niva worldwide

Tokyo, 13th - 16th August 2008 Tokyo, the capital and largest city in Japan was our starting point for our Japanese adventure and also happened to be our end point. Myself and Stacy were extremely excited to head back and finally get a chance to explore this techno capital, our excitement only marred by the fact that Amy was no longer travelling with us to experience it too. Our highly convenient and cost effective 3 week Japan railpasses had expired while we were at Mt. Fuji so we made our way from the little town of Kawaguchiko to Tokyo using the cheaper option of by coach, which was fairly comfortable as coaches go and it was a nice change not to have Japan's beautiful scenery whizz pass our eyes at neck-breaking speed! Even though we ... read more

Mount Aso / Aso San, 4th - 5th August 2008 We took the 1443 train from Beppu to Aso san and arrived a few hours later, in the most desolate town I’ve ever been to. Aso town pretty much consists of a train station, an information centre, a Lawsons convenience store and a few grocery stores that looked more like a jumble of random goods in a cramped little spaces than actual shops. We found our hostel for the night after a 20 minute uphill walk and although it was a little different from previous hostels, it had clean beds and hot running water and we were just glad to put our heavy bags down and rest up after the long journey there. The hostel was run by 2 little old ladies who were very sweet ... read more

Japan! The land of the rising sun, samurai warriors, stealthy ninjas, sushi, high tech gadgets, sumo wrestlers, cherry blossom (although you get that in other countries too) , heated toilet seats, geisha girls, hot springs, sake, love and pod/capsule hotels to name just a few things associated with this prosperous Asian country. I couldn’t wait to get out there and experience all of these things for myself, except for the cherry blossom - wrong season! We left Beijing for Tokyo on the 23rd July, stopping over briefly in Shanghai, which we found amusing since our travels had begun there. I felt a slight longing for my old life in Shanghai then, but that quickly passed when we boarded our flight bound for Tokyo. We arrived in the evening and had our first taster of Japan’s rail ... read more

Huangshan 黄山 8th - 11th July 2008 And so the travelling begins. For Stacy and Amy their travels began when they left England for Shanghai on the 23rd June, but for me, my travels began when I left Shanghai, my home for the past year on the 8th July. After a long day of apartment cleaning, last minute errands, a stressful post office visit, a 3 hour wait and a minor arguement with my landlord to get my full deposit back and of course our last meal at Ciao Cafe, it was time to leave Shanghai for our first stop: Huangshan. We had hard sleeper tickets for the overnight train and it was Stacy and Amy's first experience of sleeper trains in China. Hard sleeper carriages are dormitry styled divided into a number of open ... read more