Japan

Our first stop and first real impression of Japan was Fukuoka. Historically supposedly one of the most international cities, due to its proximity with Korea and influx of Portuguese sailors so long ago.

We spent two days trying ramen (noodle soup), observing the Japanese scurry too and fro, comparing the malls with those of Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok (Singapore still beats them all) and just walking around.
Interestingly enough, their food courts are (unlike the SEA food courts) more like a group of individual little restaurants, each with plastic models of the food on display (thank goodness! reading Japanese is quite beyond us!) and a line of giggling girls and poker faced adults queuing. The food is relatively inexpensive, surprisingly enough. We generally spend around Fr. 9.- per meal, including drinks.

The prevalence of gaming parlours, especially "Patchinko" parlours is just amazing. You really get the impression that most of the population are hard core gamers and gamblers. Prizes range from candy bars to candy bars which you can exchange for money. Interesting system that. Elegant way around the "no money prizes" rule.

After Fukuoka (which we could never pronounce correctly) we boarded another Shinkansen down to Nagasaki.
The second city ever to be hit by an atom bomb. (During WW2. Hiroshima was the first city to be struck by nuclear warfare.)
It was quite terrible to see the destruction in the museum.
They had done up the area really well and you would never dream that in 1945 the whole surrounding area was completely flattened.

Our next stop was Beppu, famous for its numerous hot springs.
Now there are two kinds of hot springs, we learn from the Lonely Planet: the "jigoku" (or "hells"), which are for viewing and the "onsen", in which you can bathe.
It was terribly hot and humid (on average Japan has been around 30 degrees Celsius) so I was doubtful as to how relaxing these onsen would really be. Nevertheless we rented a private onsen (the onsen are generally split by sex and you bathe naked) and had a great time alternately dousing ourselves with cold water and boiling ourselves in the bath. Highly recommendable!

From Beppu we travelled over to Hiroshima.
It is a very nice town, bustling and green, cut through by rivers. But to be honest, I preferred Nagasaki over Hiroshima when it comes to commemorating the disaster and consequences of the nuclear bombs.

Yesterday we decided to visit Kobe (no, we didn't manage to try the famous Kobe beef) and patronise a Sake museum. The tasting after the hard work of walking around produced some of the tastiest sake I have ever sipped. (FYI, you don`t drink Sake, you sip it.)
But it was too early and we had planned to visit the famous castle at Himeji next, so we repressed the urge to invest in a bottle or two. (Have found that the ominous threat of "carrying" does wonders for my savings!)
The castle (a UNESCO Heritage site) was marvellous. Interestingly enough you had to take off your shoes. They gave you a plastic bag for them. At the end I spied an elderly lady cleaning and folding the used plastic bags, ready for reuse. That`s recycling!

Speaking about being environmentally sound, I noticed that everyone here 1. does not wear a mask (like they do when they come over to Europe) and 2. all vehicles turn off the engines at red lights no matter how long or short the wait and 3. the transport of choice seems to be the bicycle.

Another oddity are their toilets. Most of them have numerous buttons on the side. Haven`t quite figured out what they do, apart from an obvious one that gives you a "douche". When you sit down, the water starts running so that no one can hear you. Crazy!
The best one was at one of their huge internet cafes. (A great institution. With free ice-cream, drinks and soups, as well as an extensive menu, it was just begging to be tried and tested in true Japanese fashion.) The lid lifted itself automatically (got a huge shock when that happened!) and the seat was heated. Pure luxury!

I also love the omnipresent vending machines. The coffee is surprisingly good (you can even get cold starbucks coffee in the 7/11) despite being sweet. Instant caffeine and sugar rush combined.

Today we arrived in Kyoto. With numerous UNESCO Heritage sites and some 2000 Buddhist temples it is called the Paris of Japan. I am most interested in the Geisha (well, "Memoirs of a Geisha" was one of my favorite books for a time!) and the tea ceremony.
But tomorrow it is off to Nara, the old capital.
We are getting our money`s worth out of this JR Rail Pass!

The Great Ocean Road

Just glanced through my last two posts and realised that I forgot to mention that we zoomed along the Great Ocean Road before leaving Melbourne`s cold for the warmth of Cairns.

When we set out, anyone seeing us would have wondered if we were moving house. That was the extent of luggage we brought along for the weekend! Thankfully the boot was large enough for 3 huge backpacks...

It was quite an adventure getting out of Melbourne - driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Yet Francine rose to the challenge heroically and maneuvered between enormous lorries, numerous SUVs and not to mention the prevalent road rage without batting an eyelid.

Our first stop was near Torquay, where certain people went wild in the sales of Quicksilver / Billabong (surfer brands) and the like.
Fortified by a sushi lunch we sped on down to Lorne, a quaint little seaside village. Along the way we marvelled at the many untouched beaches. If it had been summer, we probably would have spent the whole time at a beach... but it was not to be.

We found a really nice backpackers just next to a cute tea house, serving up fresh scones with jam and clotted cream. Yum. You`ll never believe how hard it is to get Verveine tea over here. The Aussies don`t really have any kind of tea culture. How they miss out!
We had the best pizza of our whole trip here. A tiny little take away serving thin based pizza with the freshest ingredients, a definite must if you`re ever down here.

In the evening we patronised the (only) local pub. Francine and I relived our "skippy dance", a dance featuring all kinds of wildlife we encountered during our road trip in Jan 07. It involves a lot of vigorous jumping around. Only to be performed in Oz. Needless to say, everyone was impressed!
This guy tried to sell me this tall story that he was some kinda ranger, trimming eucalyptus trees for a living. The scars on his face were from the vicious koalas inhabiting the trees. Apparently when they cut down the trees, they strapped a tiny parachute on the animal and threw it out of the tree.
Yeah. Base-jumping koalas. Am not THAT drunk! Get me another drink on HIS tab (for having to listen to that), please!

We drove along the coast, enjoying the scenery, the lighthouses and the twelve apostles, before arriving in Warnambool (our turning point). I had read somewhere that there were whales along the coast and indeed, the receptionist confirmed that there was a mother and her cub just off the coast. Early morning at dawn was supposedly the best time to see their activity.
Of course we couldn't resist (well, minus Mark, the lure of a warm bed was too strong for him!) and rose early. Blurry-eyed Francine and I sped out to the designated area. I must admit that we were a bit too over ambitious with our early rising, as it was still pitch black we arrived at our destination. Thankfully we had passed an open 7/11 store, so we bridged the time with a warm drink.

Finally dawn broke and as you can imagine, we were the only ones there!
There we stood, our eyes straining into the distance, frantically checking each wave for a sign of a fin or something. Then suddenly, a spurt of water and a black dot that was, yes, it was a fin!! Not the tail fin but a fin nonetheless!
We spent around an hour squeaking excitedly whenever we saw a bit of the whale, however tiny. Finally we gave up and went back to brag.
Of course, on our way back to Melbourne we stopped to see if we could see any further activity and lo and behold there the cub was, showing off, rolling around and flicking its tail (once!) to a receptive audience. Oh well. So much for the early rising.

Last stop was at a winery in the middle of nowhere. The wine was just about ok and we were introduced to the concept of flourless chocolate cake. Tasted fine, yet was not convinced by the absence of flour (consistency was quite soggy).

Fast Forward Oz - next is Japan

***News Flash***
I have made it to Japan!!!
After spending one night in Tokyo in a delightful tatami-matted room, we tore ourselves away from the city of our dreams (leave the best for last - and hope the awaited earthquake wont hit the city til after we leave (they have one every 100 yrs or so and apparently it is overdue by 10 yrs already. Parents: breathe!).

09:03 Tuesday morning saw us boarding the shinkansen (bullet train, think TGV but faster) for Fukuoka/Hakata. The plan is to go as far away from Tokyo as possible and work our way back.

Just standing on the platform waiting for the train was an experience. They have waiting lines on the ground for every car and before you enter, an army (well, a mean looking team) of pink-clad cleaners shot into the train and mopped, scrubbed and changed the white cloth on the head piece of every seat. When they were finished, hand-signs were given, shouts were exchanged and then we could board. A very comfortable 6h ride.
The Japanese are very proper: whenever either the conductor or the woman pushing the food cart entered or left a waggon, they bowed and said a few words. Got quite a shock the first time as the guy looked at me and I thought he was talking directly to me! (Luckily I did not have time to reply.. saved myself an embarrassing moment there!)

But I first need to tell you about Oz... just noticed that my last post was about Melbourne!
Has to be quick, as M wants to leave... the irony is, that we are now in one of these super Internet cafes where u can sleep and shower etc. and he wants to go! Oh well, guess it really is just the game he loves and not the Internet (unlike me...!).

We flew up to Cairns from Melbourne, thankful to flee the cold at last (but v. sorry to leave certain people behind... sniff).
It was nice and warm up there, but with a biting wind, so managed to buy two pairs of ugg boots on the first night (and believe me, they came in very handy for the rest of the trip!)!

As we opted not to go to Darwin, we decided to spend the money on a helicopter flight out over the Great Barrier Reef. Was absolutely amazing! Saw whales, dolphins and turtles, unfortunately the sharks hid themselves from view. The flight itself was a fantastic experience, got the poor pilot to explain every little dial to me. Must have been glad to get rid of us!

The next day we took a boat tour out to the reef, to see it from up close. That was also utterly amazing. Did some snorkeling and saw turtles besides a multitude of colourful fish in every shape and size. The most beautiful thing I saw was this huge clam, shimmering pink and purple at the bottom of the ocean. On the way back we were accompanied by 3 humpback whales, pretending to be rabbits. They kept jumping up and around us and gave us quite a show! The crew were also absolutely awed (there is something magical about a whale rising out of the water just next to you) and said they had never seen such a performance before.

We went out in the evening and missed the next days tour up to the tablelands. But luckily we could change it to the next Monday.
That was a bit of a anti-climax after the other two excursions. First of all we found ourselves surrounded by oldies but goldies. It was actually really nice, we saw some snakes and tortoises as well as a huge tree beset by a strangling fig. Quite impressive. A waterfall later we had lunch on a ranch out in the outback. It was really interesting to talk to the kids living up there. They go to boarding school in Brisbane and have to go back to the city to learn a trade afterwards, but yearn to work out in the middle of nowhere (literally!). The steaks they served up for lunch were funnily enough not from their own cattle but bought from the local shop. They can only serve food that has an official butchers seal on it.

After Cairns we flew down to Sydney and there we met our first "long-lost" cousin, Sherry. It was amazing to meet up with her and she kindly enough put us up (and put up with us!) for four nights.
We were quite shattered from travelling (woke up at 4am for the flight), but wanted to see Sydney so dragged our protesting bodies out to Manly for lunch. From there we took the ferry over to Sydney and was that sea choppy! Mark quite enjoyed it, but I felt seasickness looming! In Sydney we did the main sights (opera house, tower bridge, darling harbour, chinatown, markets, etc.) before crashing into a pub to flee a sudden torrential downpour.
Sherry and Matt were great tourist guides, taking us out to bars/cafes/restaurants and dropping us here and there, making sure we saw all the good sights and even got tickets to an AFL football game (Australia Rules football, similar to rugby)... a huge THANK YOU to you two!

We flew on to Perth, to meet up with the more "obscure" relatives (well, besides Jerry & Julia, we hadn't seen the rest for over 10 years!). As our trip had been kicked into fast forward, we didn't give the poor family much time to prepare. But they rose to the occasion marvelously and we had a great time.
Uncle David picked us up from the airport and it was quite bizarre to meet someone who bears such a strong resemblance to Mum. He drove us up to Jerry and Julia`s place where we would be spending the next two nights. It was great to see them again. Jerry is a fantastic cook and we first subtly then not so subtly tried to get him to cook instead of us going out to restaurants... so mean, I know! But his food is soo good! (M is complaining that he wants to go, so I have to fast forward this bit):

We hired a car for two days and drove down to Albany, making for the Valley of Giants. Its a wood of huge Tingle trees (eucalyptus trees - no, no koalas this time), some over 400 years old where you can walk on a sky walk amongst the tops of the trees. Was really impressive. Drove back and spent the night in Fremantle, a town just about 20km down from Perth. Was a really nice drive, all that lovely scenery. Had a very weird pizza for dinner though. Imagine a thick pizza base with green pesto on it. Then dump a mixed salad on top (yes, lettuce, olives, huge chunks of feta and some slivers of tomatoes). Interesting yet tasty. Didn't see why they called it a pizza though.

Went back to Perth the next day and met up with David. Went down to Jenny and Anthony`s place this time. They had just been down south too and we were lucky to catch them. Had a great time with them and especially their daughter Glenda. We unfortunately missed their other two daughters (one in Melbourne and the other just left for Melbourne one day before we arrived). At dinner we met Auntie Irene and Uncle Eugene, what a family reunion! The next day Jerry and Julia came down and David brought his daughter Jackie and her boyfriend. The food was delicious, Jerry brought a curry and Anthony showed his prowess at the bbq.

A huge THANK YOU to all of you too, for making us feel so welcome, putting us up, feeding us and showing us around (especially David for that point). We really appreciate it and hope to reciprocate when you come to Switzerland.