Hello, First post from Thailand even though I've been here over a week! First few days in Bangkok were hectic and very sweaty but it's a great city. Crossing the road requires a lot of braver, walk slowly never run! I then caught an overnight bus down to the islands (the monks sitting in front of me enjoyed Die Hard 4 on the coach trip.) First stop was K Samui for a few days. I've perfected the knack of lying in a hammock all day, reading, getting up only to ge...

Hello! Ed and I continued down to Hiroshima, stopping at a stunning castle in Himeji (see the picture above.) And it was scorching the further south we went... Hiroshima was a great, laid back city. It`s incredible that everything is relatively new (at most 60 years old) after the city got destroyed. The Peace Museum was fascinating, very objective and well handled. And the A-Bomb Dome is a very suitable memorial. After more okonomiyaki and one last night in a...

Greetings! I`ve been very slack updating this, so apologies! Ed and I headed to Osaka as a typhoon was hitting so daytime was a bit of a washout! Not a problem as Osaka is definitely more of a nightime city. Two excellent nights out and some bad hangovers later... I did eat lots of okonomiyaki, my favourite japanese food by a mile, a japanese style pancake stuffed with meat, fish, veg and cabbage. Delicious. We then headed for Kyoto, in the midst of the Gion M...

Hello everybody, I've been doing plenty of day trips in the kansai region. Nara, the old capital of Japan, was stunning. The park in Nara has hundreds of tame deer milling around the place who walk straight up to you and sniff you. I even saw one deer break into a guy's rucksack and eat his map. Check out my photo of the deer ordering some food at the food stand at dusk in the park! Classic. Some terrific hiking trails around the park (I nearly stood on a...

There`s a famous japanese proverb: `He who climbs Mt Fuji once is a wise man, he who climbs it twice is a fool.` I completely bloody agree! Mt Fuji conquered! There was less snow on it than that picture so don`t worry. Fuji`s divided into 9 stages and all tourists get bussed up to 5th station halfway up the mountain to start the climb. That`s cheating! So Sean (Hawaiian guy never seen snow before) and I started like the olden pilgrims from the shrine at the bas...