zephyrbc

After six wonderful nights in Tokyo we packed up our hotel room and headed to the train station to start the journey to our next stop, Osaka. We caught the metro train to Tokyo station, bought some lunch and then purchased tickets for the shinkansen to Osaka. The trip to Osaka was uneventful, particularly for Elodie who had a nap. Once we arrived we transferred to another local train and after a short ride we arrived at our AirBNB. I had booked a cute three bedroom place for us in Umeda, Osaka. As soon as we opened the front door I think Scott and I thought 'oh no' because of the very steep stairs! We turned on the aircon, checked out the (lovely) rooms and then headed out to a nearby playground. Elodie enjoyed having the ... read more

Things have changed a little since our last travelblog. Not only was there a pandemic, but we're now travelling as a trio. Scott, Elodie and I departed Melbourne at 10:30ish on a Friday morning. We were a little apprehensive about how a 10hr flight with a very busy nearly two year old would go, but we were pleasantly surprised. Elodie snacked, coloured, ran up and down the aisles, watched a little Ms Rachel, charmed the staff and had a nap - she was way better behaved that we expected. Upon arrival in Japan we made it through immigration and collected our bags from the slowest baggage carousel ever. I had booked us a room at the airport hotel for the night so that we didn't have to travel far given we arrived after Elodie's bed time. ... read more

We left Jajce straight after breakfast and headed off in the direction of our final stop in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mostar. Unfortunately it was rather foggy for much of the drive so we didn’t get to see a lot of scenery during the first part of the trip. Once the fog lifted, the scenery was quite lovely. High mountains covered in autumn leaves next to a blue-green river. The drive to Mostar took about 2.5 hours. As we entered the area close to the Old Town a man in a hi-vis vest waved at us and said something in Bosnian that we didn’t understand. I thought he was dodgy but Scott chose to turn around and find another route to our hotel. On the second route towards our hotel we were again waved at by another ... read more

After checking into our hotel in Sarajevo, which was just across the river from Baščaršija, we set out for a walk through the city. Sarajevo is full of history, both ancient and modern. The city was the meeting point of Roman Catholic west, Eastern Orthodox east and the Ottoman south. Historically it was a fairly tolerant city where Islam, Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Judaism coexisted peacefully for the most part. That tolerance and mostly peaceful coexistence was shattered in more recent history first with the expulsion of Jews when Bosnia was under control of the Nazis and then even more recently during the Bosnian war. Nowadays the city is on the road to recovering its tolerance. As soon as we crossed the river and entered Baščaršija. The part of Baščaršijawe enteredwas constructed in the 15th century by ... read more

We left Berat at about 9am and retraced our steps back to Shkoder. After stopping briefly in Shkoder to spend our last Albanian lek on some soft drink we continued on back across the same border crossing we’d entered Albania at. The border was busier than on the way through, but still not too bad. After crossing the border we continued on to Podgorica. Our first task back in Montenegro was to sort out sim cards for our phones. We entered the phone store and asked the assistant whether they sold tourist sim cards, to which she replied no. Then asked if they had any short term sims, to which she replied no. When I asked if they said do you sell prepaid sim cards, she said they did and that they had one which lasted ... read more