After a busy 24 hrs with Chihiro in her lovely MANSON flat in Saitama prefecture, I planned to head southwards to Kyuushuu, on　Sunday morning. The trip to Nagasaki was fast! Not a patch on some other trains in the world, the Hikari shinkansen whisked me from Tokyo central to Nagasaki via Shin osaka and Hakata, the terminus of Fukuoka station at the northern most part of Kyuushuu. The trip of 900km took about 8 hrs, that is including some stops of up to 40 mins where I felt it a good to fix the cock up of getting the incorrect adaptor plug for my digital camera. So　I got an adaptor for an adaptor!! Apart from a big PHEW! at getting on the remaining train to nagasaki in a hairs breadth at 5pm after grabbing some what ... read more

After months of internet planning, letter writing and parcel sending.... I am off to see Japanese penpals and long lost friends after many years of not! ...... I hope to have some stories and pictures to tell the story soon. Blast off date is May 24th, for 24 days in search of unadulterated washoku, onsen and the elusive Japanese 'nessie' of Lake Tazawako.... Some facts: The purpose? Obligation (16 yrs is a long time to write to eachother yet never see eachother!), and leisure (infinished business from highschool trip, places I missed and am desperate to see) Style of travel? Budget, with the extravagance of a JR pass and costly tokyo life for 3-4 nights..... Companions? For part of it, plus all the strangers I will make friendly with, and like any other Pauline style trip, ... read more

Beijing is huge. We arrived here by train early Monday morning at the civilised hour of 7.30am (certainly more civilised than our regular 5am arrivals on past overnight trips!). The train had special features, like a pleasantly smelling toilet that remained so after 14 hrs of chugging along northwards and plenty 'transactions', a food trolley that regularly delivered 750mL bottles of beer to my alcoholic group-mates, a boiler for every carriage (handy for those heat and eat meals needing hot water of the Chinese variety, i.e. instant noodles, which they all seem to subside on, next to cigarettes....) and absent doors for that spacous 'open plan' feel. We sung songs with our 'barely-out-of-adolescence' leader Jordan accompanying us with his ukelele, and even had a few cheers and Chinese groupies that seemed to know the words to ... read more

phew, I made it to an internet cafe in time to escape the leaping tigers and terracotta warriors on my tail. In fact this is a very authentic Chinese internet cafe - it is full of pimply faced Chinese boys gaming or chatting with their cyber mates, in darkened premises with glare'y screen. For an old fart like me that meams that I am having difficulty seeing what I type. So perhaps you should rea btween hte lisne!...And to top it off the shift key is permanetly stuck so if i talk about someone or something that is obviously of superior importance, like the first letter of a sentence, or me, then you would know that is of superior importamce. anyhow enough ego boosting which is always nice, lets talk about leaping tiggers and scary daihatsu ... read more

After the lively supper in SaPa, and well informed briefing from our guide Dinh, it was time to set off to Ban Ho village. Dinh was a real character - his name is pronounced 'Ding' as in ding dong, or ding dong the witch is dead. He has a penchant for karaoke, which is taken very seriously in these parts, and is particularly fond of 'I'm all out of love', theme song from titanic, hello is it me you are looking for (Lionel ritchie) and various others with a slant towards love songs. We were regularly informed over the trek of his recent marriage to his lovely wife and the 16 day old baby that is producing sleepless nights (and I imagine good post natal contraception) for him. This slight moiuntain goat of a man is ... read more