Sydney, Alice Springs, Melbourne and Auckland

Okay so time for an quick (and overdue) update on proceedings.

We've been in Auckland for just over a week now. The city is nice enough and the weather has been quite good so far.

Been looking into getting jobs in the area but no luck as of yet. New Zealand is in as bad a recession as the UK! oh well. We're gonna give it to the end of the week and if nothing is happening then we're gonna move on somewhere else.

So on the travel front.........

Sydney

In out last couple days in Sydney we spent one of the days visiting the blue mountains.

It was a good day out, the views over the valley below and the mountains in the distance were stunning.

View over the mountains



Another view


Walking down the cliffs



And Chris having a rest on the way back up the cliffs!

Alice Springs

We had three days in Alice Springs.

The place is pretty small in the middle of the Australian outback and is the only town in any distance for nearly a thousand kilometres. Pretty remote. Oh and it hit the mid 30s if not 40 everyday! ughh.

There wasn't a great deal to do in the town itself. I visited a reptile centre one day, Chris took a coach trip to Ayers rock, and we went of a camel trek on evening.

Also wiped the floor at poker against a group of Germans, oh yeah (if only it had been for real money!)

View of Alice Springs


Me and a Lizard


Me and a snake!


I got watch this crocodile eat a Kangaroos tail, look there it is!

Close up of the croc!!!

Chris and his camel

Riding off into the desert

The sunset

Melbourne

So our final stop was Melbourne.

Melbourne was a really kind of chilled out and arty city.

There weren't loads of landmarks to visit but we managed to do some cultural activities while were there. Museums, Galleries, Memorials, Parks, Churches, Gay film festivals, you know all the normal stuff.

The F1 was also on the week we were there and although I never got to see the circuit they did have the cars in the city centre on of the days. Oh, we also walked past David Coulthard, I didn't get the chance to say hello. :(

BMW

Some other car??

Federation Square with crazy new buildings.

Okay so I've got a lack of photos of Melbourne on my camera, as I said a city you more kind of stroll around and chill out in rather than take photos of!

Auckland

And as of yet(due to me not having replaced my camera batteries) I have no photos of Auckland apart from this one. Me, the face of lynx in New Zealand???

Once I've stolen Chris's camera I'll put some proper photos of Auckland on here.

Japan and Australia

Hey Hey

Well were in Oz now, had a few lovely days in Sydney so far.

Our last few days in Japan were taken up as follows:

We spent a day visiting a small town up in the mountains near Kyoto called Kara San.

Its main attractions are its various temples(including the headquarters of one of the Buddhist sects, I forget which one!) and shrines.

The place was really picturesque, and the trip up there was half the fun. Two trains, a funicular and a bus along the dodgiest road I've ever seen.

Outside a temple in Kara San

Some cute mini shrine in Kara San

The funicular

A view over the mountains

It was then off to Osaka for the day.

Osaka was fine, not a great deal to do there really. We went up what is reputed to be the worlds tallest big wheel, but don't they all say that??

Chris also tried to get into a spa, but was refused entry on account of his tattoo. Turns out tattoos are deeply offensive to most Japanese on account of their association to the mafia! Poor Chris, does he look like the mafia type to anyone!!

It really was quite big

Had to be done!

It was then onto Hiroshima where we spent the morning visiting the A bomb memorial park and museum.

It was a pretty haunting place (although the museum was a little one sided in the telling of the story, but that's by the by).

The atom bomb exploded just above this building

Our last day was spent back in Tokyo, where we spent the night in a capsule hotel, another quintessential Japanese experience!

Me in my capsule

Australia

So our three days in Sydney so far have been lovely and relaxing. The 26 degrees sunshine is definitely a contributing factor!

We've just been walking about exploring the city centre really. We met up with one of Chris's friends Helen yesterday who took us on a ferry over to one of the suburbs for some lovely cheap food, some nice Ozzy steak!

Me in front of this famous landmark

And Chris in front of another famous landmark

And both of us in front of both of those landmarks

Drag queens with half naked boys, well we are in Sydney!

Helen taking us on our boat trip, oh and yes, that famous landmark in the background

Bondi beach baby!

Oh, and there was a St Patricks day parade, all the way to Oz and surrounded by Irish!

So another couple days in Sydney before heading off to Alice Springs.

Later!

PS Just to say, on the flight to Sydney I chose to watch Baz Lurmans latest epic "Australia", my advice to anyone else..........don't! Its 2 hours and 40 minutes of your life you'll never get back!

Last day in China and onto Japan!!

Okay,　so I`ve been holding off on the blog until I could get free Internet again, but since theres precious little chance of that happening here in Japan I`ve relented and coughed up the hundreds of yen to use the hostels PC......I hope you all appreciate my sacrifice!

So, what have we been up to?

Well our last day in Beijing was good, we had a wander around the Summer Palace, which is where the old Emperors etc would spend their time when the Forbidden City got too hot, I actually found it a lot nicer than the Forbidden City,　it was much more chilled anyway.




Up at the Summer Palace, yes that water is frozen, Summer Palace you say? hmmm

On our last evening we met up with one of my old Uni pals who I had only found out lived in Beijing the week before (the power of facebook!).
Suzie and her boyfriend Ian took us to a really lovely Duck restaurant where we experienced Peking duck how it should be done, thanks so much to Suzie for taking us there!

Suzie and Ian, is that a miniature orange you`ve pealed there Suzie?

Then........

JAPAN

Well we`ve been here for 6 days now and its certainly an experience.

We spend our first two days in Tokyo. What can I say about Tokyo?? Well first of all its massive, I mean really massive!.......and busy, I mean really busy!........and expensive, I mean really expensive! But we had a good couple days there. On our second day one of Chris`s friends,　Miki met up with us and gave us a locals tour of Tokyo which was really good fun, we saw so much more than we would have any other way. Thanks so much Miki!!! (We`ll see you in Edinburgh in 2010!!!)

Miki, me and Chris enjoying some authentic Japanese food(remember that raw squid Chris??)



That umbrella is from Clares Accesories if anyone is wondering


Tokyo's answer to the Eiffel Tower, only 3 metres taller and in technicolour!



Responsible parenting Japanese style!


Oh yeah, Chris got his hair cut too, what do you think???

We`ve been staying in Kyoto for the past 4 days.
Kyoto itself is okay, there isn`t much to do apart from look at one of the hundreds of temples! Great if you love temples I suppose! We`ve had a look at a couple.



Somewhere in Kyoto


Its what you come to Japan for really

Yesterday we took the train to Nara for the day. Nara is really small by Japanese standards so it felt really chilled and relaxed there. Nara is famous for the deer that just wander about all over the town, they are treated as sacred by the Buddhists I think?
We rented bikes for the day so we got to cover the whole place in an afternoon(until the rain put an end to our fun).



Chris in his bike, and the obligatory temple photo


How to make friends with Deer??......Deer biscuits of course!




Today we took the train to Kobe, famous for beef and a very bad earthquake!
Kobe was nice, there wasn`t a whole lot us must see sights, but we managed to make an afternoon of it, including a very ropey cable car ride!


Our bullet train, awesome!


The not so stable cable car


Inspecting the art in Kobe