http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Amberabroad/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Amberabroad en-us Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:35:11 +0000 Sat, 26 Dec 2009 00:35:11 +0000 Here are a few things that I'll never forgettouching a kangaroo for the first timethe prickly legs of a huntsman spider on my cheekmy first day of surfing in Byron Bay catching every waveseeing a snapping turtle just off of the Great Barrier ReefThe talclike sand on Whitehaven beachthe freezing water in the Shotover riverwalking the volcanoes of North Island New ZealandFollowing dolphi http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Alberta/Edmonton/blog-273037.html Kyoto is in a fantastic struggle between past and present. After taking the bullet train through the rice paddycheckerboard countryside I arrived at Kyoto station a controversial blocklike building cutting through the Kyoto skyline. Across from the station is Kyoto tower. I didn't go up to the viewing deck because of the lowlying fog and smog which hung to the skyline the whole time I was in K http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/blog-272837.html I love Japan and always will. It's a perfect marriage of past present and future. There're meikos geikos and geishas entertaining tired businessmen in tiekwood teahouses shinto shrines rising up between office buildings women walking down the street in traditional kimonos and dolce and gabbana bags and welldressed schoolchildren checking out the futuristic sony inventions. The best part o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tochigi/Nikko/blog-271731.html Once in a while you meet a person and everything just clicks like you're two halves of a whole that's just waiting to happen. I met Kieran in Bangkok. To my surprise I met Kierans dad at the airport later referred to as my baptismal fire. He spent the morning showing me around Melbourne giving a little history lesson of the architecture and origins over a warm latte and a walk around the CBD. O http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Victoria/blog-269208.html My last daynight in Bangkok will definitely never be forgotten. After a long ride on a night bus with a squeaky chair and a good conversation about American politics with a British guy with an Australian accent I was back on Koh San road. We arrived just after 5 am and all was quiet on the little street. The vendors had all been cleared away and construction was underway to set up stages for the http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-269203.html I arrived in Chiang Mai a sleepy mess. Our overnight bus had a squeaky chair that didn't let up for the entire ten hours and once we arrived Laura the British girl I met on the bus and I collapsed into our hotel. Chiang Mai is a beautiful little city built on a deep history of pagodas and crumbling city walls complete with a moat around the old city center. In the heat of the day up to 39 some http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/North-West-Thailand/Chiang-Mai/blog-268824.html I arrived in Kanchanaburi in the late afternoon after a very long local bus ride where I relied on a nice old lady who could not speak English to tell me where my stop was don't ask me how I managed that. Kanchanaburi is a beautiful little town built as a kind of strip along the major highway to Burma. I decided to walk across town to find a hostel instead of taking a tuk tuk. This turned out to http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Western-Thailand/Kanchanaburi/blog-265252.html My time in Koh Tao seems like a dream everything went by so quickly. I started my diving course 20 minutes after I got off of the ferry and spent my evenings reading books and going to supper with my dive group. The first day of diving was spectacular. I've always been afraid of the deep dark ocean and it was exhiarating facing my fears under water things like taking out the regulator under 18 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Central-Thailand/Bangkok/blog-261205.html After stubbing my toes too many times to count spliting open my small toe ramming my head into a rock and ripping off half of my toenail on a bamboo bridge I've learned the importance of slowing down. A safe journey is paramount to enjoying the destination.My crossover into Thailand went off without a hitch. I collected afew stamps and then hopped on a five hour train to Hat Yai. The trainride w http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/South-West-Thailand/blog-257927.html The difference between travelling alone and travelling in a pair is like night and day. In Terengganu I ended up at the same hostel as Remco the guy from Holland who had booked me a hotel in Kuantan. He was kind enough to stick with me for two days and I was finally able to see Malaysia the way it was meant to be seen. There is quite a bit of beauty in this country with it's gleaming white mosqu http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/blog-255659.html I have never been so disgusted with mankind as I have been travelling through Malaysia. My journey began on the wrong foot as I took a bus across the boarder into Johar Barau. A girl on the bus asked me if I was travelling alone and then informed me that JB was the most dangerous city in Malaysia and it was too late in the evening to catch a bus out. I was stuck. She told me to find a hostel and http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Malaysia/blog-253360.html When you look up in Sungapore all you see is a thousand reflections of yourself staring back from the shiny skyscrapers. I wonder if the people here have ever seen stars or if that's as strange to tehm as snow. Singapore is a clean orderly country with a fantastic subway system and strong patches of culture. I stayed in a grimey little hostel in Chinatown with a host who tried way too hard to impr http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Singapore/blog-253343.html The North Island of NZ was a refreshing change of scenery. The topography is all volcanic so it finally looks different from Canada Wellington is a beautiful city. It's full of art and culture. There was a fringe festival going on while I was there and one morning when I was walking down the street I say a man being painted into the sidewalk as a setup for some photography exhibit. There's a nic http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/North-Island/blog-253339.html New Zealand miniature Canada is a dreamy playground for mountain lovers like me. Unfortunately I was not met with the warmest welcome. Arriving in the airport I was selected for a random bomb search with a full pat down when I picked up my bag from luggage claim the K9 team a tiny beagle got me pulled over and I lost a bag of dried emu meat and I spent a good hour in quarentine where my bag http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/New-Zealand/South-Island/blog-250605.html Even though Fiji just went through one of its worst cyclones last week it was still paradise. My first night was spent on the main island in Nadi. I fell into a pile of luck since there was a two hour dance ceremony that night. The fijian dance troup went through all of the dances of the pacific. There was knife throwing and fire dancing and the troup danced through the rain. At the end they asked http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Fiji/Yasawa-Islands/blog-245095.html For all of the hype that Cairns gets there's actually nothing to do there. It's the adventure capital of Australia but you have to drive at least an hour away for any kind of adventuring. Not to mention the rain. I was fine wandering around the city swimming in the lagoon yes they have one too and pretending to be interested in buying any of the overpriced souveniers at the nightmarket unti http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Cairns/Cairns-City/blog-242342.html Airlie beach is a big name when it comes to travelling the East Coast so I was suprised to find that I could walk across the entire town in five minutes. There's absolutely nothing to do but sit around the lagoon a huge swimming pool you can't swin in the ocean here because of jellyfish eat and go out to the nightclubs. The town itself is built into a hill and reminded me of Andrews pictu http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Whitsundays/blog-242337.html I took a nightbus to Rockhampton after camping. The Britt girls and I shared a cab and made it to the bus station with three minutes to spare I managed to have a decent 4 hour sleep on the bus and got cleaned up at the station in Rockhampton which has showers. Showering in a bus station is beyond classy. At 10 I met my guide for the day. His name's Dave and he doesn't believe in shoes. The insid http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Rockhampton/blog-242265.html After being well fed and rested in Brisbane I caught the nightbus to Hervey Bay. The hostel is nice but very overpriced. I arrived at midnight and I headed out on a tour at 6 in the morning so I really didn't get my moneys worth. The tour of Fraser was the best experience yet in Australia. I was in a Euro triptype bus myself four people from Ireland one girl from C.R. one from Germany and http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Fraser-Island/blog-241329.html I Brisbane I managed to meet up with some fellow Canadians after getting a little lost on teh train. My grade 5 teacher Paul Singleton and his daughter Krista put me up in Krista's husband's cousins house where I had plenty of free food and a nice bed to sleep in. I was so used to sleeping in the 24 degree heat that the first night I was freezing cold from the air condidtioning in the house. We http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Brisbane/blog-239492.html