happy to swim in knee-deep shallows looking at tourists. They are fed - but carefully and are only given 5% of their daily needs so they don't become reliant. I'm not sure about that, but it was incredible to stand there and be a metre away from wild dolphins swimming around. You got the impression they were amused by it too - every so often they raised an eye out of the water and had an inquisitive peek. Of course, it's really popular, and there were about 100 people in a long line on the shore - but the dolphins don't seem to mind. You can't go any closer though, and touching isn't allowed - apparently human viruses are lethal to them.

After that we had a choice - go on a catamaran in the bay, or go for a nature walk with an aboriginal guide. Now I've been on plenty of boats - but have never talked to an aboriginie, so I chose that. It turned out that I was the only one - so I had a private tour of the bush for a couple of hours. The guide was called Capes, and was a member of the local Malgana people. I've lived in Australia for almost a year and done nothing aboriginal, so I was interested to hear what he had to say. We walked around, and he showed me tracks of the various animals and birds in the dark red sand. He talked about the influence of nature on their way of life - it's everything to them - and their outlook on how to conserve it. He explained how they catch goannas to eat - they listen for alarm calls of bush wrens, and use them as a guide for where the lizards are likely to be. He was pretty good at bird impressions, he did an alarm call and all the wrens flew up to check out the danger. It was all interesting, he picked a few native beans for me to eat - they tasted disappointingly beany. We saw loads of lizards and birds, but no mammals or snakes. He knew a heck of a lot though, and told me that schoolchildren in the Denham area are now learning aboriginal language in their school - even the white children. Oh, and that his tribe call ants 'mingers'.

WA Coast day 2

The Stromatolites at Hamelin Pool, Shark Bay

This morning started early - we set off at 7am every day, so get all those stereotypes about lazy backpackers out of your heads! There was a lot of dozing on the bus though - try riding for three hours in 25C heat and stay awake, it's tough. The first port of call today was close to our overnight stay at Kalbarri. We had a walk down one of the famous gorges - Kalbarri National Park has over 1000sqkm of them, so we had it to ourselves. At the bottom was a trickling river dyed a stunning green by massive amounts of algae. WA is home to all kinds of natural animals, but also feral foxes, goats, rabbits and pigs. There's a fence that runs along the length of the state border to keep them out, but it seems to be a losing battle. Fortunately there's a natural poison that all local animals are immune to, but introduced species aren't. There are a lot of poison warning notices everywhere.

One place we stopped in the afternoon was at Hamelin Pool - a special site for all biologists as it's one of only two places in the world where you can see living Stromatolites. What are they? Well, they are groups of simple bacteria that decided to live together in a colony for safety and produce a rocky home for themselves. Ordinarily, these footstool-shaped rocks would be unspectacular, but when you realise this action was the first instance of single-celled life joining together the importance strikes you. That moment was when simple life started the long path that resulted in everything else, including us. Stromatolites have been quietly going about their business, unchanged, for 2000 million years. They used to cover the entire planet, and did so for far far longer than all other forms of life put together. These rocks are special - and now they are only found at two salty bays on opposite sides of the world (the other being in the Bahamas). Hamelin Pool has every UNESCO World Heritage qualification there is. The examples in the photo are almost 3000yrs old. If you know me - you can imagine how stunning I found this. It was brilliant.

WA Coast day 1

The Pinnacles Desert

The only real way to see the coast is to get on a tourist bus and be driven about - at least if you can't hire a big 4WD and do it yourself. I booked myself on the Easyrider bus tour and had a four-day trip up the coastline of Western Australia from Perth to the northern reef destination of Exmouth. They do love those UK place names in Australia. It was very similar to the trip I took in New Zealand - the same kind of 'jump-on, jump-off' idea, but again I hadn't the time to jump off so I did the trip in one go. Actually as I write this they are still going as the trip continues to Darwin and takes almost two weeks.

The first stop was the Pinnacles Desert - aptly named as you can see. Hundreds of thousands of limestone pillars are scattered around the sand, and you can wander around anywhere you like. Early ship-bound explorers looking at the land thought it was a ruined city, which maybe explains why they kept crashing into reefs and sinking. It was very impressive, and I could have spent hours there - but bus travel being what it is we were off after half an hour. Still, it was worth seeing. The Easyrider buses run every four days - so if you wanted to jump off you really needed plenty of things to keep you occupied until the next one turned up.

The main difference I noticed with the NZ trip (and of course this is blindingly obvious) was the sheer distances involved. In NZ we would stop every hour or so and look at something, but here in WA there was hour after hour of arid scrubland and bush rolling past the windows. Have a look at an atlas - Western Australia is simply huge. It's the same size as India - but with 0.5% of India's population. This is a big, empty country. But a spectacular one...

Where Quokkas Rule

Not a rat - a Quokka

In 1696 the Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh avoided wrecking his ship like so many of his compatriots, and discovered an island off what became Fremantle. His men were amazed to find it covered in giant rats - much bigger than the ship rats they were used to. They camped for a couple of days, and then sailed away North leaving the furry mammals in peace. They named their discovery Rottnest Island - Rat's Nest. They were wrong, of course - the animals weren't rats, they weren't even mammals. The Dutch explorers became one of the first groups of Westerners to see marsupials, and the first ever to see Quokkas.

Once common over all of WA, Quokkas are now extremely rare - but thrive on Rottnest Island thanks to the isolation. A 20-minute boat trip from Fremantle, Rottnest is a small fish-shaped island perched on the edge of the Indian Ocean. I spent most of the day there, wandering around the beaches and paddling in the stunningly clear water. The island is famed for the white sandy beaches, and the wind keeps the temperature down when it gets too hot. Holiday homes dot the bays, and people have been coming here for many years. The island has a controversial past too - aboriginies charged with breaking settler's laws (concepts which most of them didn't understand of course) were sent to Rottnest to be interred.

So that's the Perth part of my trip over - for now at least. I'll be back here in a few days. Tomorrow I've got a 7am start on a bus trip up North into the Pinnacles Desert and the Kalbarri National Park. I'm not sure what internet access will be like up the WA coast - but if I can find a terminal I'll let you all know how I get on...

Freo to the locals

Old dock-type buildings in Fremantle

After wandering around Perth late yesterday I realised I'd pretty much done it. So today I took a train out of the city and visited the neighbouring port city of Fremantle. 'Freo' as the locals call it, is about 20mins from Perth, and is a proper working port, with massive container ships loading up right near the centre. The buildings have that old warehouse feel to them, and the ornate plasterwork everywhere reminded me of the restored docks in Hull. That's about it for that comparison though, as it was gloriously sunny and the air didn't have a fishy tang to it. I wandered around for a bit, admiring all the porty-goings on. Both Perth and Fremantle have one major bonus for tourists (and pensioners and students too, come to think of it) in that every bus that crosses the city centre is free. So you can hop on and off as much as you like - provided you know where you're going, of course.

I consulted the famed LP guidebook, and it led me to the 'stunning' and 'fascinating' Maritime Museum of Western Australia. It could quite easily have been both of these things, but unfortunately it was also 'half-closed' for 'renovation', so I'd whizzed around it in about 20 minutes. Still, that meant I went next door into the Fremantle Motor Museum - and that was much better. I'm no petrol-head (still have never got round to driving), but the cars there were great - including some old Formula 1 classics, which really got me interested. The entire collection is owned by one man (presumably a very rich man) - and he was there in overalls tinkering with one of the displays, doing some renovating of his own.

I know I said in an old post that I'm a museum junkie - but I outdid myself in Freo. In the afternoon I went to the Museum of Shipwrecks, and that was the best of the lot. They had all kinds of exhibits - apparently Western Australia is littered with wrecked ships from the hapless Dutch traders who ploughed into the rocky shores whilst trying to work their way up the coast to the then Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). The museum gave the impression that the Dutch were practically hurling their ships onto the hostile shores - particularly the Alhobros Islands (the name means 'look out'). If you're ever in Fremantle I urge you to go - it was fantastic, and I learned all kinds of things I'll be looking out for when I go up the coast on Saturday. But tomorrow - I'm off to look for giant rats...

The most isolated city

The Perth skyline at night

So the start of the 'month of travels' began this morning with a whopping five-hour internal flight across to the other side of Australia. Now if you're American or Russian, flying that long and still being in the same country isn't new - but to me it certainly is. I was trying to think of how many countries I could get to within 5hrs of Edinburgh, but gave up when I was well into double figures. They don't call Perth the 'most isolated capital city on Earth' for nothing. It's closer to Singapore than Sydney. I got a ramshackle bus into the city and found where I was staying fairly easily - Perth is very small. Although maybe I've been in the spectacularly sprawling mass of Sydney for too long to appreciate the smaller cities.

My flight over was reasonable, considering the cold I've picked up - the last one I got was the last time I went travelling - and the hangover I had saddled myself with after the final Japanese lesson. It wasn't much of lesson, more a end-of-term meal and piss-up. We went to a Japanese lesson and had a great meal - which Nobuko-san instructed us to order in Japanese. She also ordered bottles and bottles of steaming sake, which we kept polishing off with increasingly loud cries of 'kampai!!'. I tell you, warm sake does wonders for a blocked nose. So that's it for my return to student-hood, I'll be able to try it for real in a couple of weeks.

The night ended on an amusing note, when the bloke I sat next to for the lessons confused me with another bloke in our class, and gave me a couple of anime DVD's. Hey, I do watch it - but I'm not the fan he thought I was. I managed to duck most of his questions, and took the disc home. I didn't feel bad, as the guy it was intended for didn't show up, and it wasn't bought specially - just downloaded from a laptop onto a blank disc. At that point we were both pretty drunk, and he seemed pleased that I'd taken it. So I've got some anime to watch when I get back - my Japanese education continues...

Tour Guide

M&D take in the harbour view from a ferry



If you've been wondering why the flurry of activity has died recently on DUaB, it's because I've been employed as a tour guide for the past week. My parents arrived on the 3rd of September and I played the part of tour leader. Initially this involved me getting up at 4am to meet them off the plane from Singapore, and watch as the evils of jetlag took hold and they slipped into the traveller's fug (before lunch, no less). But after a couple of half-days at the beginning of their stay, they attuned to the Antipodean timeframe and were keen to get out and about. We were undone by the weather to begin with - rain and cold winds for the first couple of days. My carefully-planned itinerary quickly went down the tubes and I spent much of the rest of the week winging it.

They had eight days in Sydney, all told, so managed to see practically everything the city has to offer. We did all the usual central attractions - Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Botanic Gardens, Taronga Zoo etc. I tried to get them out on the harbour ferries as much as possible, and I think they appreciated the city more for that (see photo above). We also took in day trips to the Blue Mountains and the Hunter Valley, both in spectacular Spring weather. I'd not been to the Hunter before, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

So they are now off up on a Barrier Reef cruise, and my tour guide duties are on hold for a while - at least until we get to Tokyo and I can show them round a city I've never visited. Tomorrow I fly off to Perth and the gaping expanse of Western Australia. I've got just over a week there - doing the backpacker thing again - before I come back to Sydney for my final 3days in Australia. How time flies, eh? Look out for more blog posting over the end of this week as I get on the road again.