annie the nomad

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), the Blue Mountains, Canberra, Melbourne, drove the Great Ocean Road, celebrated Christmas on St Kilda beach, celebrated New Year's at Sydney's botanical gardens, Cairns, went diving in the Great Barrier Reef, Airlie Beach, the Whitsundays, ... read more

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 is a capsule hotel in Shinjuku. Someone in Kyoto recommended it to me, and its special because it’s co-ed - most capsule hotels are traditionally male only. I checked in bright and early, but didn’t ... read more

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 Okayama - about 2 and a half hours. Mariko met me at the bus station but we nearly missed each other because I didn't recognize her and she wasn't sure if she recognized me (but ... read more

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. I was really starting to feel comfortable in Seoul - I had made some friends and had mastered the subway system. I was even offered a job, so when it came time to leave I ... read more

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 Thai side which took us past Trat and to the ferry dock. The ferry from the mainland to the island of Ko Chang took about half an hour and then it was another 20 minutes ... read more