Our overnight train journey into Shanghai was much better than we had anticipated and the 20 hours passed quickly as we slept, read, chatted to locals and saw some nice scenery on the way - It's still so suprising and pleasing that even trying to use a basic bit of Chinese language really helps open up the locals to you, we had a little study session and learnt to count to ten plus a few other key phrases which we had fun trying out. One guy spoke really good English so we chatted to him for a while, about the differences between the British and Chinese Governments, people, countries and other topics - he thought Scott looked like David Beckham (for the third time this trip - the Chinese must have bad eye sight lol) and ... read more

If getting our exit stamp from Hong Kong was as seamless as a bespoke Vera Wang dress, then entering the border town of Shenzen after being stamped into China could have been likened to a fourth generation hand-me-down sweatshirt which had been patched together several times. It was chaos in which is essentially a town with a train station, multi-bus station and duty free area all under one roof with hardly anyone speaking a word of English except for the very annoying Chinese touts who were trying to pull us from one direction to the next - 'Where you go Mr?', 'I have cheap ride', 'My friend can take you for good price' 'Miss all bus left for today, stay at my guest house' etc. These were some of the favourite one liners we heard in ... read more

On arrival into Shin-Osaka station from Hiroshima, we had to take another 3 trains to reach Namba, an area in Osaka renowned for it's crazy nightlife and neon madness, that we had chosen to stay in for our last night in Japan. Namba is only a couple of stops south of Osaka station but as we wanted to use our JR passes instead of paying for the metro we took the long way round. Upon exiting the station at Namba (which is massive) we got lost and ended up walking around with our heavy backpacks on for about 45 minutes, asking several people for directions and getting pretty stressed until we eventually found our hostel for the night, Base Point. We checked in, freshened up and headed out for a bite to eat in a great ... read more

We arrived in Kyoto by the famous Bullet train from Tokyo in under 2 and a half hours, amazing since it is over 450 km away, but the Bullet train doesn't get its name from nowhere and goes at a speedy 250km per hour on average. Kyoto is supposed to be the place to go to see what the real Japan is all about and we couldn’t wait to explore colourful shrines, ancient temples and everything else you associate with the Land of the Rising Sun. Amazingly it has over 17 Unesco World Heritage sites, around 1,600 Buddhist temples, and plenty of scenic gardens and grounds, including the following which we were aiming to see; - Endless Shrine Gates at Fushimi-Inari Taisha; thousands of vermillion Shinto shrine gates (Torii) - The Daibutsu (Cosmic Big ... read more

Konichiwa from Tokyo! We have been in Tokyo for a few days now and it has been crazy but a great introduction to Japan so far. Tokyo is a huge city, so big that it is the World's most populous metropolis, with over 8.7 million people living in the city, and also the capital of Japan, which is not surprising considering how diverse it is and how much it has to offer. Tradition sits alongside innovation here, old and new combine, young fashion concious teens clash with an older, more serious generation, and whilst on the whole everything sems very orderly and efficient, there is definately an undercurrent of seediness which you wouldn't expect from Japan. So far, we love Tokyo! After an AMAZING 1st class Virgin flight, which saw Vic sleep for half of it ... read more