Irasshaimase!

Minnasan, konnichi wa!

Welcome to Japan! I arrived yesterday morning after a gruelling 22 hour journey from Auckland (6 hours at Changi airport - 10/10 btw, free wifi and butterfly garden!), dead on my feet, sleep deprived, feeling quite grimy but very excited to be here. Made my way to the J-hoppers hostel after much difficulty finding the right exit (read: ANY exit) from the bohemoth Kyoto train station then walking for about 10 mins. Met Laura & Stacy here who had hired a guide to show us around the for day; I literally just dropped the bags & headed out the door. It was a great first day, we visited the Kiyomizu shrine, Yasaka shrine and had okonomiyaki for lunch (Japanese pancakes with meat & cabbage inside). NOM! We spend some time wandering the streets around the Kiyomizu shrine; it's rows and rows of shops selling all kinds of Japanese stuff, some aimed at tourists but mostly specialist eateries selling only one kind of food (e.g. mochi/sweets, udon, fried... things). The area is an old district of Kyoto and the buildings are very historic-looking, it's the same area where we will be dressing up at maiko on Thursday.

Today we made an early start, hired bikes from the hostel and headed to the Fushimi Inari shrine around 8am, before most of the tourists got there. It's the shrine with lots of red torii (gates), that go for several kms around a hill. Good exercise to work off all the yummy food we've been eating! Photos below.

Today we also went to Nijo Castle. The castle itself was a bit meh, the gardens were gorgeous with lots of weeping cherry trees. It feels a bit like being inside a fairy tale, with random shrines and temples absolutely everywhere, cherry blossoms on the trees and little old Japanese women in kimonos here & there. the Cherry blossoms are starting to fall off the trees, so if there's a breeze they fall down and the effect is magical :)

OK so the panda hat - it was a present from Laura & Stacy. Looks a bit naf, bit it kept my head warm while we were biking around today!












Initial impressions of Japan: despite everything being cramped, it's very neat & tidy. The houses are so close together neighbours can probably touch each other out their windows, alleys are very narrow but full of bicycles, but everyone has gardens with beautiful Japanese pine trees and flowers. There are little eateries everywhere, anything from a bowl of udon to a full-on set including miso, salad, todu, dessert, pickles, rice and your main meat item. Fruit & veges are REALLY hard to find - an orange costs 300 yen (NZ$5, 2.5 euros). We're keeping the local 7-eleven running by buying bread, eggs, chips (bread comes in packets of 3 slices).

OK now it's bedtime, email me and/or leave a comment, will post photos of the maiko-henshin asap!!

ML

Surprise Farewell Party!

I got a big surprise on Thursday night; what I thought was going to be a quiet farewell drink with Marion turned into a surprise farewell with a bunch of my closest friends :) Their leaving present for me? A ride on a 1450cc HARLEY DAVIDSON... awesome!! :D It was a beautiful clear night for a cruise along the waterfront, and I even got to wear a very stylish black leather jacket with "Harley" emblazoned across the back.

The bike ride was followed by dinner at Daikoku, the local Japanese Teppankayi restaurant. Leave it to Marion to think of something fitting like that!

To all my friends, thanks for a wonderful evening and I will miss you all dearly. Keep an eye on your mailboxes for postcards :)

2 sleeps to go. Panic attacks happening several times a day. And I can't make my clothes fit in my pack. Bugger.

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PS - new banner image, what do you think?

7 sleeps to go!

The final countdown has begun! (no references to 80's pop songs please) I've been off work for a week already, finishing off some photoshopping work and tying up loose ends. Already the days are beginning to blend into on, and now it's time to make copies of all my documents, decide which clothes I'm going to pack etc.

I've embraced the new itinerary - got the Japan and Tokyo Lonely Planets from the library and dusted off my Japanese language course notes from some time ago. Practised some polite phrases at Soto during lunch - "AsahiBIIRU o onegaishimasu", "oishikatta!", "TOIRE wa doko desu ka?" and "gochisousama deshita!" - all the essentials. Really looking forward to hanging out with Laura & Stacy and laughing our way through Japan. I'm also planning a day trip to Kawaguchi-ko to see Mt Fuji and take some sunset photos - did you expect any less from me? I will post it asap, I promise.

That's all for now - will write again once I'm on the road!

ML

Cyclone Tomas causes drastic change of plans

"A single-hander on his 40 foot steel yacht was expected in Gisborne by the 14th of March and was overdue. For five days, we heard the mayday relay repeated every few hours over the VHF by Maritime Radio. Orion, NZ Air Force's search and rescue plane was over head flying a search grid and spoke to us several times while we were out. Nothing like a sobering reminder of how quickly life can change. No sign of the sailor or yacht were found either before or after the cyclone."
(Yvonne Carver, Windsong)

2 weeks ago Bill & Yvonne set sail from NZ heading to Tahiti. For the first 3 days they had favourable winds and great conditions, and were even ahead of schedule. On Monday 15th they received a weather report that March Cyclone Tomas, the storm that hit Fiji, was turning into an absolute beast and wreaking havoc with the weather all over the region. Despite their best efforts to change course and sail around it, there was no escaping this storm and on Wednesday they struck storm conditions. The next 15 hours (12 in the dark) were spent fighting 35-40 knot winds and waves that felt like freight trains breaking over the boat, which was followed by an even tougher struggle against winds on the nose to get back into Tauranga. Not a decision that was made lightly, given they had mentally and emotionally packed up and were ready to leave NZ and continue on to the States. At 2am on Friday night they arrived safely in Tauranga.

Needless to say, this put a huge dent in their schedule. With this being an El Nino year they began to question whether or not it was even a good time to be heading out across the Pacific; several storms had already hit French Polynesia and even Whangarei. They contacted me to tell me everything that had happened and that there was no way they would make it to Tahiti anywhere near our original timeframe, indeed if at all, and that if I had an option to change my flights I should take it. I was extremely relieved to hear that they had arrived safely, and with that worry put to rest I now had to face the fact that the Pacific sailing trip was not going to happen. This presented a new challenge: WHAT TO DO WITH MY TAHITI & HAWAII FLIGHTS??

Of course, I had not purchased travel insurance yet. Stupid. Additionally, because a cyclone warning had already been issued, I could not purchase insurance then claim a refund on my tickets. BUGGER.

This now left me with a difficult decision to make in an incredibly short period of time. I had no desire to go to Tahiti by myself, an expensive destination, and anyway my return flight would put me back in Auckland. Not ideal. Options:
1. Get a flight directly to Hawaii, bring the Hawaii - Bangkok forward by a month, continue as usual
2. FLY TO JAPAN AND SURPRISE LAURA & STACY!!!

Luckily, I was able to get 60% of the cost of my flights back to put towards a flight to Japan. 5 days and $900 later the deal was done - Japan here I come!

Of course, this calls for a new route map:

Packing up my life

13 working days to go, and 5 days left in my flat.  Currently packing all my worldly belongings into cardboard boxes and trash bags marked "salvation army"... quite an emotional activity!  On the upside, I've found things I forgot I had (which I now have to get rid of all over again) and am reliving some of my past travels, which makes me more excited about my upcoming travels.  Laura leaves this Friday, which means come Monday I will be down 1 sister.

Added one more thing to the checklist:
See a rugby game - CHECK (going to see Chiefs v Crusaders on Friday)
Should be great!