Beijing

Beijing, capital of China. A massive, sprawling city. And soon to be home to the 2008 Olympic Games – i.e. a bit of a building site at the moment!

OK, that’s a little unfair – it’s a very nice, high class building site, with lots of modern, swish, gleaming buildings between the areas of construction work. And a really nice new airport to greet travellers. Overall, a big improvement on the Beijing we saw just over a year ago. But you get the distinct impression that work to give the city a sparkling image for the summer games is still very much ongoing.

I suppose this must be what happened in Athens a few years back, as I’ve heard that the Olympics caused the city to be transformed (although I’ve only ever seen the gloomy polluted old Athens). And it would be good if London is spruced up a bit for it’s Olympics in a few years time – it certainly could do with a good facelift. Beijing has a few advantages over London too, - after all, the UK has many nice historical sites and attractions, but it certainly does not have anything quite as magnificent as the Great Wall of China to entertain the visitors that come for the Games. On the other hand, London is a smidge less polluted than Beijing, so they’ll have a little less hassle getting the air clean for all the athletes.

We’ve spent most of our time wandering around Beijing so far, visiting various beautiful parks, the main shopping district (Wangfujing street), and of course the Forbidden City. Beijing is pretty large, with everything spaced out, so I suppose you might expect the Imperial Palace to be big, but nothing really prepares you for the scale of the place. Assuming the map in the rough guide is vaguely accurate, the complex is about 1 km wide and 2 km long – and the entire area is packed with buildings and courtyards – very little is given over to gardens. Walking through the length of the place seems to take forever, and that’s without exploring all the tiers of halls and gardens that lie to the East and West of the main palace buildings! If you climb the hill in the Jingshan gardens just to the north of the Forbidden city you get a really good view of the extent of the complex – a mass of glittering intricate yellow ceramic roves that stretches into the distance, the most southerly gates almost disappearing into the haze of the city. Have a look at the photos for some sort of an idea.

Well, I suppose you might expect a place like the Forbidden City to be built for the Chinese Emperors – afterall, apparently they very rarely left it, and enjoyed unbelievably opulent and extravagant lives within. This of course would have encouraged invasion, and as a result there have been a fair few Dynasties. And of course various attempts were made by Emperors to preserve their Empire from marauding heathens – the most ambitious being the Great Wall of China. This incredible (and totally futile) structure stretches from Shahaiguan by the Yellow Sea to the Jiayuguan Pass in the Gobi Desert, and is about 7 meters high and 7 meters wide for its entire length apparently. They do things on a fairly grand scale in China.

We saw the part of the wall that is most accessible from Beijing, and therefore also the most touristy bit. Saying that, getting the 70 km northwest of the city on Chinese public buses (where no-one speaks English, and all place names are only spelt in Chinese symbols on bus stops) was pretty challenging! We plan to be even more adventurous soon and use public transport to visit a quieter, more remote section of wall. Anyway, despite being one of the biggest tourist destinations on Earth, the Badaling section of the Great Wall was utterly magnificent. OK, you do get the hordes of Chinese tourists - mostly in Guided groups with 30 or so middle-aged people wearing identical red baseball hats follow a little red flag around! But actually the vast majority of these only visit the very middle of the Badaling section of wall. If you walk along the wall to the North or the South you easily get away from the crowds. The best bit is the scenery though – this section of wall is built along the top of mountain ridges, so if constantly rises and falls, twisting and turning to follow the highest and therefore most defensible line – almost doubling back on itself at times. It looks almost serpentine as it runs on and on into the distance.

Anyway, we’re leaving Beijing tomorrow to take the train up to Chengde. This is where some of the Emperors came in the summer to escape the heat of Beijing – so you can expect a few more pictures of opulent palaces and gardens to appear on the blog in a few days time!

Beijing Photos

The Great Wall of China - complete with a cheesy 'One World One Vision' Olympic sign in the background. Nice wall though! This is the most touristy stretch at Badalang, but to be honest its still well worth a look - the wall winds up and down the mountain in a particularly serpentine way.
Gary with a nicely snake-like wall behind him!

And look in the other direction, and you see yet more wall winding up and down, on and on into the distance.
One of the gateways to the Forbidden City in Beijing. It is a truly huge complex, all tilled in yellow ceramic (the colour of the Emperor apparently) . It is very difficult to photograph the place simply because of the size - you get a better impression with the next photo... a view from the park behind the City. The artificial hill from which this photo was taken was made from the earth dug up when the moat around the Forbidden City was made!

One of the nice parks in Beijing - lots of water, pagodas, gates etc. Very pretty, and good to wander around after the vast grandeur of the Forbidden City.

Return to Tokyo

This is the end of our two weeks in Japan, and we’ll be moving on to China later today. Sad, really. We spent the last 4 nights in Tokyo, as whenever we’ve been to Japan in the past we’ve always felt that we haven’t spent enough time here. It’s a huge fascinating city, with lots of life, bustle, and strange things to explore. And fantastic food to enjoy!

And after Nikko, which (although a very beautiful place) has a town-wide closing time of about 3pm, it’s been nice to stay somewhere where you can get a bite to eat any time of the day or night. We spent most of the time here wandering between places. We’d find somewhere we wanted to see (like Shinjuku or Ginza) and walk to it from our hotel in Roppongi. This way we got to explore the town a lot better than just taking the tube – you keep on stumbling across things like beautiful Japanese gardens, temples, giant replicas of the Eiffel tower, monstrous fish in big tanks, and so on. Have a look at the photos below to see what I mean. As I said, strange place!

I think my favourite temple in Tokyo is still Senso Ji. We came here a few years back in the middle of a festival, and I’ve had the most amazing photo of it on my laptop as a desktop ever since! OK, I didn’t manage quite such a nice photo this time around, but even though there was no festival on the place still had a carnival atmosphere. Very lively, good natured, and the temple buildings themselves looked absolutely immaculate. In fact, while we were there they were cleaning the giant 5 story pagoda with a Cherry Picker crane.

Another good place to see was the bay. It’d almost difficult to think of Tokyo as a coastal town, as most of the famous regions are well away from the sea. But actually it’s worth taking the monorail out over the massive Rainbow Bridge into the island of reclaimed land in the middle of the bay simply for it’s randomness! This place seems to be a strip a mile or two long, filled with giant shopping arcades. Not just any malls though, that would be boring! The best one has a Venice theme, and is decked out with silly fountains, painted ceilings, and (as every Italian city has) a huge Toyota show centre with silly little electric cars driving themselves around at track that circles the main show area. We found it a fascinatingly tacky place to spend a few hours, but many young Japanese girls were out in force spending hideous amounts of money in the designer shops.

Of course other places where you can also dispose of your life savings by buying shoes and a matching handbag are the posh department stores of Ginza and Shinjuku. These are also great to wander around, but they also have cheaper normal areas to shop in, and fantastic basements full of delicatessen counters where you can pick up really tasty gyoza (Japanese fried dumplings). Roppongi, where we stayed, also has it’d designer sections (mainly around the Ritz and the huge mall Roppongi Hills), but it’s also has some really odd areas. Probably the most bizarre is the life-sized replica of the Eiffel Tower – no, sorry, not quite a replica - the Tokyo version is 3m higher, and painted red and white for some reason. But I also liked the amusement arcade with the fish tank outside that was home to a small shark and a huge grey fish. Seriously, this fish probably weighed nearly as much as me!

Anyway, on to Beijing, where the writing is just as easy to understand as Japanese, and absolutely everyone speaks English! This next five weeks in China should be fascinating, but it’s unlikely to be easy…

More Tokyo Photos

Roppongi Hills - a multi million pound shopping complex complete with Japanese gardens, sky-scrapers, designer shops, and or course a giant spider.
Roppongi also has an arcade for gamers. To lure you inside they've placed a giant fish tank on the street wall. This is one of the inhabitants (no, I don't mean me haha)! If you look carefully in the background you'll see a mini shark wizzing by.

Senso Ji - Tokyo's liveliest temple. A nice Pagoda too! It also has a very pleasant garden (below) with a sculptured waterfall, pond and series of bridges.

Tokyo Tower. It does look like the Eiffel tower, eh? Odd colour scheme though.

Japanese gardens are very beautiful. This on had a lovely lake (with greedy coi carp), and miniature hills to walk up and down.
Another nice Japanese shrine. This one was in Uno - one of the northern areas in the city. It's housed in a very extensive garden complex, along with many many more shrines.

Nikko

Although northern Japan has beautiful forests, lakes, volcanoes and crabs, it definitely lacks the magnificent Shrines and Temples of the south. I think this is meant to be due to the relatively late colonisation of Northern Honshu and Hokkaido. So, to get our fix of Shriney-Templey things we decided to stop off the Shinkansen line just north of Tokyo, at the mountainous town of Nikko.

This is a really small place, very prettily located along a mountain river in the middle of forested peaks. It is mainly visited as it houses one of the most spectacular Shrine complexes in Japan – Tosho-gu. It was built following the death of one of the most powerful Shoguns in the 17th century, and made infinitely glitzier several years later by his grandson. Like most Japanese monuments its made completely of wood, but I think unlike most it hasn’t burnt down 5 or 6 times only to be reconstructed!

Anyway, the place is completely over the top! We haven’t seen this much gold and glitz since the lights of Macau’s casinos. Plus it’s a huge shrine complex, complete with mammoth prayer gates and a five storey Pagoda. And despite all the gilt it does look nice (lots of good dragons carved into the buildings), and it has a lovely location in a dense pine wood on the side of the mountain. Perhaps the nicest thing about the place is that Tosho-gu is only one of many shrine complexes in the immediate area around Nikko. This means you can escape the hordes of school children (with matching colour coded hats for each school) in the main area and wander through the pine glades to suddenly come across another impressive temple or Pagoda.

The downside to Nikko is that it closes a tad early. We researched this in advance, reading up in the Rough Guide like good tourists. We were reliably informed that the restaurants would be closed by 8pm, so we thought we’d get an early dinner by 6pm. Only to find that all the restaurants were closed! The place was a very pretty ghost town. We eventually did find somewhere (after about a mile of walking), and then returned to our hotel for a traditional Japanese bath, (which was so hot we nearly passed out after all the walking).

Nikko Photos

Nikko, a peaceful, serene, beautiful town up in the mountains north of Tokyo. Where you'll only be disturbed by the gentle sound of running water, or millions of school children on a day trip in matching yellow hats. Wonderful.

Gary by a very lovely five storey pagoda - covered in glitz and guilt (and immaculate red paint). The Prayer Gate is pretty impressive too.

This is one of the holy sites - a sacred wooden bridge. You have to pay to walk over it, so the road bridge (which as you can see from the photo gives an excellent view of the holy one) is a better option. Oh, and I think it's only burnt down about 5 times since it was first built!

Sendai

Well, we’ve left the wildlife of Hokkaido behind now, and have started back south into Honshu. Admittedly, the north part of Honshu, where its still pretty cold and overcast though. We decided to break up out return to Tokyo with a stop off in Sendai – a bustling town on the east coast of Japan. It’s a nice place – lively and modern, and has a few lovely shrines and old castle ramparts on a wooded hill just outside town.

The real attraction in the area is Matsumashima bay though – a large sweeping bay filled with loads of tiny islands of various shapes and sizes. This is (by some Japanese rating scheme that I don’t know anything about) ‘one of the top three views in Japan’. At least according to the tourist office and both club, who proudly write this information (in English) on the front of their caps. Hmm. Not that these adventurous sailors were doing anything particularly interesting when we visited, as no boats were allowed out due to high winds.

I don’t know about other ‘views’ in Japan, but the bay itself was a lot of fun. Actually I’d argue that I’ve seen much better views elsewhere, but the walk along the lake and chance to explore a few islands was really nice – and very Japanese. The best part was the way some of the islands closest to the shore were linked by bridge to the mainland – so you’d get a lovely red arched Japanese bridge to walk across on the way to have a look around the island. The little islands themselves were covered in pine tree woods, and inevitably housed a nice wooden shrine or pagoda, and one even had the ruins of some stone Buddhist temples.

The best island to explore was actually quite large. It was linked to the northern edge of the bay by a bridge about 150 m long. We turned up quite late, and so were lucky to be let across. The island it led to took us a good 30 minutes to run around before dusk fell.

Anyway, its back down south towards Tokyo next, as we don’t have too much longer in Japan before leaving for Beijing. We do intend to stop off for a night in a small town called Nikko first though, and then spend 4 nights in Tokyo itself before we leave. Japan is a lot of fun to explore!

Sendai Photos

As we arrived in Sendai station, we heard loud drumming and some strage flute like instruments. It turns out we managed to arrive in the middle of some festivea with lots of music, dancing, and these portable shrine carts! Skill!
On the castle ramparts, looking back over the town. These guys seemed to be having fun dressed up as Samuri - lots of people wanted to have their photos taken with them - particularly 50 something ladies for some reason.
Matsumasima bay, with a few of its many islands.

One of the many bridges by which you could cross to an island. This particular island had ston Buddhist relics all over it, and a few shrines made of wood too.a

Hakodate

OK. Now I have no issue with wildlife – I like animals, birds, fish, insects, anything really, with the small exception of spiders. Gary doesn’t like spiders either, in fact he likes them even less than me. And his dislikes extend to anything that scuttles really, be it insectoid or crustacean.

So you can imagine the look on his face yesterday when we were served some crab miso soup. Now that sounds fairly benign doesn’t it? Crab? Well, the crabs we get in the UK are pretty innocent, small things. Out here they look like they belong in a Scifi B movie! I’d like you to try to picture this miso soup turning up, with half a crab poking out of the bowl. Each of its legs was about 30cm long – about a foot for those of you who still like the old imperial measures! Imagine its body sitting in the big soup bowl, but the legs wouldn’t fit so they were curled over the side with the claws hitting the table top. It looked a bit like the soup contained a giant clawed hand with long spooky fingers, or a face hugger from Alien!

I looked at it, blinked, froze. And waited for Gary to see it as the waiter passed it over his shoulder. His face was a picture when he did! Absolute terror – eyes widened, expression froze, body totally rigid. And he stayed absolutely still for a good 20 seconds after the ‘thing’ was deposited in front of us. Then we looked at each other and wondered how the hell we were meant to eat it with only chopsticks!

We chickened out completely. We each took a nice safe piece of salmon sushi instead, and hoped it would go away. When it didn’t, we eventually managed to move it to an empty sushi tray so at least we could get at the soup. As we moved it all the hinges on its legs moved as if the thing was still alive. And please remember that each leg was 30cm long. With claws a good inch long at the end. Please consider that.

Anyway, things like this crustacean seem to be common here in Hakodate. This town is a harbour situated on a peninsular at the Southern point of Hokkaido. It’s not very densely populated for a Japanese town, and has large mountains surrounding it. We climbed one at the end of the peninsular yesterday to get a fantastic view – have a look at the photos below.

Wandering through Hakodate you see lots of evidence that it’s a major fishing port. Especially notable are the large tanks at the side of the road containing the catch of the day. Strangely enough, the local specialty seems to be crab. And now we know that the horror we encountered over dinner is actually a tiddler by Hakodate’s standards! We found one purple monster that had a body the size of a watermelon and legs each about a yard long. I’m truly not exaggerating. And they are everywhere! My favourites are the crabs that seem to be trying to escape from their roadside tanks – you’ll walk past to see them hooking a few huge claws over the side in a bid for freedom. Argh.

This morning we took the train to the nearby national park of Onuma Quasi. This is yet another beautiful wilderland of volcanoes, forest and lakes – this time convenietly a short walk from a rail station. Also, someone has in the past helpfully linked many of the small islands near the lake shore by a series of arching bridges.

We spent a lovely few hours strolling around, admiring the views, lily ponds, and 10cm long tadpoles. But probably the most impressive event of the day was again centered around Hakodate and its infamous crabs. As we wandered past the morning market on the way to the railway station I asked a fisherman if he’d mind me taking a photo of a medium sized crab he had on a weighing scales. He enthusiastically agreed, then picked up the monster and tried to hand it to Gary. My lovely boyfriend turned an interesting shade of off white and backed away, pursued by the friendly fisherman! In the end, when he could see Gary could probably run faster than him, the fisherman was more than happy to pose with the crab, as you can see below. It’s a shame it wasn’t one of the biggest specimens, but I think it’s enough to give you an idea…

Is this the real Japan? Or is it the sweet volcanic lakes and cherry blossom trees we saw in Toyako Onsen? I don’t know. We’re scared, but on the other hand we’re really enjoying exploring it anyway!

Hakodate Photos

Meet some of the friendly locals in Hakodate! Do you honestly blame Gary for hesitating to hold this thing? He insists I emphasise that he wasn't so much of a coward to refuse outright! Hmm. Oh, and you must remember that there were much larger crabs than this one around.
The view from Hakkodate peak over the pensinsular and town. You could be lazy and take the cable car up here, but its actually really nice to walk up like we did.
Gary in front of the beautiful lake - volcano view of Onuma Quasi National park.
And after all the crab realted traumas, a nice way to relax in Hakodate is to use the foot spa in the centre of town. You just turn up and pop your feet in the steaming water. Really nice. I just hope no-one had vurrucas...

Toyako Onsen

Ah. Now we are in Japan. I thought we arrived here a few days ago when we entered Tokyo, but I was wrong. This is the real thing. I think!

We are presently in Toyako Onsen. This is small town on the edge of a very beautiful circular lake, with a round volcanic island positioned in the very middle. It is famed for its lovely scenery and hot-springs, and apparently is on of the spas where the Japanese come to bathe (i.e. in ‘onsen’). However, they would also like foreign tourists to come here it seems…

As we walked from the bus stop along the lake-side to our hotel, laden with rucksacks as usual, we were approached by a very polite, young, friendly Japanese lady. She introduced herself as a TV director, and asked us (very very nicely) would we mind (please) being interviewed and filmed for a program on foreign tourists in Japan. There is apparently a summit in Toyako Onsen at the moment, aiming to discus ways of attracting more foreigners to the area.

Argh! Was the first thing that occurred to me. But she was so nice, friendly and polite that saying no would have been like kicking a puppy. And this is bearing in mind we had no hesitation to saying no to the strange guy in Hong Kong that wanted to take my photo for an ‘on-like fashion magazine’. So, Gary and I looked at each other, winced, and got wheeled in front of a film crew that magically appeared bearing a large video cameral and a huge fluffy microphone. We got quizzed on the Tourism summit, which we’d never heard of – I invented something about publicity being good for Tourism in Japan in general as its not widely known as a holiday destination in the West. We were asked about how Toyako Onsen itself should attract foreign tourists - bearing in mind we’d been there for all of 5 minutes, and had great difficulty finding the right train station, bus, and directions as EVERYTHING here is in Japanese characters and no-one speaks any English! Gary fielded this one with something about a very nice friendly lady who pointed out the right bus to us, and the announcements on the Shinkansen being well articulated in English. After this we were asked (painstakingly nicely) to walk into the tourist office and pick up a map. We did, feeling like right idiots, to be told that we acted ‘very natural’. Then (thankfully) we escaped, and fled along the lakeside!

Our traumas for the day were not over however. The hotel we had booked screwed up our reservation, and the bloke at the front desk was very rude. So we left that place and trekked around (rucksacks on backs) for an alternative. Everything here is really expensive. It must be where rich Japanese businessmen come to unwind. We eventually settled on a big plush hotel that was no more expensive than the less plush places. We were shown up to the ninth floor by a very friendly lady with no English, to a beautiful traditional Japanese room with a beautiful view over the lake, immaculate tatamis, a low table with green tea making facilities, but no beds in sight! She showed us where the dressing gowns were kept, and the bathroom (containing yet another really complex toilet with a warmed seat and several mysteriously labelled squirting buttons – I’m scared), and then she left. After a bit of exploration I found some bedding. Luckily this magically materialised into a bed later in the night while we were eating dinner (a huge, and quite tasty, complimentary buffet), saving us from having to work it out ourselves.

We also braved the cold wind in the afternoon to walk 5 miles or so along the edge of the lake to a volcano and back. This was really nice – there is a new volcano here called Showa Shinzan. It’s only about 50 years old – it first formed during the Second World War. Showa Shin was happily steaming away in the shadow of its bigger, more established brother on the side of Lake Toya. Yet again I think we must have seemed mad to hundreds of Japanese tourists. They were all bussed by their tour companies from train to hotel, to lake-side, to volcano, and back. Walk? Nah! They peered out of their big air-con busses at us as if we belonged to another species as we trekked up the long road to the lovely Showa Shinzan. Ah well.

Then finally it was back to the hotel for dinner, and firework-viewing over the waters of the lake. Weird day!

Tokako Onsen Photographs

The film crew, and us, the foreign tourists. See - we have photographic evidence of this strange encounter! In the background you can make out the lovely lake Toya, and its volcanic island.

Our traditional Japanese room at the plush spa onsen hotel in Toyako Onsen. Low table, tatami floor, and no bed. But you do get traditional Japanese green tea making facilities tucked away in the orange / brown box on the table. Oh, and a nice red bean paste glutenous bun each. Sweet.
We seem to have mastered the art of the camera timer! Lake Toya and volcanoes, and a passing raven. There are lots of them out here...

Showa Shinzan, a new, miniature volcano. With lots of steam issuing from its peak.

Fireworks over lake Toya. You`ve no idea how many photos Gary took to get the perfect shot with lovely water reflections. This wasn`t easy, as the fireworks were started from boats that kept on moving!

The very lovely volcanic island of lake Toya - revieled in all its glory the morning we left Toyako Onsen. Until this point it had been partially shrouded in clouds.

Sapporo

Well, we fled India early because 41 degrees Celsius was a bit warm. And I think we my have overcompensated.

We spent about 10 hours on various trains travelling north from Tokyo – 1050 miles north to be precise. And ended up in the region called Hokkaido - in the capital city, Sapporo. Which in a way is nice. Sapporo is a very vibrant, lively place. Nice to wander around. There are lots of tasty restaurants to choose from, and interesting department stores to get completely lost in. The basements of these are the best – they have delicatessent counters which hand out free tasters from time to time, so you can get delicious samples of dumplings, gyoza, and various scary Japanese foods. And the servers are so polite when you pass these food counters – they all call out ‘sumasen’ or something, smile and bow. When we left one department store yesterday at closing time we were virtually bowed to by 20 odd people at the same time. Very disconcertingly polite!

Sapporo is famous for its beer. According to Gary it has very good draught beer – ‘Sapporo’ brand of course. Unfortunately, as Gary has discovered by experimenting since we’ve arrived, not all canned beers you buy in Sapporo are safe. Ones with green in the label, or claiming to be ‘original’ are bad news. Those ‘brewed for your pleasure’ or ‘good times’ are worse! Apparently they tend to taste completely flavourless alcoholic water – a bit like dilute vodka. Nice.

Hokkaido does have a disadvantage however. It’s a bit like Scotland: renowned for its beautiful scenery and cold weather! It’s freezing here – and I thought Tokyo was cold. Ah well, bring back Delhi! Tomorrow we’re going to a national park of volcanoes, hot-springs and scenic mountains. I wonder how Scottish the weather will be.

Sapporo Pictures

A very picturesque garden by the old government building in Sapporo. The blossom was out in abundance when we visited, but I think I was a bit more impressed by this than Gary!

We keep on meeting mini red and white copies of the Eiffel tower out here in Japan. Near this one was a silly long garden with some fountains (whose spray soaked me while Gary was very slowly taking this photo). Nice day though, with lovely clear blue skies!

Tokyo

Japan. This is perhaps not the first place that springs to mind for a backpacking trip around the world as it’s so expensive. In fact, we originally didn’t plan to come here as we thought it would cost too much. But unfortunately, when we were buying the flight tickets we just couldn’t resist…

Ah well, staying in Tokyo is at least much cheaper than London. And for us, much more unfamiliar and fun! We came to Japan once before, about 5 years ago, for a conference. That time we caught the Shinkansen along the western part of the Islands and back, visiting Hiroshima, Kyoto, Himeji, Fukawaka, and of course Tokyo. And, as most of you know, we loved it! Japan is just such an amazing place to explore – very alive, very different from the west, very beautiful. And also very different from anywhere else we’ve been in Asia.

This time in Tokyo we’ve only stopped off for two nights, before departing on the Shinkansen to North Japan – the island Hokkaido. Two nights amounts to only a day wandering around, but even so it’s been great fun. We’ve been staying in Roppongi, a recently developed modern area, complete with the highest building in the city and a replica of the Eiffel Tower painted red and white! What more could you ask for? Yesterday we walked all the way from here north west to Shinjuku – one of the best known lively areas in Tokyo, full of restaurants, bars, shops, and Japan’s Times Square (really a huge department store block). Wandering between areas is great in terms of seeing lovely shrines, gardens and other random things (including dragish, gothic, punky teenage Japanese girls/boys/others). The only drawback is the weather – rainy, wet, cold and miserable – just like home! The first thing we bought (other than a train ticket and subway fare to get to our hotel) was an umbrella – one of those clear plastic ones that you only really get in Japan. Ah well, at least it’s more comfortable than Delhi’s heat.

Anyway, this is only our first, and shortest, visit to Tokyo on this trip now we are on the Shinkansen whizzing 1050 miles north to Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido. This seems to be the part of Japan most like Scotland. Probably nice and warm then!

Tokyo Pictures

A modern entrance to a very modern shrine in Tokyo. This hill had a lovely cluster of temples on top, but best of all, around the side there was a series of escalators to take you up in case you felt a little tired!
Another lovely shrine (this one a little more traditional). The Japanese make great use of wood and lanterns in these things. Which can be a drawback too. Most of the temples and castles in Japan are actually reconstructed having burnt down 4 or 5 times!

Hong Kong

This place is great. Hong Kong has to be one of my favourite cities. It’s just so alive.

We’ve been here over a week now, staying in Kowloon (on the mainland directly opposite Hong Kong Island). And strangely enough, even though Hong Kong is a lively bustling city, we’ve found it really quite relaxing. Strange. Maybe its partly because the temperatures are much lower than in Delhi (nice and comfortable at around 29 Celsius rather than 41!).

Anyway, we’ve wandered around the town as we usually do, visiting Victoria Peak on a beautiful clear day (see the pictures below). We’ve taken lots of ferries to get from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island and back – which was incredibly scenic tonight as we managed to skilfully (by accident) time our crossing so that it coincided with the nightly light show. This is when the major skyscrapers in Hong Kong’s waterfront show off, competing to light up and flash, all coordinated to a cheesy music soundtrack which you can listen to on the waterfront of Kowloon. It sounds incredibly tacky – and I suppose it is – but it also looks pretty good as you’ve got some fairly impressive buildings with neon and laser displays!

We’ve also wandered through loads of the parks around here. Hong Kong has in retaliation to its urbanisation developed some of the most spectacular parks I’ve ever seen. They are beautifully artificially sculptured to look natural (lots of waterfalls, ponds, exotic trees), but also include animals - pretty impressive ones. The Kowloon Park for instance has a massive pond enclosure, complete with a flock of flamingos. The Hong Kong garden competes with a gigantic aviary. But the clear winner of the animal stakes is the Botanical and Zoological gardens, which has huge, well-maintained enclosures of limas, orang-utans, sloths, flamingos, cranes, ibises, parrots, and loads of other birds and animals. And a jaguar! Sadly, when we visited the jaguar was not too well (a notice said it was ‘on medication’), and seemed to be sleeping at the back of the enclosure. On the other hand the orang-utans were definitely having fun, and there were three really sweet baby ring tailed lemurs climbing around or clinging to their Mums.

Another great thing about this part of the world is the food. Chinese food is for the most part really nice – and best of all, varied. Dim Sum, sea food, rice and noodley things, Peking Duck… lovely. We were also lucky to meet up with TJ briefly (one of our friends in Newbury for those of you that don’t know him), and we had some lovely Chinese foods we hadn’t come across before. There are a few scary ‘foods’ in this part of the world that we haven’t summoned up the courage to try yet: including chicken-feet, insectoid things, and plenty of restaurants that smell odd! Saying that, one of the nice things about Hong Kong is that you can very easily get good food from other countries than China: Italian, Japanese, Thai, or just a good sandwich! At least this stops you getting too saturated with East Asian cuisine! Unfortunately this wasn’t the case in India, where you try Indian interpretations of dishes from anywhere but India at your peril!

Anyway, on to Tokyo next – tomorrow. That should be fun! We’ll post some more pictures and notes soon. All the best.

Hong Kong Photos

Gary at the harbour of Hong Kong. This was taken from the Kowloon (mainland side) towards Hong Kong Island. Not exaclty what you'd call a bad view!
On top of Hong Kong's Victria Peak at sunset. This is facing North Westish, towards China where the islands and mountains fade into the clouds.

Looking towards Kowloon from the Peak over Hong Kong at night. Again, another OKish view don't you think?


Us with TJ on his visit! Nice view from our hotel window over Kowloon too.

Hong Kong and Kowloon from the peak by daytime.

One of the very lively Markets in Kowloon. This one is in Mongkok, right next to two really incredible specialist markets: the goldfish market (where beautiful tropical fish hang in plastic bags awaiting new owners) and the bird market (the same idea but for birds in delicate wooden cages).