Gardens

The Japanese are famous for their gardens, from the water-less Zen gardens of gravel to those admired during tea ceremonies and to my favorite, those that try to re-create the famous views of Japan by using the surrounding scenery as a backdrop to incorporate into the space. Our first garden was the famous Kenroku-en in Kanazawa which was developed from the 1620s to 1840s. We arrived on an overnight train ride from Tokyo and a local kindly found out which bus we needed, waited with us and then told the driver where to drop us off! The garden is one of Japan’s Top 3 because it combines the 6 important elements of seclusion, spaciousness, artificiality, antiquity, abundant water and broad views (these are borrowed from the Chinese Sung dynasty).

It was a really pretty garden and had many different views as you strolled around the different lake, orchard, pine forest and mountain sections. There were little buildings in which to take tea or have an ice-cream (in Japan it’s always cheaper to buy inside the park than out oddly enough!) As our train arrived so early we had the place to ourselves but then a steady stream of visitors started to spoil the photo’s culminating in the mega-phone wielding tour groups.

Temple gardens often try to recreate nature in miniature and the Miyajima Daisho-in temple of the Shingon sect was my favourite in the whole of Japan. They had beautiful buildings, carp ponds, statue grotto’s and caves in amongst the trees leading up the side of the hill with wonderful views from the top. We were also served free herbal tea while we rested in the shade.

The gardens of the Heian Jingu Shrine in Kyoto were of the same style as those in Miyajima but on a much bigger scale. The temple dates from only 1895 and was built to commemorate the 1100th anniversary of the founding of Kyoto. The gardens are mostly water and we wished that we had brought our books to spend the day sitting on the bridge overlooking the lake.

Himeji is famous for its castle, but next to this are the Edo period recreated gardens of the samuri quarters called Koko-en. There are 9 gardens, all with a different feel to them. We particularly liked the tea house overlooking a large carp filled lake garden and the recreation of a waterfall where we sat in the cool of vine trellises until the mosquitoes drove us away.

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is one of the most important in Japan, though not really a garden in the traditional sense, it was moving as well as beautiful. The A-bomb dome stands across the river from the museums, cenotaph, flame of peace and the children’s peace monument. There are colourful paper crane displays that are donated by school children who fold them in memory of leukemia victim Sadake Sasaki and the other victims of the A-bomb.

Mangakissas, McDonalds and other cost saving tips

Japan is a very expensive country to travel around. It was by far the most expensive country we have visited on our trip. The Japanese Yen has always been strong against the pound but with the pound itself weak at the moment things were even worse. When we were there £1 bought you about 160Y (today its dropped even further to 140Y). We spent a month in Japan and in order not to completely wipe us out we had to economize where we could.

The big three costs are food, accomodation and transport. Transport is the easy one because of the Japan Rail Pass – don’t come to Japan without one – they are amazing value for money.

On the food front it meant eating (I shudder to say it) in McDonalds a lot. Mostly we’d eat 2 hamburgers each for lunch or dinner (100Y each), forget fries as they are way too expensive (250Y+) and a big mac meal was also out as it costs about 600Y and if we we’re spending that sort of money we’d eat proper food! So when eating cheaply we could both eat for 400Y (about $2.50 – pretty good really). Japan is a very clean country so thankfully we could drink tap water instead of buying expensive mineral water.  We ate plenty of nice food too like Sushi (plates from 160Y to 500Y) we would eat about 4-5 plates each, Bento Boxes which are a boxed meal including a variety of items (600Y) and Susan’s favorite Okonomiyaki which is a lovely savory pancake with various vegetables mixed into it (600Y for a meal set with Miso soup). Most food dishes in Japan are about 600-800Y per main dish – even simple noodle dishes, so if you are on a budget you will end up eating at McDonalds quite a bit.

On the accomodation front, a simple business hotel room will set you back £70+ a night. Even hostel rooms with shared bathrooms can cost £50+ a night. So to cut costs we took overnight trains whenever we could and slept in our seats (unfortunately you can’t get sleeper beds with the Japan Rail Pass). When we didn’t sleep on the train we tried as much as we could to seek out the Manga Cafes – you can find these quite easily by following your ears until you can’t hear yourself think over the sound of Pachinko machines, then look around for a bit until you see 24H written somewhere amidst all the Japanese signage. Chances are the 24H sign is a mangakissa. You need to wander over to the sign and look for an entry way, the manga cafes are usually upstairs above the Pachinko Parlours or “other” entertainment establishments.

When you arrive you will be greeted with a confused expression by two impossibly young auburn/spikey/asymmetrically haired fashion victims. They will assume you are lost and expect you to leave in a few moments. They wont speak much, if any English, but they are usually friendly enough and when they realise that you aren’t in fact lost they will be happy enough to help you. On the counter you will find a price list, its quite easy to work it out although none of it will be in English. One of the price boxes will have a moon symbol on it or something and times will be marked in familiar characters. Often you’ll need to join the Manga Cafe before they let you stay overnight, this is usually another 150Y each and you’ll get a little card which you can use if you come across another Manga cafe in the same group in another town. Prices for overnight are about 2000Y (~£12) each for a fixed time period. You have to be careful not to oversleep – we did on our first night and the extra hour in bed doubled the total cost! The great thing about the manga cafes is that you get free drinks – soft drinks, coffee, tea, even slurpees and ice cream in some of them!

In spite of what you may have heard, the magazines themselves for the most part seem pretty harmless although needless to say they are totally bonkers, and of course they are all in Japanese. If you do try to look at the pictures  remember that Japanese is written right to left and books are therefore read back to front from our point of view. Although they are so incomprehensible to the uninitiated that I doubt it would help you which ever way you read them!

There was a time when we were going to put off Japan until we had a bit more money to “do it properly” but honestly I’m glad we did it on the cheap. We saw a different side of Japan and, dare I say it, we got in touch with the real Japan in a way we never would have if we had been insulated in a comfy hotel.

Hokkaido – Wales with volcanoes

Hokkaido is a really lovely place. The northernmost of the Japanese islands it is much cooler than the southern islands and this was really nice after the heat of Tokyo. The pace of life is a lot more chilled too and the countryside much more lush and green. It really did remind us a lot of home.

Getting to Hokkaido from Tokyo was a bit of a train riding extravaganza, involving a full days worth of travelling on 4 trains. We were already pretty tired at the start because the night before the trip we slept in the seats on an overnight train from Kanazawa and the night before that was spent getting to Kanazawa from Tokyo on another overnight trip – the Japan Rail pass is great but it really does tire you out!

The journey can take more or less time depending on which trains you take. Originally we had intended to take the overnight sleeper from Toyko to Sapporo (capital of Hokkaido island) but unfortunately this was not covered by our JR pass as it was a full-on sleeper train with beds only and was *very* expensive. So we opted for a day time trip instead.

We got most of the way there in 3 hours on the Shinkansen but then you have to switch at Hachinohe to slower trains as the far north of Honshu and Hokkaido haven’t yet got the fast tracks needed by the bullet trains. From Hachinohe we took a ‘Limited Express’ train to Hakodate in southern Hokkaido (another 3 hours). The crossing from Honshu to Hokkaido takes you under the Tsugaru Strait through the Seikan Tunnel, which at 33.46 miles long is one of the longest underwater tunnels in the world.

From Hakodate it was another 3.5 hour journey to Sapporo and then another 1.5 hours to Asahikawa – our base for our time in Hokkaido. We arrived at 12.30 am so the whole journey had taken us 13.5 hours!

It was a lot of effort to get there but very much worth it. We only wish we could have spent longer in Hokkaido. We stayed in a our first Manga Kissa (see future post) in Asahikawa and did day / overnight trips from there. The great thing about Japan is the consistency of things like left luggage facilities in stations. We used these each time we left the Manga Kissa so we could leave our heavy backpacks behind. The lockers charge about Y500 (~£3) per day and you can leave your luggage for a maximum of 3 nights.

We had a great time travelling around the island on the trains, one day we did a loop of the whole island and one of the stops was at the nothern coastal town of Abashiri which looks out across the Sea of Okhotsk, where in the winter you can do some serious iceberg spotting. No ice when we were there but it was great to breathe in the clean crisp sea air and watch birds – within a few minutes we saw dozens of gulls, a heron fishing at the shoreline and a huge sea eagle surveying all from far above.

But by far the highlight of our time in Hokkaido was our trip to Diasetsuzan National Park. This is a large conservation area in the centre of Hokkaido. We stayed at Asahidake Onsen, a hotsprings resort at the base of Mt Asahidake – a 2290m steaming volcano! The place is high up amidst alpine forests and the whole place looks like it belongs in the Swiss Alps! There were lots of hotels in the Onsen but we stayed in a lovely wooden hostel in keeping with the Alpine feel. We could hardly wait to get up the mountain, so we dropped off our bags in the hostel and found the ropeway station. The ropeway (cablecar) took us high above the pine trees, to the summit area where only flowers and small shrubs grow.

We saw lots of Siberian chipmunks with striped bodies and thin tails. They made a lot of noise so were easy to spot and also quite inquisitive of you so it was easy to get some nice close ups.

There are many walking trails up and around the mountain, but we decided not to attempt the summit itself as it was covered in thick cloud so we took the 1.7km loop track around the top instead. It was a lovely walk along a gravel and rock path up to lakes and vents spewing huge plumes of steaming sulphur.

The backdrop to the volcanic fireworks was a beautiful landscape of rolling hills and pine trees – it was simply breathtaking.

Climbing Mount Fuji

Mount Fuji is the highest mountain in Japan at 3,776 m (12,388 ft) and is an active volcano that last erupted in 1707–08. Mount Fuji’s exceptionally symmetrical cone is a well-known symbol of Japan and is open to climbers only two months of the year. Luckily we were there at the right time to climb it.

As we arrived at Kawaguchi-ko, Mount Fuji could hardly been seen as there was so much cloud, so we were suprised when the lady at the tourist information counter said that we had perfect conditions to climb. We had spent the day at the less than idyllic lake-side; with a huge highway going across it and the shores filled with high-rise hotels. We rushed back to our hotel to pack up some warm clothing, and took Andre’s socks as gloves. I took my Gregory backpack because it’s so much more comfortable, and Andre had his new camera bag. We bought 7 Snickers bars, some raisin bread and rice wrapped in nori. There are 24 hour noodle places on the top so we knew we’d be ok for food and water, it would just be the expense. We loaded all our water bottles with ice tea to give us energy and I also made sure we had our whistles and emergency survival blankets. Luckily we had brought a great Petzl head lamp in Hong Kong too.

We caught the bus from the Train Station to Station 5 on Mt Fuji. Nobody climbs from the bottom any more and the lower areas are hiking trails. The bus takes us up quite far to a station of sorts filled with shops and restaurants, horse rides and scenic walks by day. By the time we got there, there was only one gift shop and restaurant open with a toilet for 50Y. The book said that we should acclimatise before setting off, as we had risen to 2305m, so we decided to have some food and a hot drink. That was fun because the waiter had to show us how to order food. First we choose what we want from the plastic models on display, then we put money into a machine and press the right button (all in Japanese), then we gave the ticket to the waiter. Only then can he prepare the food. They don’t have to handle money I suppose. Unfortunately the meat option was horse! Lorraine and Kat would never forgive me, so I just had a drink. In fact we’re getting really sick of noodles, our rice threshold is much higher. We had a quick look around the shop selling Mt Fuji nick-nacks and bought ourselves a walking stick each for 2000Y. They had blue (mine) and red (Andre’s) ribbon on with two bells. These didn’t last long and we found many ground into the dirt along the track – I wonder if any made it to the top! Our stick was already marked with the 5th Station marker, the idea is to get them stamped at each station as you go up. But as it was 300Y per stamp and what would we do with the stick(?) we decided not to bother.

Lots of people were milling about and getting ready to climb. There was a really nice atmosphere as everyone was excited to get going. The Japanese don’t do anything by half, and most of them had bought and worn every piece of hiking paraphranalia they could get their hands on. Completely tooled up with canned oxygen, they looked like they were climbing Everest or K2! I was suprised to see many children, teenagers and older people climbing. We started to climb at 8.45pm, downhill to our dismay. This only meant that we’d have to go up a longer bit further on. We could see a good view of lights of Kawaguchi-ko and Fuji-Yoshida. After a little while we found the trail going up to the 6th Station and a trail down to the ‘real’ 5th Station. There seems to be a lot of ‘real’ and ‘half’ stations on the hiking map showing the steady influx of businesses helping climbers to spend 500Y on a bottle of water and 200Y for a toilet break – but hey, at least they warm the seats! I’m, not kidding, the toilets were lovely and warm from this Japanese obsession. They all provided sanitary napkins too oddly.

We reached Station 6 without thinking about it in half an hour. Then the proper trekking began. From 6 to 7 we had to walk up countless switchbacks with one hand on the wall and one on our walking stick. Then from 7 to 8 we were climbing over rocks as if climbing up a river bed strewn with boulders. We needed our hands free and were thankful of the head torch, though we should have had one each. We also spotted plants growing underneath the rocks for shelter. We were getting really tired and stopped at each station for a sit down. Oddly enough, a lot of the Japanese would be having a fag break next to us as we were gulping for oxygen! After Station 8 the altitude started getting to us. Andre was the first to feel giddy and sick, then he was fine and I struggled all the way to the top. It was one step, move stick, one step, move stick. Painfully slow as we were so tired and it was very hard to breath. Andre took big long breaths, but this didn’t help me so I went for the quick childbirth style breathing, which did the trick.

Towards Station 9 and the final torii gate on the top, many were content with their attempt and just sat down to rest and wait for the sunrise. We had only minutes to get through the torii gate and stone lions and it was so hard to push up when I felt so ill. We managed it though. I found a step to sit on and within 2 minutes the sun was visible on the horizon. My eyes welled up with tears so I covered my face with my buff. I couldn’t believe that we’d climbed Mount Fuji and we had found out that afternoon that we’d been accepted into Australia, and how beautiful the sunrise is and how wonderful it feels to share this moment with everyone. We all cheered as the sun made its first appearance and they all shouted the Japanese phrase “Banzai” as the sun fully rose – a word of celebration and hope for longevity.

Surprisingly a lot of people just started straight down the mountain again. We queued for a photo by the 10th post and noted the noodle shops and vending machines (yes!) doing a swift business.

There was also a shrine and a place to get your stick stamped, the place was packed! In fact we’d had to queue up most of the way there were so many people. The mountain is only open to trekkers in July and August, so everybody was making the most of the opportunity. We decided to head around to the crater. We were freezing and the wind blew straight through us, so we put Andre’s socks over our hands. As we rounded a small hill we were sheltered from the wind and began to feel the benefits of the sunlight. We stopped for a sit down and had some raisin bread for breakfast. As we’d made it all the way up, we spent a few hours wandering around the crater, taking photos and looking at the view. The highest top is actually the weather station, so we headed towards that. On the way we found the Post Office! I’d bought a nice set of postcards and brought them with me to post at the summit. I also bought a nice little certificate to commemorate our climb for 500Y, which the Post Office stamped. We spent ages writting the postcards and then sent them from the top and took a picture to prove it!

We saw some other trails leading down, but continued on to the weather station. It sits right on the crater rim. There’s nothing much in there, rocks and a bit of ice, some discolouration I think caused by algae or lichen as it was a forest green colour. The rocks were like a colour selection sack for a garden driveway, just lots and lots of small pumice stones in reds, browns and creams all piled up into huge heaps, some of which had fallen into the crater.

It was such hard work climbing up the last part as it was near vertical. There were handrails, but they had risen too high as the ground had slipped away beneath it. I lunged forward to grab the next pole to pull myself up as other people slid their way down past me. We got to the top to see 3 people in a heap with a cloth over their faces in exhaustion. We sat on the first step of the weather station and had a Snickers, crisps and ice tea, then walked up the few steps to have our photo taken with the final and highest column.

We discovered a view-point on the opposite side too. This was incredible, I’m sure we could see the Japanese Alps poking out of the carpet of cloud. We could see down the mountain into the forests of the other side. We did a little video and then headed back to the crater path to complete the circuit. We were freezing in the wind and too hot in the sun – it really is an extreme place! Thank god we had clear skies that far up. With all the cloud below we were a bit unsure what we’d find when we descended.

Just before we started off down the mountain we made a cheerful video showing our decent track snaking off in the distance below us. We thought it would never end! We had hours, HOURS, of slipping on gravel – ready to fall at any time. Andre fell 5 times, I once. The only way to get down safely and without damaging your knees was to do a side to side skiing action on the gravel – a cross between a pirate swagger and the Scousers from Harry Enfield. I could do it by putting my thigh muscles to work, but Andre couldn’t quite get the hang of it so felt better just taking it slowly with his knee joint taking the fall with each step. I could have practically ran down, in fact a lot of people did. It went on and on, switchback after switchback until we got to Station 8 then 7, where we could join up to the climbing track to get some drinks and food. The ascent seems to be over stones and and larger rocks, the decent on dusty red gravel. We could see both sides clearly at the top but the clouds soon blocked out the view. The clouds were nice and cool and we welcomed the cover from the hot sun.

The worst thing was the lack of facilities on the decent – no drinking water, shops for food and sugary drinks, or even a single vending machine! We followed the same people down the mountain all the way and had to go through little tunnels to protect us from falling rock. These were really slippery and Andre fell and I hurt my back trying to correct a wobble. By the time we had joined up with the ascending trail at station 6 we were total wrecks. We had to walk past the curious stares of all those starting out in their bright shiny outfits (a lot of them white!) while we had red dust all over our shoes and up to our knees, with a light covering of dirt everywhere else. My hair was sticking out all directions as I’d taken off my hat, and we could hardly pick our feet or eyelids up. We didn’t care though, we’d climbed Fuji San, and spent 17 1/2 hours on the mountain. Time to get back to the hostel for a shower and a good sleep.

Tokyo

Everything you’ve thought about Tokyo is true. The urban sprawl of mile after mile of shopping, restaurants and cramped high rise living. Every street screaming at you in floor to roof-top bright lights and promises of a good time. You get used to the little jingles played by the traffic lights as you cross the road, or every train station when a train arrives.

Japan has blended the old and the new ways of living in a way that I’ve seen in no other country. If you by an expensive state of the art gadget from a shop in Ginza, the sales assistant will show you to the door and bow deeply to your back as you depart in the old fashioned way. This respect is built into everyone, making them extremely helpful and friendly, going out of their way to make sure that you are ok. That’s not to say that they don’t have their fair share of pushing and shoving as in any other Asian country with such a large population, but its an unwritten rule that in ignorance you can push all you want, but acknowledgment demands respect and consideration. This huge population seems to be all out shopping and commuting to work at the same time at the busiest intersection in the world in Shubiya. You really have to see it for yourself, though preferably from the high vantage point in Shibuya station than in amongst it. Shubiya is also full of ‘Love Hotels’ where couples can discretely come and go for a ‘rest’ or ‘stay’ in any number of fantasy theme rooms, enjoying such pleasures as karaoke from your hot-tub among other things.

North of Shibuya is Shinjuku, a major transport hub surrounded by the usual shopping malls and restaurants, but also home to Tokyo’s red light district Kabukicho. To the international visitor it’s nothing more than Pachinko Parlours (think vertical pinball) and yet more restaurants. The signage, singing and flashing lights is multiplied 10 fold, while the din from the Pachinko Parlours is enough to drive anyone insane. To the Japanese salarymen out there for a good time there are such pastimes as touching up girls on a mock train carriage full of people and hostess bars full of girls just waiting to meet them. All that said, we stayed right in the heart of it for three nights in an manga cafe with no ill effects.

Further north still is Harajuku where middle class Japanese teenagers shop for extreme fashion and accessories. Their parent’s are on the next street buying Laura Ashley home-wears, while their grandparents may be strolling under the beautiful cypress torii gate of Meiji-jingu shrine nearby.

Tokyo is all about youth culture and its easy to feel old here even at 30, hell you’d feel old here even at 20! The innumerable Pachinko Parlours and other psychedelic distractions make the whole place feel like one massive amusement arcade. Its fun for a bit but after a while (about 10 mins) you need to get on a train and get away for the sake of your sanity.

All the cities of Japan have little Tokyos in their centres but its usually just one area thats easy to avoid if the bright lights and constant noise is not to your liking. Unfortunately for us in our efforts to do things on the cheap we had to seek them all out. For they are the home to another of Japan’s quirky inventions – the 24 hour manga cafe which double up as a very cheap place to crash.

In a later post we’ll tell you all about them…

Konnichiwa!

It’s great to finally be here. Japan is somewhere we’ve wanted to visit for years but up until a week before we got here it wasn’t a place we were going to visit on our current Asia trip. Its not really a place you can do on the cheap even when you’re really trying hard to keep costs down. Anyway we’re here now and although its every bit as expensive as we feared its definitely worth it. The people are great – really friendly although very few of them speak any English at all. You get by with lots of gesturing and pointing at things!

We flew into Toyko from Hong Kong and spent a few days there doing some last minute planning. The problem with deciding to go last minute was not having any time to plan before we got here. Luckily I’d started planning a rough itinerary over a year ago, (when Japan was going to be our first stop in Asia after sailing from Vladivostok in Russia) so I had a sketchy idea of some good places to visit. We bought our Japan Rail Pass voucher in Hong Kong and decided to activate it just before we left Tokyo so as to get the maximum usage of the 21 day pass.

Since then its been a non-stop roller coaster of a journey all over the country, and we’ve been so busy we haven’t had a chance to write a single blog entry until now – just 2 days before we sail to China! So we’re busy today putting together a few entries that sum up the country and the people in all their crazy glory!

So how do you sum up a country like Japan? Well, I guess its not being able to understand 99% of what’s being said around you, not being able to understand any of the adverts on billboards or the huge TV screens. Turning the TV on to see some green puppet screaming at children in a way that’s bound to give them nightmares even though the kids are clearly loving it. Or maybe its the way all the lamp posts sing at you when you walk down the street. In fact the way lots of things, that normally wouldn’t, sing at you given half the chance; lamposts, cashpoints, toilets, vending machines, hand dryers, trains – each station has a little unique tune that it sings when every train arrives and departs.

The food, from raw horse meat to sea anemone, is completely unappetising but sits next to gorgeous tempura, yakatori and sushi which we have exported to the West.

The teenage fashion of sexy school girl meets anime character is a bit disturbing, as is the skinny white perfection to which most try to conform. Maybe its because we’re foreigners here in the truest sense, but for me all these things add up to make Japan, and the Japansese seem completely and uttery insane!

This ‘I’m walking around an insane asylum’ experience is all part of the fun travelling in Japan though. It’s complete sensory overload, but your senses are saturated with things that make no sense at all. I think if you understood Japanese it actually wouldn’t be half as fun, because you’d recognise that the singing lampost is just saying its safe to cross the road, the adverts would be trying to sell you car insurance or something equally boring, and the vending machine would be just be telling you to take your change.

Japan for people who don’t speak Japanese is a really crazy and confusing place, made accessible and enjoyable by the friendlyness of everyone you meet.

We got in! Australia here we come!

We found out on Wednesday that we have been accepted as permanent residents of Australia! We have to get our visa endorsed at an embassy, then we can enter and activate our visa. Hopefuuly we can get that done in Tokyo. We can stay forever, or we have to stay for 2 years in each 5 to retain our residency status, and we can apply for citizenship after staying there for 4 years.

We can’t believe that it’s finally come through, we’re so excited.

Hong Kong

We arrived in Hong Kong last Sunday and have really enjoyed our week and a half here. There’s lots to see and do, but we must confess that we’ve spent most of the time in and around the shopping districts looking for clothes and camera equipment. Andre needed to get a new camera bag that would allow side access and enable him to carry books and water too, and he wanted to get a nice big wide-angle lens for the awesome landscape shots of China and Japan. Luckily, the prices of camera equipment are a little cheaper than the UK, and Singapore and Kuala Lumpur were a lot more expensive that we expected.

I ‘needed’ two pretty dresses, so I got one blue silk Zara dress and a teal cotton H&M dress. I also bought some linen trousers and a shirt from Marks and Spenser – “oh how exotic”, I here you cry 😛 Here’s me modeling dim sum in one.

We’re staying at a nice little guest-house in Golden Crown Plaza on Nathan Road. It’s a little higher up than the dodgy backpacker places and much nicer, near the park. The room is not that big, but is clean and tidy. The only problem is the lack of window, as we tend to lie in half the day with no visual cues and go to bed at 2am. We’re turning nocturnal!

Hong Kong is a great place for a city visit, there are plenty of museums, theater’s, parks and shopping. The restaurants are pretty cheap, but we’re obviously going to the cheap places like the local chains and food courts in the malls. We squeezed our sightseeing into two days at the end due to shopping and all the rain from typhoon Morakot that hit us for much of our stay.

Victoria Peak was pretty, taking the tram up was a bit uncomfortable though as you are nearly horizontal and the seats are wooden. We paid for the Sky Terrace too, but it’s not necessary as you can see it all from the shopping center. There was a lot of cloud and haze so we couldn’t see too far. We met a huge group of Indians from Jaipur there who practically filled the terrace for their group photo. We met Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee at the entrance to madame tussauds too.

We also took the lift up to the Bank of China building to see the haze, but at least it was free. Soho was too expensive for us, but great if you’re on holiday or fancy some home cooked or European food. We took the escalator all the way up and then walked down as it was just gearing up for the night. There’s also a good second-hand bookshop there – “flow” – that we spent ages in, getting ready for the lack of choice in Japan and China.

We took a cable car over to see the giant Buddha Tian Tan too; though the ride high over the water and wooded hills was more interesting than the Buddha itself, which was made in 1993 apparently. We also went to the Temple Street Night Market with all their fake watches and hand bags, and a fantastic wig shop that I’ll be going back to as I now think that green hair suits me 🙂 We just caught the end of Kung Fu Corner in Kawloon Park on Sunday too.

We really enjoyed Hong Kong and will definitely visit again.

Reminders of home

Air Asia in-flight magazine had a special on the UK as a holiday destination, as they have just started Air Asia X with cheap flights between Stanstead and Kuala Lumpur (we’re flying back at Christmas for £280 in total!!!) Look – Cardiff!

A Hong Kong supermarket is also stocking Caerphiily cheese!

Bali

We spent three and a half weeks in Bali having a rest and researching our itinerary for China. First we spent a week in Kuta. We were really suprised by how nice it was, there were plenty of pushy sales people, but there was also lots of shopping and restaurants as well as the famous Kuta Beach. We stayed a little out of town for 2 nights and then moved right into the action on Poppies II. It was actually really quiet in our hotel, even during the day we could lie by the pool and relax. We even had a view of a small family shrine over the wall from our hotel pool from our balcony. However, we felt that there was more to Bali than Australian teenage surfers and headed to the cultural capital, Ubud, for our second week.

We stayed at a great family compound for three nights which was dirt cheap as they were doing construction in the compound, but our room was wonderful. We fancied the nice rice terrace view that Ubud is famous for so spent ages looking for something affordable. Ubud is lovely, but it is choked with traffic, touts and new age hippy stuff which costs an arm and a leg, and it takes a while to find the local groove. We wandered down a path next to some rice fields and discovered a lovely hotel with massive potential that was, luckily for us, untapped and cheap! We took a room on the lower floor overlooking a pond and small garden and beyond to rice fields.

We felt like we had the place to ourselves as we saw very few people and the guys running it would rarely be around. We made big pots of tea and sat on our wicker chairs reading, eating bundles of cheap fruit and watching the wildlife in the rice fields and the men tending their crops.

We did a few of the walks around Ubud from the Lonely Planet, but the rice fields weren’t that spectacular. We saw some great kids flying kites in them though (top picture), and walked up into an artists village and chatted with local Balinese artists. They seem to spend a lot of time doing the same picture to sell to tourists, but they were lovely all the same. We saw some really amazing paintings but explained from the outset that we had no money. They seemed happy just to chat and we felt less like walking wallets up and away from Ubud. We even crashed the catering for a local ceremony and had a road side meal in a banana leaf.

One evening we were out walking when we noticed a massive procession walking up the main high street. We followed it and followed it and ended up walking 4km up a hill north of Ubud to a temple holding some sort of New Year ceremony. Unfortunately we didn’t bring a sarong so couldn’t enter, but we enjoyed the walk up in the cool air listening to the traditional music and walking with the locals all dressed up in their fine traditional costumes. We felt a bit dejected at the top though. In India we’d have been in tens of photo’s and sold everything that we needed to take part, but in Bali you are a nuisance not a novelty at such events and we walked back down unnoticed. Just as we were discussing how far we had to walk back on our own and the lack of, “transport?” calls, we were offered a lift by a kind little family in their mini-van, “for free” as the guy said. We happily took it all the way back to our hotel and had our faith restored in the ordinary people.

Food in Ubud can be pretty expensive if you’re on a budget. This is because almost all of the eating places in Ubud are pitched at package tourists, not backpackers. The food is excellent in these restaurants and they are still cheap by western standards – a large pizza in one of Ubud’s swanky joints will cost you about 50,000 Rupiah – thats about £3. Still if your on a long trip saving a few pounds a day makes a big difference over the months. Basic strategy is to stay off the main tourist streets, and if possible find where the locals eat. We looked around and found a nice “Warung” – a small family run restaurant. This place was a lot cheaper, and here you could get a Nasi Goreng (Nasi=Rice, Goreng=Fried) – a typical Indonesian dish of rice, vegetables, chicken, (whatever they have!) stir fried with egg. The swanky restaurants will sell it to you for 30000 Rupiah (£1.82). Our Warung did a lovely version for 8000 Rupiah – about 48p! We thought that was the best deal we were going to get, but one day we were in the market area after dark and we noticed a lady selling food parcels wrapped in banana leaves – we guessed they were a rice dish of some sort and asked her. She didn’t speak english, so we said “Nasi?” and she nodded. We gestured “how much?” and she said 2000 Rupiah – that’s 12p! so we bought 3 packets to take home and try. These parcels were the best food we ate in Bali. They were rice with a topping of chicken, gado gado (a vegetable salad with a peanut sauce), and chili pickle. The next night we went back to the lady and bought 5 packets – 2 for me, 3 for Andre. That amounted to a very filling meal for 10000 Rupiah – 60p. By eating the local food we were able to live on 100,000 Rupiah (£6) a day for both of us, meals and accomodation!

We fancied something different for our last week. We had been to Seminyak on our honeymoon so decided to do the other coast at Sanur. After hours of searching, Andre found a lovely modern room at a restaurant on the main strip. However we could only stay there for two nights and had to go looking again the next day. Sanur is expensive and caters for the tourist package crowd on family vacations. The hotels are amazing, and cheap for the facilities and surroundings, but not in our league. We had to think again, so decided to go back to the other coast but this time Legian. After another 2 hours searching, Andre found a lovely hotel (but a bit expensive at £21 a night) with bungalow style accomodation, large pool with swim-up bar, restaurant and 24 hour bar which played live music. It was a bit old and empty in the evening, as the food was awful and expensive, but this was more than made up for by the wonderful pool area and free wi-fi. Also next door was a gorgeous local Warung serving huge portions of Balinese food for 15000 Rupiah (90p!) Not as cheap as our Ubud food, but the cheapest in Legian by a long way.

We felt mixed feelings for Bali this time around. On our honeymoon, or in fact when you frequent expensive hotels and restaurants, the hospitality is amazing. The quality on offer for the price is outstanding, making it a great value holiday destination. In the backpacker league though it’s hard work unless you know of cheap places to stay to get away from the busy streets and touts, and cheap places to eat. It is especially difficult when you go in peak season like we did and aren’t willing to rent a motorbike. The touts were so annoying with their calls for, “transport?”, followed by “maybe tomorrow?”. But these were topped by the screams of, “massaaage!?” and a leaflet thrust into your hands by the groups of giggling girls on every corner. The teenagers that work in most of the places we went to didn’t speak very good English and would just laugh at you instead of trying to communicate their misunderstanding. It made me feel old and demanding lol. I think that we should come back to one of the 5 star hotels and rent a driver to take us around, or go exploring the rest of Indonesia next time.