Today was by far the most challenging day I have experience yet. It was meant to be a simple trip from Osaka to Tsukuba, taking about 3 1/2 hours but life had other plans. Once I paid the exorberant amount to catch the Shinkanshen, we got about halfway before the conductor spoke in rapid Japanese and the scene light up with 'Delays expected'. I thought hey, 20 or 30 minutes, thats fine. Got my book, got some water, got some music - all good. Two hours later we h...

Ah, beautiful Nara! Today, I pushed my feet to their very limit (I ended up limping back to the train station as I couldn't put pressure on them) but it was all worth it. After a one hour train ride through the beautiful countryside past rice paddies and mountains, I arrived at Nara and saw more white people than I had since I left Sydney, I didn't like it. Firstly, do I regret wearing jeans? Yes. It was hot, hot, hot! It made the slow wonder uphill a bit of a c...

Just a quick update on today, as its nearing 12am and I have a big day in Nara tomorrow! I spent the evening having a hot shower, journal writing, personal updating and postcarding! Today was in it's entirety, an unepected day of wonder. I managed to wake up at 10:20am, thinking the other packers would wake me up like yesterday but I was sound asleep and had very odd dreams - I didn't know whether to apologise to the others or not, no doubt I was sleep talking! ...

What a day! I had forgotten the perils of communal living, just a thin curtin and 3 walls separated me from the other backpackers and in a somewhat less than comfortable bed - I can tell it might take another night or so to get used to it. Waking up was both very much before my alarm and difficult to get the motivation to again haul to another city. I had no idea what Kobe had to offer but I pushed through, and I'm very glad I did. The commute is the difficult p...

Ah, today - what a day! Possibly the most challenging. I am yet to find my money! But this morning at breakfast in Kyoto, I met a french man as he put on Queen at Wembley Stadium 1986 instead of Japanese game shows as usual - he seemed amused at my french but humoured me, I wish I had met him before I had to leave! So, I packed my bags, swung the 20kg onto my back and braved the light rain to catch the bus to Kyoto for the last time. Because I did have the pack o...