Hong Kong & Japan

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Hi,

It's been a pretty busy couple of weeks since leaving Vietnam as we've been traveling to Australia via Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan.

The Singapore trip was just for flight connections as the main part was spending a few days in Hong Kong at the grandly named but sadly, rough as, Chung King Mansions. It was a pretty weird set up of loads of guesthouses in a huge, old block on Kowloon full of shady looking characters. Hong Kong was a real contrast to what we'd seen previously but we enjoyed looking around the sites and watching the nightly light show when all the skyscrapers project lazer beams on to the sky. Going on the Peak tram up the hill also gave us a great view of the city.

Japan was our next stop and it's got to be one of the most efficient countries in the world! Everything seemed to run like clockwork and the Japanese have made great and quirky inventions such as the heated toilet seat (fantastic!) or the automatic bum washing service after you've finished doing your business!

We got the bullet train from Tokyo down to Hiroshima to have a look round there. The whole city was wiped out after the Atomic Bomb during WW2 so it's all fairly new having been rebuilt. There's a great park and museum giving information about the bombing which must have been awful for all those involved.

We then stayed for a few days with one of my mates father-in-law and his wife in Osaka where we explored the city and also Kyoto. Kyoto was oldy-worldy Japan with lots of nice temples and shrines. Osaka was more modern although the huge old castle complex was pretty impressive given it was built so long ago.

Of course you can't go to Japan and not do the traditional things so we tried sushi which was great although the raw octopus was a bit on the tough side! The Sake is probably an acquired taste i reckon. Helen really raised the bar at the Karaoke whilst i murdered every song!

After spending so much time in the cities we headed up north to Nikko, a small place in the mountains. It had that nice laid country town feel and we really really enjoyed being in the countryside for a while. One week goes really quickly and it was time to head back down to Tokyo. The really strange thing about Tokyo was that although it is this huge city, it was really quiet. The sony building was great for all the gadget freaks and even us technophobes loved it too!

Overall, we both really enjoyed Japan, the people were great and it was just so easy to get around. Next stop is a campervan tour in Australia so we're looking forward to that.

Hope you're all well, cheers

Helen & Craig

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