Sydney - day 23

We went to Hyde Park (a lot of cities and parks and monuments have the same name as those in the UK) and picnicked on the grass in the sun. From there we walked to the Royal Botanical Gardens, which are very nice, and then along the water to the Sydney Opera House. We walked around the harbour, passing by Circular Quay and then stopped to see a street artist who was about to start her show. She was a body contortionist and picked Pierre as her assistant for the show. It was very funny and Pierre had to do all sorts of things that could be interpreted as sexual positions... she even fitted herself in a tiny box! She referred to Nat as "Mrs Pierre"!!! We have it all on video, we can't post it here, but we'll show you when we get back. We walked along the Rocks area and saw about 5 or 6 brides... apparently it's where everyone gets married. We also saw tons of cars for these weddings, including limousines, very old and nice cars and other random cars. We went to the Rocks Market which was fun. Again, Sydney seems very lively and fun in the weekends.

Weather: sunny and warm, but again pretty cold in the shade

Sydney - day 22

Our plane landed in Cairns at 6 am after a 7-hour flight. We had to get off, pass through security and get on the same plane again (we still don't know why we had to go through security again...). Our flight left at 7 am and we landed in Sydney around 10 am. The time difference between Sydney and France/Spain/Holland is 8 hours, but between Sydney and Tokyo only 1 hour, so we didn't have any jetlag problems. We took the shuttle van to our hostel (Maze Backpackers) and did some very necessary laundry. We went out for lunch, ended up at Hungry Jack's (= local name for Burger King) and then went into some electronics shops to look at some more cameras. Answer from the vendor to Nat's camera-situation: "I'm afraid that's what we call broken." Well, at least this time it was said in English and we had no more doubts about it. Apparently it's not the lens (as was said in Tokyo), but an electronical problem. So we decided to buy a new camera. We ended up buying two actually, cause we got such a good deal, one that's waterproof so we can use it at the Great Barrier Reef, and one that looks professional and takes amazing pictures! We headed back to the hostel, picked up the laundry and charged our cameras. Then we walked down Pitt Street (named after Brad Pitt??) and went into the Sydney Tower. It is the highest building in Sydney and it gives and amazing 360 degree view over the whole city. We were there for the sunset, which was beautiful. After that we went to the Oz Trek, which is included in the ticket for the tower. It's a hologram presentation about Australia (pretty impressive how they use the holograms, actually) and then an attraction where you sit in a chair that moves while you watch a film about Australia (it wasn't that great). From there we walked all the way to the end of Pitt Street, until Circular Quay and the Rocks. We saw the Opera House and Harbour Bridge by night. The Sydney skyline by night is also very nice. Our overall impression of Sydney is that it's very lively, everyone's out in the streets and bars having a drink and enjoying themselves. The Australians are very friendly and seem very laid-back. Sydney could be London in a sunnier and friendlier version. We walked back to Chinatown, which is where our hostel is, and had dinner in a Japanese sushi-belt restaurant (for a change!) cause it's the cheapest restaurant we could find! It's amazing how many Japanese restaurants there are in Sydney! After dinner we went to the movies and saw Wall-E. It was very funny, but also makes you think a lot about our current society and where we're headed. We walked back to the hostel and went to bed.

Weather: sunny and nice, but surprisingly cold in the shade

Tokyo - day 21

We packed our bags and headed to Hanzomon, which is the embassy district. We went to the Europa House, which is the Embassy of the European Union and met with the ambassador. The reason we went there is because Pierre's father used to be the ambassador there, so we looked at some pictures on the wall and Pierre got all happy about being back in a place he recognized. Pierre used to live right across the street from the embassy, so we looked at his old apartment building as well. We even ran into his old driver, Koyama-san, who still works for the embassy. From there we walked to the Imperial Palace Gardens, which are very impressive by their size. For lunch we went to McDonalds and Pierre tried the "teriyaki burger", which wasn't that good... We walked to Ginza and went into a big electronics shop to check out some cameras and ask for advice about my camera... They told me it's broken... We went back to the hostel, picked up our luggage and took the train to Narita Airport. Our flight to Sydney left at 21h25.

Weather: sunny and warm

Nikko & Tokyo - day 20

We got up early, had breakfast at the hostel and were driven to Nikko station where we left our luggage in the biggest lockers we had seen in Japan! From there we took a bus to Akechidaira and then the ropeway up the mountain to get a nice view of Lake Chuzenji and the Kegon Falls. We took another bus to get to the Kegon Falls which are 97 meters high and pretty impressive! From there we took the bus along Lake Chuzenji and got off at the Ryuzu Falls. We had lunch by the falls and then walked all the way up along the river. It was very nice cause the Ryuzu falls are actually 210 meters long and the forest surrounding it is very calm and beautiful. Then we walked for two and a half hours over a wooden boardwalk, through the fields and the forest, with some amazing views! It was some of the most beautiful scenery we have seen so far, probably also thanks to the weather, which was perfect! We got to the Yutaki falls, which were even more spectacular than the other ones, due to the impressive amount of water falling down! From there we took the bus back to Nikko station and then the train to Asakusa in Tokyo. We walked back to the hostel and found our English backpacker friends from Mount Fuji (they all studied in York university and went to Lancaster for the Roses, isn't that crazy?). We all went to a sushi-belt restaurant for dinner, supposedly the best one in Tokyo. It was delicious! Then we took the metro to Roppongi and walked around aimlessly until we found another english guy who took us to the Sportsbar. There we had a few drinks and played a game of pool against the slowest players ever, some business guys from Norway... We took the metro back and then walked to a karaoke bar in Asakusa. We found out that Nat is definitely the worst singer ever, followed by Pierre, and that Ed and John actually know how to sing!

Bad news of the day: Nat's camera started making "ghost" pictures, turning everything all white whenever using the zoom... also, Nat's video camera is having hard disk problems and works whenever it wants to...

Weather: very sunny, but not too warm

Nikko - day 19

This morning we packed our bags again and walked to the train station to catch a train to Nikko. Nikko is a town about 2 hours north of Tokyo and it is known for its World Cultural Heritage temples and the beautiful nature around it. We got to our hostel, the Nikko Park Lodge, which was a very nice mountain style lodge surrounded by trees and where the staff was very nice and helpful. We walked to the centre and visited the Toshogu, the Futarasan-jinja and the Rinnoji temples. They were all beautiful and very impressive. They are in the middle of the woods, which makes it very nice to walk around there. From there we walked to the Shinkyo bridge, which is sacred. We walked back to the hostel, stopping at a 160 year old farmhouse and the Nikko Beer Brewery. For dinner we tried the vegan zen dinner at the hostel. It was very good, but since it is vegan, it didn't include anything that comes from animals (no meat, no fish, no eggs, no milk, etc.). We got a tofu steak, a bunch of mushrooms, lots of rice, some more vegetables, a vegetarian miso soup and watermelon. Overall it was an interesting experience, it being the first fully vegan meal we ever had. After that we played some cards and planned our itinerary for the next day.

Weather: very warm but a bit cloudy

Tokyo - day 18

We got up pretty late, so we skipped breakfast and went to a "sukiyaki" restaurant for lunch. It was a traditional restaurant where the waitresses wear kimonos and where you sit on a tatami mat on the floor. Sukiyaki consists of meat and vegetables that you cook in a little pan in the middle of your table. It was very good! After lunch we walked to the Ryogoku stadium to see some sumo wrestling. While we were waiting, there were lots of sumo wrestlers that came in and out of the stadium. The funny thing is that they walk around in a kimono and slippers and people don't even really look up when they pass by. We even saw one going into the McDonalds and we thought it was funny so we took a picture of that! When we got into the stadium, the junior sumos were still wrestling. We saw the entry ceremony of the 'senior' sumos which was really fun to see. Overall, watching sumo wrestling is a fascinating experience! The referee is dressed like a shinto priest and all the things they do are related to the shinto religion. They throw lots of salt in the ring before they fight to purify the ring. And the losing sumo wrestler has to leave the ring immediately, whereas the winning one stays by the ring to offer some water to the next wrestler. We saw about twenty-four fights, including the two current champions, which were spectacular fights! Luckily one of Pierre's father's friends was with us to explain all the rituals and traditions to us. Thank you very much!!

Weather: gray but not rainy

Tokyo - day 17

This morning we watched some episodes of "Family Guy" while having breakfast and waiting for some English backpackers who we were gonna go to Harajuku with. We took the metro to Omotesando, a long shopping road with shops like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Dior, Gucci. Prada, etc. We went into Oriental Bazaar, a shop where you can buy lots of japanese souvenirs, from chopsticks to kimonos. We also went into Kiddy Land, a 6-floor toy store where you can find lots of fun toys and entire sections dedicated to Barbie, Hello Kitty and Snoopy. It also has some very funny and useless toys, such as the humping dog usb stick! We had a quick lunch at Lotteria (nothing to do with the lottery...) with Ed and then walked to Yoyogi park. The area around Harajuku and Yoyogi park is famous for the rockers that get together every sunday; they dress up like Elvis Presley and the characters in Grease. Unfortunately, it was raining a lot, so we didn't get to see much of that. We did go into the park to see the Meiji Shrine and then walked back to Harajuku. We walked through a little road where some traditional mini-parade was going on with men and women carrying a tiny shrine up and down a street, wearing shirts (no pants) that did not quite cover their bare asses and therefore showed their sumo-like thongs... The street was filled with little gothic type shops, best compared to Camden Town in London. We saw some very strangely dressed people in that street! We went to the Rock 'n Roll Museum, which turned out not to be a museum, but rather a shop specialised in Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. The owner looked like a japanese version of Elvis Presley, he even had the same haircut!! From there we walked back to Omotesando and went into the Louis Vuitton store, the Loveless store (pretty amazing cause it looks like a cave) and saw the Prada store (impressive building). Then we went back to our hostel to stay out of the rain for a while.

Weather: lots and lots of rain...

Tokyo - day 16

This morning we slept in and decided to take it easy. After breakfast, we took the metro to Ueno and walked to the Ueno Zoo. One of the reasons we wanted to go to that zoo was because of the giant panda... but once we got into the zoo, we found out the only giant panda they had, died in april of this year! Anyway, we only paid 3,50 euros to get in and the zoo was huge, so it was still definitely worth the money! We spent the whole day there and saw lots of animals... We took the metro back to the hostel, took a shower, got changed and headed out to the Okura hotel where we were to meet some of Pierre's father's friends. They kindly took us out for dinner to a place on the 37th floor of a tall building in the Roppongi area with an amazing view on the Tokyo Tower and the rest of the Tokyo skyline by night. Dinner was delicious! Thank you very much!

Weather: sunny with some clouds

Tokyo - day 15

This morning we got up at 4h45 to go to the world famous Tokyo tsukiji fish market. It is the biggest fish market in the world. We got there around 6 am and walked around. It was surprising to see how many people were awake at that time (both tourists and japanese people)! The fish market is insane! It is really impressive and really big. You can walk through the little alleys between all the stands, nearly getting run over by these little carts that bring the fish from one place to another. Wherever you stand, you feel like you're in the way! They have every kind of fish in that place. They also have live fish that jump out of their box and flap around on the ground until someone kicks them and throw them back in the box. The fish market is specialised in tuna and the tunas they have overthere are huge! Most of them have their head and tail cut off, but they're still really big! We saw the auction for the frozen and non-frozen tunas. There is one guy who rings a bell and then stands on a box and the people gather around him and he starts yelling things and people raise their hand to buy the fish. The auction goes really fast and is pretty much unfollowable. It was fun to see though. After watching the auction, we walked around looking at all the other fish and shellfish they had at every stand. It went from lobsters to shrimp to eels to flounders to any other kind of sea animal you could possibly think of (just look at the pictures, some of them are part of the most disgusting animals ever!). We walked to a little alley nearby where they had a bunch of sushi restaurants. We decided to try out the super fresh sushi for breakfast. It was delicious!! Eating sushi for breakfast at 7h30 isn't as bad as it sounds! From there we walked to Ginza and saw the Kabukiza theater. We also came across many shops and buildings that were closed due to the insanely early hour we were there. We walked all the way to Akihabara, passing by the Tokyo station and all the areas in between. It was a very long walk, you can check it on a map! We got to Akihabara around 10h, just as the electronics shops were opening. Akihabara is famous for the amount of electronics shops in that area, and the place really deserves its name! We decided to go into a big 8-floor building and headed straight for the "massage chair department", where we confortably sat down and enjoyed a good half hour of free massaging! It felt great after all the walking! After that we went into a few more shops and then took the metro back to Ginza. We bought cinema tickets to go see "Hancock" and then had lunch in an italian restaurant. We still had some time before the movie started, so we went into the Sony Building to see some of their innovating products. It was awesome! They have some truly amazing things! Can't wait for them to come out in Europe! We went back to the cinema and headed up to the 9th floor to see the movie. Only in Japan would a cinema be on the 9th floor of a building!! The movie was pretty good. After that we went back to the hostel, watched "United 93", had dinner, took a shower and went to bed.

Weather: gray and rainy...