The last six months has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Here is the run down, for anyone who missed it: NEW YORK CITY - September 27th to 29th, 2008. I stayed in Brooklyn and visited with two friends that I had met in Nepal. AUSTRALIA - September 30th, 2008 to January 10th, 2009. I traveled on my own and visited Sydney, Brisbane, Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo, Toowoomba, Maleny, Montville, Rainbow Beach, Tin Can Bay, Hervey Bay and Fraser Island, Noosa, the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Byron Bay, Nimbin, Tuggerah (where I worked on a carnation farm), [View Full Entry]

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My first stop in New York City is the Marrakech Hotel on the corner of Broadway and 103rd street in Manhattan. Dad booked it for me and Mum. It's really late by the time I had flown from Tokyo to Los Angeles, and Los Angeles to New York - at this point I've literally gone back in time and even though it takes more than 24 hours to travel from point A to point B, I've landed the exact same day I took off. I've been to New York City before - this is the fourth time. I love it here. [View Full Entry]

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The night bus from Kyoto to Tokyo Station was pretty smooth. Finding my hostel was a little more challenging, partly because I was exhausted, and partly because the directions written in broken English on the website were not that clear. I tried to book back at first place I stayed at, since at least I knew where that was and it wasn’t far from the train to Narita International Airport, but their dorm rooms were all booked out and the smaller rooms were a little out of my budget. The hostel I’m staying at this time is called Ace Inn and [View Full Entry]

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Kyoto is supposed to be one of the most beautiful cities in Japan. For that reason, I've booked 5 nights at the Kyoto Hostel (sister hostel of the one I stayed at in Tokyo). I've been told over and over that if there's any one place that I need to visit in Japan, its Kyoto. Its kind of a downer that the sky is crying my first day there - I barely leave the hostel all day and wander for just a couple hours in the streets not far away. I found a park and a little temple before hunkering down [View Full Entry]

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Mum and Dad have been friends with Paolo and Mariko since before I was born, from when they lived in Montreal. Mariko is Japanese so they spend some of the year in Japan. I can't remember the last time I've seen them, probably at least 15 years ago or so, but dad emailed them to see if they would be in Japan at the same time as I was, and it turned out that they would be and were kind enough to let me stay with them for 2 nights at their home in Okayama. It wasn't far from Hiroshima to [View Full Entry]

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The night bus from Tokyo to Hiroshima was fantastic, probably the best bus I have ever taken. The seats recline and there is lots of leg room; they even provide you a blanket! So considering it was 11 hours over night, I slept pretty well. But then I got lost on the way to the hostel and wandered around town for a while with all my bags until I finally found the right building. I still couldn't get into my room until after 3pm, though, so I dropped my bags, had a cup of tea and called home. All I really [View Full Entry]

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Flying from Seoul to Tokyo takes roughly 2 hours and 15 minutes. Somehow, though, my travel time turned my day into a ten hour day. I had to leave Ashley’s house really early to catch the shuttle to Incheon airport. After landing at Narita airport it took me another 2 hours to get to my hostel - Tokyo Hostel, two stops from Ueno station in the north-east corner of the city. The hostel came to me on a recommendation, and it wasn’t bad - fairly cheap dorm rooms, English-speaking staff, free tea and coffee, and free internet. I’m so tired now. [View Full Entry]

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Ashley and I went to university together. We were in the same program and had lots of our classes together. We weren't exactly the best of friends, but we got along really well and got to be better and better friends over time. When it turned out that she was going to be living in Seoul around the same that I was traveling through Asia, I figured I really had no excuse to not go and visit her. The flight from Bangkok to Incheon took about 5 hours and I slept through most of it. Getting to Ashley's apartment was easy [View Full Entry]

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I slept the whole way from Siem Reap to Ko Chang. I was exhausted - I was lucky dad was in charge of making the travel plans. We had basically heard nothing but horror stories about backpackers trying to cross the border with the bus - people getting ripped off, busses abandoning travelers, buses leaving hours later than scheduled, and all kinds of other things. Keeping all that in mind, dad decided we should just taxi it the whole way. One taxi picked us up at the hostel, we crossed the border by foot, and picked up another taxi on the [View Full Entry]

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Flying from Veintiane in Laos to Phnom Pehn in Cambodia was easy. Apart from me exploding my cutlery around the cabin and dropping my entire lunch tray on the floor, it went pretty smoothly. We took a tuk tuk to our guest house and by the time we were settled in a room it was just after noon. It's hot. It's hotter than its been at any of the other places we have visited. I'm sweating sitting still. Everything I own feels clammy and my skirt is clinging to my legs. It's horrible. But, of course we can't let that stop [View Full Entry]

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