A few pointers ...

Over the last week I've been compiling a list pointers about traveling....

• Don't believe everything you read in your travel guide. I had read that there was a 'spoon' festival in Fukuoka on the first weekend in May. I mentioned this to someone in Miyazaki and quickly got laughed at ("Spoons?!? HAHAHAH!") Then when we got to Fukuoka on May 3rd the hotel clerks were telling us about a festival happening the following day to which I responded "Oh! The Spoon Festival!!" and again, quickly got laughed at ("Spoons?!? HAHAHAHAHA!"). I'm not sure what the book was referring to but... there were no spoons. Maybe it was one of the authors' jokes... who knows.
  
  
• Always look where you're walking. This seems like an obvious one but... When we were in Macau I accidentally tripped over what must've been part of a shrine that was set next to a building on the a very busy sidewalk. I had been looking up because people had their umbrellas open and I was trying to avoid getting stabbed in the eye. Anyway, I sent a tin box flying through the air followed by a trail of ashes. I was mortified. I think I may have uttered the word "oops!" Needless to say, people around me were not impressed... I quickly picked up the box and tried putting it back.
  
  
• Just to set the record straight: I realize that a mosquito net will not protect you from a rat. I had convinced myself that it would... just so that I could get some sleep that night. Who was I kidding? that thing chewed through masking tape like it was a cheese covered cracker! The net wouldn't have done anything!
  
  
• Mosquito net? don't bring one. You probably won't need it... well, maybe you will but I never did. Maybe if you stay in a really really cheap hut they won't give you nets but even my rat room (which was really cheap!) had a net. Granted, I had to fix some holes in the net but it still worked. I carried a mosquito net until Ryan arrived, at which point I quickly transferred it to him. It hasn't been out of it's bag yet. I figure we can use it at the cottage. You can also buy mosquito nets there in some stores...
  
  
• Thailand has amazing food. Eat it, be merry! You may want to beware of that pineapple rice though, I hear it has larvae in it...
  
  
• Japan has the strangest food I've ever eaten. Eat it, be wary. One of the towns we stayed in specialized in raw horse meat (yes, horse), bee larvae and crickets.
  
  
• Thailand - do not drink the water!
  
  
• Japan - yes, you can drink the water!
  
  
• Hong Kong - still undecided on the water situation here... same with the food... Actually, the food was for the most part good... just remember - they use every part of the animal... especially in their soups.
  
  
• In Thailand don't worry too much about getting around towns. It's really easy. Know your destination and how much you're willing to spend and you're set... It helps to ask people you can trust (people working in restaurants or hotels) how much the going rate is to get somewhere BEFORE you start trying to hail a taxi or a motorcycle. Oh, and don't worry, it seems that almost everyone gets ripped off getting a taxi from the airport in Bangkok... just don't take the limos into town... you'll feel pretty ridiculous if you do (*takes a bow* ooh, i'm traveling in style!)
  
  
• Thailand has a crazy transportation system - it seems that everyone is working together to get you to your destination even though they aren't even with the same company. Trust them. They know what they're doing... (at least that's what I kept telling myself) even when they send you across town to some place you've never heard of in a sawngthaew with a bunch of locals. They'll get you there... Trust.
  
  
• Oh right, and if you take a (private) bus anywhere in Thailand they always seem to stop at a travel agent to try to get you to buy accommodation. They say it's so that the driver (who can't speak English) can get directions to your hotel from the travel agents, I don't buy it... I actually used this method a couple of times to find places to stay and it ended up working out okay most of the time - I probably spent more than what I would've paid had I just walked into the hotel though...
  
  
• In Japan, you really should try that public bath they have in your hotel. Yeah, it's a strange phenomenon - kind of like high school gym class all over again except worse because you're older and they make you sit on a tiny little stool while you scrub yourself down. Once you get into the tub though, you'll see what all the fuss is about... Ryan convinced me to try it when we were in Kamikochi. I have to say, that bath was amazing. The cold mountain air was coming in through the open windows as the steam rose up from my boiling bath... It was quite relaxing. I tried other baths after this, unfortunately none were as good.
  
  
• If you're going out to a club in Japan, expect to pay a lot of money to get in. I think the cheapest club we got into was $35 each. If you're planning on staying out late, maybe you shouldn't get a hotel room that night. You can lock your bags in a locker at the train station and then stay out as late as you want. The only problem is that once you get tired you have nowhere to go... Well, you have a few options: 24-hour internet cafes (they're made for this kind of thing and have overnight rates), love hotels (a 3-hour rest?) or even capsule hotels if you're lucky enough to be male (or even luckier to find one that accepts women). All of these are much cheaper than actually getting a room in a hotel. And there's always the train in the early morning... if you have a pass, you can hop on and sleep free of charge.
  
  
• This one's another basic one: Try to learn at least a few words of the local language... Hello, goodbye, thank you - these are pretty basic. You'll figure out which other ones are important as you travel... It seems like whenever I would use the little vocabulary of Thai or Japanese that I have, people would smile (probably because I was mispronouncing...)

That's it for now...

bored

I'm officially bored.

It took me all of 2 and a half days to get completely bored. I've updated my resume and started applying for jobs but being at home alone, in the middle of the day with nothing in particular to do other than write cover letters and work on my resume is really boring me to tears here.

The cats have finally started leaving me alone - they'd been hovering for the last 2 days without leaving me any room. And my allergies have been going nuts since I got home because the cats are constantly around me.

So... I started going through my thousands of pictures from the trip today. One of my memory cards seems to have had some sort of issue (possibly a virus? I'm not 100% convinced it was a virus... regardless, I'll back up the pictures onto a DVD and format it) so I made it my task for the morning to figure out how to get the pictures off the card without losing them. It was pretty easy to figure out... so then I got bored again. I think I'm definitely going to have to start on a little project to help me keep my wits about me.

Anyway, here are some (very random) pictures

Taken on the beach in Hat Rin. They were using alcohol to keep the flame lit on the limbo line


Ryan lost his legs in Cambodia


I saw more of these in Hong Kong than I did anywhere else... this one was taken in Chiang Mai. Thankfully, none were ever spotted in any of my rooms. Actually, other than the rat, my rooms were pretty clean. Even the ones where I only paid $10 a night!


Along the river in Kyoto


I just found this one on my little point and shoot (Ryan had been using it occasionally). I find it funny - everyone's staring at me struggle down one of the ruins.

Home

I'm home now.

We got home last night to find that our apartment was left spotless by my sister. She also left us enough food that we could make a nice breakfast this morning (I don't think this was intentional but thanks anyway Colette!) now the only problem is that we can't find anything... Where's our TV remote? Our car keys? Are there any potatoes?


(Taken somewhere over China)

It was strange flying into the city. Everything here is so green, flat, big, spaced out... I feel myself going through a little bit of culture shock. I need some noodles or some rice or something! I remember feeling this way when I got home from Europe (except without the rice or noodles). I think we're pretty spoiled here. The air is fairly clean (definitely not like the throat-scratching Hong Kong smog) and there is so much space (yards, wide roads and sidewalks, big houses). At the same time, it feels like this is so excessive - do we need to waste so much space on roads? On our houses? I would never give up my green space though. The buildings here are interesting - they aren't all grey like the ones you see in every city in Japan (it seems like almost every city looks the same in Japan during the day - lots of shades of grey) and they don't all look run-down like the ones you see in Hong Kong.

It's strange being home.

Oh by the way - the builders - We flew over your town at some point yesterday! I woke up about 30 minutes after we'd passed over Milk River. Ryan and I are convinced that before you leave for Mexico this year we should show you how to use blogger so that you can keep a blog for us. Also, you could use it as a way for us to track progress on the house!

Anyway, I'm not really looking forward to answering people's questions about the trip just yet... I know people will ask me what my favorite part was... How can you pick one thing over another? I find that really hard to do... I guess I'll just pick something random and run with it... What'll it be? Maybe Seoul Mama? Or Railay? If I had to pick a place in Thailand that I loved it would definitely be Railay - I would definitely go back there - I don't know that I would say the same about the rest of Thailand. And Japan? So many crazy moments there - I would love to go back... maybe when I know a few more words of Japanese? And Hong Kong... oh, I love Hong Kong... and Cambodia was so interesting too... I want to go back to Cambodia at some point... see? I can't pick anything!

Macau

We went to Macau on Monday. It was really cool. It was like Hong Kong meets Europe... A lot of colonial architecture mixed with tall what I would call Asian skyscrapers. It was very strange - definitely refreshing and really kind of cool.

The main square:








*drools* oh goodness, they were so good...




St. Paul's


Ryan got interviewed by a bunch of kids who were doing some assignment where they had to go and speak English to strangers and ask them questions about the Olympics. It was really interesting (their questions were pretty intriguing)


Another temple


We went out for dinner at a Portuguese restaurant. It was really good. I think it was the first time I've ever eaten Portuguese food that wasn't BBQed chicken or ribs. I was impressed. We both ordered some fish-type thing (I don't remember what I had - a red snapper steak or something? Ryan ordered the fish and bread stew). Both were really good.

And of course, when you go to Macau you HAVE to go to the casinos.




so many lights


We went to the MGM Grand and traded in a few dollars for some coins which we quickly lost (I walked out holding $50 HKD - I started with $150 HKD - that's about $19 Canadian). Mostly people were playing Baccarat (which I don't know how to play) and some weird version of roulette. We played roulette and then decided to play the weird roulette game instead. I could see how people would loose money quickly.

Hong Kong Revisited

On our first day in Hong Kong we walked from our hotel to the Star Ferry and then headed toward Mongkok on foot. It just so happened to be Saturday so Mongkok was pretty crazy and I got lost looking for the computer store I wanted to show Ryan.


Ryan was really surprised at the state of a lot of the buildings - Chungking Mansions anyone?


On the Sunday we made the mistake of going to Lantau Island... ungh... I've never waited in line for so long for something so underwhelming before. We must've been in line for a good 2 hours to get on this thing:


People fishing below us:


Someone's getting tired of being in my pictures (if you don't want to be in the pictures get out of the frame!)


After a long and annoying afternoon of waiting to get on the cable car we decided to the Peak Tram (yet another line-up! Yay!). At least this lineup was quick.


And totally worth it for the view:




Sunday in Hong Kong means all the women are out having fun with their friends. I think most of these women are from the Philippines but I'm not absolutely sure. It's quite a strange phenomenon that I noticed the first time I was in Hong Kong. At some points we were walking down a packed street and were surrounded by about 95% women. They seem to meet early in the day and sit around in large groups wherever they can find a covered spot (under overpasses, near buildings, that kind of thing), eating, singing, dancing and laughing for the entire day. This picture was taken at about 8:30 at night and they didn't seem to be packing up just yet.


Hong Kong has some pretty amazing buildings...


My favorite market street (Graham Street) - taken yesterday morning




Our last temple - Man Mo Temple


Incense Coils

The Fish Market!

Someone requested that Ryan bring back some UFO Ramen... It wasn't going to happen - our bags were too full... instead we just took a picture:



After spending a mostly sleepless night in the internet cafe in Tokyo, we finally made it to the fish market! We walked over early in the morning after stopping for coffee at a Starbucks in Roppongi. It just so happened that as we waited, one of the afterhours clubs was emptying out onto the street - it was quite the scene (I didn't take pictures though I almost ran back to try... there were cops everywhere and people talking back at them...)

We passed the Tokyo tower


people were on their way into work (so many suits!)


Then we got to the fish market which was buzzing with all kinds of vehicles and foot traffic


At first, I was disappointed, thinking everything interesting was done and over with and all the fish had been either boxed up or shipped... and then we found this:










A massive fish being prepared


There are vending machines everywhere. You can buy any kind of drink from them (I was tempted to try the coffee in a can but that just seemed wrong...)


Apparently you can buy floral arrangements too:

coming home

I woke up this morning humming my all-time favourite travelling song: "Maybe tomorrow"... You know the song... Well, you should if you lived in Canada as a child and watched Canadian tv. (Littlest Hobo anyone?)

"Maybe tomorrow, I'll wanna settle down,
Until tomorrow, I'll just keep moving on."

This has been my theme song for the last 9 weeks. I keep humming it as I leave every hotel / hostel (this is something Ryan and I do when we're travelling - we're cheesy that way I suppose.)

The last few days have been jammed packed with stuff. I have a few pictures which I will post when I get home and I'll write about our latest adventures at that point too.

It's pretty crazy to think that it's pretty much over. I feel like I haven't been away that long and that I could keep going, that I've somehow settled into the groove of things. I've had my share of homesickness and my cravings for home cooked meals but they usually pass when I realize where I am and where this trip has brought me. I wish I could just keep travelling... Ideally I could travel and still sleep in my own bed with my cats at my feet, waking up and having Niko come running to lick my face. (I swear I'm not a crazy cat lady! I'm actually allergic to my cats.)

We get on our 15 hour flight home in about 6 hours. It's pretty crazy that we leave here at 4:35pm on Tuesday (it's Tuesday morning here right now) and that we get home at 7:15pm on Tuesday night in Toronto. I still have a lot of Hong Kong I want to show Ryan - how is it that we haven't been to Graham street yet?! I also want to bring him to a temple right near our hotel. The clock is ticking! We're off!

Back in Hong Kong

It's strange being back in Hong Kong. It seems like coming back here after Thailand and Japan is giving me a whole different experience.

There almost seems to be a feeling of being back home - I don't feel out of place, I don't feel like people are looking at me like I'm an outsider. Coming from Japan, this really feels quite strange.

We booked our last few days at the same hotel where I started - it was clean, had some cool little perks (it's the techhotel where you can control everything in your room through your tv.) When we got here yesterday afternoon the guy working at the front desk recognized me which really surprised me. Our room was bigger than I expected and Ryan seemed pretty happy with it (he compared it to our hotel we stayed at in Marseille - this is a good thing)

We tried going out last night to Yumla but the music was pretty lame so we ended up just walking back home.

Ryan really wants to go to Macau.... Maybe tomorrow? I guess we'll see.

I have to say that going back to using a regular keyboard is very strange. I keep reaching for the "[" key when I want an "@", or the "7" key when I want an "'". It's funny how quickly I got used to the Japanese keyboards. Yesterday we went to some computer stores and Ryan quickly understood exactly why I had been drooling over the Asus eee PC. In fact, I was quickly drooling over them too. It just so happens that since I was last here, they released a 9" monitor version of it... which of course means that the 7" monitor version has dropped in price (oh goodness $350 for a tiny laptop that can fit in your pants?!) We were both pretty tempted (I, of course, by the new 9" monitor which is a bad thing! - the new one is about $600). We're both pretty much decided on picking one (or two) up eventually - when we have money again.

I could really go for a british style breakfast right about now. When I was last here, I found a macrobiotic place that served something like a british breakfast (really, I think it was more American than British and the restaurant was run by some Australians)... Bring on the eggs, sausage, beans and fried tomatoes...

One last day in Japan

Today's our last day in Japan. As I sit here and see the sun rising over Tokyo from my little cubicle on the 12th floor of this internet cafe I can't help but think that this trip has been pretty crazy. Oddly enough, for some reason my sitting here seems very fitting - how many nights have been spent sleeping in some uncomfortable semi-double bed, single bed, not sleeping at all, waiting for trains, being tossed around on trains in Thailand, waiting for a rat...?

I'm looking forward to one last night in a ryokan (we took care of booking our places to stay for the rest of our trip today) before heading out to Hong Kong. I'm tired, I've slept maybe an hour, maybe two? - I hope Ryan did better in his cubicle. There is some relief in knowing that until I get home on Tuesday night we will have pillows under our heads every night.

I'm in a very Nathan Fake kind of mood right now...

Yokohama

Yesterday we went into Yokohama. It just so happened that we booked a hotel that was right next to the stadium. As we went to our hotel we noticed people all decked out in baseball gear... so of course we had to go! It was the Yokohama Bay Stars vs. the Giants (from Tokyo - I don't know their official name - I think they're named after some sponsor).

Our beer came with peanuts and fish

The fish were weird - kind of sweet and kind of salty but definitely fishy. Oh, right, I'm most definitely over my food problems from earlier this week - I'm back to eating all kinds of weird things - except I'm staying away from anything that looks like omelettes or whipped egg whites. It's definitely a texture thing...

The crowd really reminded me of the crowds at TFC (our football... err, soccer team) games. I think they must've paid people to cheer in the crowd because it was really loud for the whole game. There were people with trumpets and drums in the crowd.

The Bay Stars won... It was a long game - all of the action happening in the 2nd inning (went from 0-0 to 5-1 in the 2nd) which made the rest of the game pretty long and boring and kind of cold.

And then we went sightseeing early in the day before heading back to Tokyo.