I made a late start to my journey to Sapporo and by doing this found that I had run out of time and couldn’t make it the whole way. I stopped off at Sendai for a few pictures, then caught the next Shincansen train to Morioka, I had a quick look around the main town then headed off to Aomori. I didn’t feel like hanging around there so hopping off the train was a bad idea. I caught the very next train which left me with no other choice but to change trains at Kanita for the Tsugaru Line, I had [View Full Entry]

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Today I visited the Imperial Palace east gardens, it was raining but only lightly and still the place seemed very beautiful. Possibly having the rain was a blessing as far less people were around and it gave a really peaceful feel to the place. After walking the gardens I headed back into town for a meal then went back to the hostel to get my things as I had a plan, I wanted to spend the night in one of those capsule hotels! The hotel was fairly quiet and quite an experience I would not have missed out on. The capsules [View Full Entry]

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I slept in today as the jetlag seemed to be effecting me a lot last night and that resulted in badly disturbed sleep patterns. After finally waking up I decided to visit some other districts of Tokyo. I visited Akasaka, Ueno, Ginza, Shinjuku and Roppongi. I visited the electronics stores in Shinjuku and also went to the 52nd floor of Mori Tower for a 360-degrees view of Tokyo then visited the art museum on the 52nd and 53rd floor of the same building. [View Full Entry]

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A new day in a new country Tokyo, Asakusa and some exploring for me to do. I headed to the temple (Senso-ji) armed with my camera let off a few shots. The place was pretty busy (being last day of New Year holidays) as people went in to prey and light incense. Many markets were to be found and I bought some cookies from one of the more famous stalls there. After finishing a walking tour of Asakusa I then went to a restaurant with a guy I met at the hostel named Donald from Hong Kong but studying in the [View Full Entry]

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An early wakeup of 4am followed by another crazed cab ride through Cairo. Then I had to check for my lost sleeping bag. I spent a while speaking with a French girl who’s English was not crash hot only to find that the bag was not in Cairo and in fact in Paris. I then boarded the plane and flew to Paris where I went and spoke to the British air staff. After about an hour of walking around from department to department I finally spoke to another air France staff member this time a guy who then managed to get [View Full Entry]

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Dahab.... as mentioned before an Egyptian paradise with a teaspoon of commercialism, the place is laid back and beach styled with bungalows and clubs/pubs lining the foreshore, a perfect place to finish up my tour of Egypt! This morning I slept in even though last night was not a big one. A few friends and myself went to the most famous club in Dahab (from the front it looks just like a boat, I forget the name) But I was quite tired so left there around 12:30am and headed back to my hotel room on the water front to watch a [View Full Entry]

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Wedesnday 27th. Caught the over night train from Luxor to Cairo via first class seats again. Upon arriving back at Cairo I checked into the hotel and then went out on the town again for dinner. The following day was mainly used up in transit where I went by coach under the sewers canal through to Sinai. The scenery was amazing with hills/mountains sort of rolled over many times through the many years showing thick sedimentary lines, not like anything I had ever seen before. Checkpoints where all over the place so much so that it was like driving through a [View Full Entry]

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Today was one of the hardest times for me to get out of bed, I didn’t sleep for more than half an hour at a time but knowing this day was going to be one of the most interesting parts of my stay in Egypt I had to drag myself out of bed and get going. Today was the day for me to have a hot air balloon ride over Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. After waking up around 5:30am we finally arrived at the hot air balloon site around 7am. The trip was really cool, the pilot was [View Full Entry]

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Today is not a good day for me… I didn’t mention that over the past few days I had some gastro bug. However since this is very common for foreigners from western countries to catch I didn’t bother mentioning (especially the fact that it did not stop me from enjoying the 5 star food aboard the ship or going out to visit the sites) however it must have resulted in me becoming quite run down. As I was mentioning today I’m not feeling the best for wares, the past couple of days my sore throat appears to have turned into some [View Full Entry]

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Cruising down the Nile is a magical experience, we moored at Edfu, received a wake up call at 7ish and ducked down for a buffet breakfast. After breakfast we headed ashore to visit the well preserved Temple of Horus, considered one of the finest examples of temple construction! Later on that night we enjoyed a fancy-dress party with of course a Egyptian theme. By the end of the night we arrived at the city of Luxor, truly a beautiful city. [View Full Entry]

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