Return to backpacker central

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So, where was I? After Hiroshima we had a brief visit to Nara, previously a capital of Japan and full of more temples and gardens. The most impressive was a temple which is the largest wooden building in the world containing the largest cast bronze budhha in the world.....both pretty big!

From there we headed up another sacred mountain (by train and funicular rather than on foot this time) called Koya San and spent a night in a monastery. We had a beautiful room overlooking a tiny garden with a brilliant autumn coloured tree outside the balcony but all facilities were shared. Being buddhists, dinner was vegetarian - its amazing the things they can do with tofu, sadly none of them do it for me and I had to get by on the miso soup and seaweed. And all of that is just that little bit harder at breakfast though we had been up a while by then for early morning prayers which were very soothing.

All to get us back into the mood for Tokyo where Christmas was just starting with a vengeance and excellent lights were popping up all over the place. Apparently its just a commercial event and has little other significance - New Year is much bigger.

We met up with Tim again and went along to his office where a colleague of his interviewed us on tape about our travelling to use in lessons with students - they like to have different voices for them to listen to rather than just teachers. In the evening Tim took us to see the glittering lights of Shinjuku and for the perfect Tokyo photo (which I hope will end up on the site) and to a second hand English language book shop (very important!). The evening ended with a few beers and reminiscing over many years past and places we all knew. Poor Tim had a 5.30 start to meet new students the next day so I hope he made it ok!

As Jonathan has spotted, there've been few in the way of rest days and by Tokyo we were running out of steam a bit. We always knew that Japan would be busy - we only had a relatively short time and, being expensive, we wanted to make the most of it. Our intention was always for things to slow down a bit after Japan......we will see!

So, a couple of days ago we arrived into Bangkok and were thrown in at the deep end with a chaotic queue for immigration that lasted over an hour and a taxi driver from the airport who tried to rip us off (but failed!). We're staying in the centre of backpacker land where both of us have stayed before (10 years for Hugh, 17 for Sarah) so it's strange to be back. Of course, then there were no internet cafes or CD burning places and there were not quite so many people trying to scam you but it's essentially the same place with the same type of people - however, maybe we're not that kind of people any more! We're certainly staying in a more upmarket place than I did last time.

Today has been a day of trailing around the city doing admin - and I mean trailing. The Cambodian embassy had moved miles away from the address we had and had taken a tuk tuk and a taxi to get to and Vietnam Airlines were difficult to pin down but we finished the day with a Cambodian visa, a flight from Vietnam to Laos when we wanted it and bus tickets for our next trip. And in the middle of that we've had some excellent Thai food and even managed a bit of shopping. Today wíll be a bit slower we hope but we've still got to negotiate the central post office in order to reduce the size of our backpacks a little.

Hope you're all doing well?

S & H xx

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Comments

[Jonathan]

Big Bloody Spiders
Rather surprised to see the Bourgois spider in your photos since I saw it at Tate Modern last month where they have a whole Bourgois exhibition on - and believe me, apart from the big spider she's pretty much pants. Not got much news that isn't on the blog. You're missing I'm A Celebrity which I know must be pretty gutting for you. HMRC has given some of its staff to the Home Office - as part of a new Borders Force (apparently terrorists will be so worried about being caught that they simply won't bother). It does mean that you may have a bit of a wait to get back into the UK though as they check you out. And were you involved in the Aleef Garages case at SCO? The directors just got prison sentences (3 years I think) and confiscation orders for £5m. Lots of other people got smaller prison sentences/confiscation orders too. Do you know yet where you're going to be/what you're going to be doing on Xmas and NYE? J x

[Sarah H.]

Blimey, someone's been reading the intranet in their lunch hour.

[jonathan]

Other People's News
Ms H hasn't seen fit to mention it but she's exchanged (finally) on her flat. She's now officially an Eastbourne resident. I'm buying her slippers and a dressing gown for Xmas... J x

[jonathan]

Coolest of the Cool
I'm now the proud owner of an I 'heart' Miyajima T-shirt. I've no idea where it is (or even if it's a "where" rather than a Japanese pop star) but I'm made up. I'll wear it to Canal Street and see if it gets me a date (since I'll be the coolest one there!). Thanks guys. J x

[Hugh and Sarah]

Pleased you like it...
...but a little disappointed that you haven't be reading all of Sarah's blog entries (have anohter look at 'Tatami rooms and sashimi') H.

[jonathan]

Of Course I Read Them All...
...but ask what's-her-name what my memory is like... J x