Omar

Well we all made it safe and sound into Rio on Sunday morning, with no major problems. We were met at the airport by the cab driver sent by the hostel, very nice friendly Brazilian, no english. Before leaving the airport we tried changing our money, but the guy we asked simply pulled out a wad of bills and said, "How much you want change?". Needless to say we passed. The drive from the airport was very enlightening. We passed tons of favellas (slums) along the way and some beuatiful scenery as well. If it wasn't for the poverty or crime, the city would be perfect. The hostel is located on a nice quiet street a few minutes from Ipanema beach and there's lots of shops, restaurants and cafes close by. After dropping our luggage off, ... read more

Well it's that time again, time to head out on another international adventure. This time it's going to be Brazil, Rio de Janeiro to be more precise and I'll be accompanied by my friend/roommate Kris and our other buddy Mladen a.k.a Marco who we met in Cuba last year. I'm going to try and keep this little travel blog up-to-date and post as many pics as possible before my digital camera gets stolen, which is inevitable from what I hear, but at least that will give me an excuse to buy a new one :) I'm expecting this to be much different from my Japan excursion. In Japan, the crime was non-existant, everything was big, clean, new, futuristic, the people were plentiful and I stuck out like a sore thumb. This time around, I may be ... read more

So I've been back in Toronto for about a week now, still re-adjusting to the time difference and having to sit at a desk for 7.5 hours/day. I wasn't going to add any other entries in my little blog, but I figured the tale would not be complete without a little blurb about my last day in Tokyo. So after my flight back to Tokyo from Ishigaki, I took the subway from Haneda airport to Ueno and checked back into Tokyo Ryokan, where I started my journey. I talked with Kenichi the owner for a bit, telling him about my travels to Ishigaki and Okinawa and then headed out around 6:00 to do some last-minute sightseeing. I went to Ryogoku, the sumo district in Tokyo. Unfortunately there was nothing going on, although I did see a ... read more

Well the plan for my last day in the Yaeyama islands was to go and find a nice secluded beach, perhaps on the tiny island of Hatoma (around 2km in size) and just lay there in the sun, but it was not to be. The weather was crap yesterday and most of the ports on the other islands were closed. So my only alternative was to go to Taketomi again. The boat ride over was great, the waves were crazy, but it was a cold and cloudy day and it rained for a bit as well, certainly not what I had hoped for. I spent the night chatting with some Japanese girls who were staying at the guest house. They were avid snowboarders and I convinced them that Mont Tremblant was a great place to come ... read more

I got up a little late today, no thanks to my new watches alarm....oh yeah...I have to apologize to my dear mother, whom I made dig through boxes in my parents basement looking for my only working watch, then sending it to me so I wouldn't have to buy one for the trip. Unfortunately, after I got into Kyoto during my second week, my watch started losing time, so I had to buy a new one. I considered it a birthday present for myself, not an expense of the trip :) Anyway, it's a bit fancy-shmancy and the manual only came in Japanese of course, so I've been having a hard time figuring out how to work some of the features. So I ended up having to take the 10:30 ferry to Iriomote. Iriomote-jima (island) is ... read more

Well I made it to Ishigaki yesterday and got settled into my guesthouse. My last night/morning in Okinawa was a bit hectic. The night started out alright, with me doing some laundry, then going over to the back machine (which was closed) and grabbing a bite to eat. When I got back to the guesthouse, I spent the night talking to Ikira and Nori (owner). They told me which islands to visit and what there is to do in the Yaeyama islands chain. I ended up going to sleep around 12:00, only to find that the newest resident in our little dorm room of 8, was a HUGE snoring machine. This guy didn't do the normal, snore for 20 minutes then stop, it was all night long and it was f*cking loud! I tried to make ... read more

Well yesterday wasn't as nice as the day I got into Kagoshima. It was overcast most of the day and then rained a bit at night. I started the day out taking my film in to get developed and then checked out the Kagoshima city aquarium. It was certainly the most I've spent to see a 'tourist attraction' and not really worth it. The highlight, or at least the reason I decided to check it out, was because of the whale shark they had. But when I saw it swimming around in that tiny tank, it was more depressing than anything else. Afterwards I headed back across to Sakurajima and rented a bike to see more of the island. It was a hell of a workout going up some of those hills and of course the ... read more