On my journey from Tokyo to Brisbane, I had to make a connection in Singapore. I woudl not normally write an entry about 5 hours in an airport, but this was increbible - the airport was like a theme park. The departure lounge even had its own butterfly zoo and free cinema!

I'm leaving Japan tomorrow morning for Australia. I'll try and update the blog for the previous days in Singapore or NZ. It has just been too busy to do this recently However, I have uploaded a selection of Japan photos at: http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/patrick.travels/Japan# Have a look!

Today we woke early and travelled on the Shinkansen to Hiroshima. We left our bags at the station and took the tram into town to visit the atomic bomb sites. After a couple of hours of walking around, including a great free tour from a Japanese lady, we travelled back to the station and on to the Mazda car plant. We did a full tour (similar to Toyota), and were not very impressed! I felt Toyota had a far more positive and efficient operation, though Mazda was sti...

Ｏｕｒ　ｏｒｉｇｉｎａｌ　ｐｌａｎ　ｔｏｄａｙ　ｗａｓ　ｔｏ　ｔｒａｖｅｌ　ｔｏ　Ｋｏｂｅ　ａｎｄ　ｖｉｓｉｔ　ａ　ｓｗｅｅｔ　ｆａｃｔｏｒｙ，　ｂｅｆｏｒｅ　ｍｏｖｉｎｇ　ｏｎ　ｔｏ　Ｈｉｒｏｓｈｉｍａ　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｅ　ｅｖｅｎｉｎｇ．Ｈｏｗｅｖｅｒ，　ｏｕｒ　ｓｃｈｅｄｕｌｅ　ｗａｓ　ｓｏ　ｂｕｓｙ　ｗｅ...

Today we visited the Toyota car plant. We woke up extremely early and left from Nagoya station for Toyota City. After an extremely complex train journey, we finally arrived in Toyota City and spent the first hour viewing Toyota's prototype and experimental cars, which were extremely innovative. In particular, I was extremely impressed by a ultra-lightweight car made like a shell (see photos). We were then shown a short video before boarding a bus for a tour of t...