Geisha, geisha, geisha!

So on to Kyoto. First and foremost Kyoto has a place in my heart as I managed to purchase my fluffy ear muffs for less than £1. Keeping my ears warm had an amazing effect on my general warmth. Veeeeeery important when haplessly trapped in a snow storm. It also meant that I looked the part and did the incredibly beautiful Kyoto,  old capital and cultural centre of Japan, justice in my sartorial efforts.

And let me tell you this place was dripping in culture. Dripping. After our first exciting trip on the shinkansen we arrived in the even colder Kyoto, dumped our stupid, annoying, heavy backpacks and headed straight out to see what the city had to offer us. First off a banana (the first piece of fruit I’d had in a while that wasn’t in liquid form) then we meandered through the area of Gion, hoping to catch a glimpse of the fabled geisha. I’m convinced that the banana brought us vitamin & mineral laden luck as, after commiserating with a frozen looking crane on what is purported to be the most beautiful street in Japan we saw one! And not even a callow young thing in the first throes is geishaness but a mature, perfectly composed lady who handled her ridiculous shortened gait with ease. Happy days.

I was also happy to see that we weren’t the only incredibly annoying tourists shoving our Olympus in the poor woman’s face, there were Japanese doing exactly the same which we thought in some way vindicated us. Or perhaps made us more annoying. Who knows?

Following this exciting sighting there seemed to be an avalanche of these ladies festooned in huge wraps of cloth, perfectly made faces and even little see through plastic coverings for their be-socked feet. All very lovely and an important cultural experience but for those who don’t have a cast iron ego, striding about in jeans and North Face trainers, a bit damning. I maaaaay have started experiencing those (rare) feelings of inadequacy but luckily Al was on hand to shepherd me into a Bape Konkept store to peruse their offerings, feed me to the gills with sushi delivered by the sushi train and insist that I take a photo of him and his old friend the Colonel. Feelings of inadequacy diminished!

Now, Nicholas, cease talking about yourself if you can and get on with descriptions of the things that make Kyoto the wonderful place it is! So here we go:

Ginkaku-ji (otherwise known as the Temple of the Silver Pavilion)

This turned out to be an amazing zen garden. Perfectly groomed, everything in its place, down to the last pebble. 

Even the koi cap we were behaved. Now the intricacies of zen gardens are completely beyond me (perhaps due to my lukewarm interest in horticulture?) but the view was amazing for every angle, even the huge pile of pebbles supposed to represent Mt. Fuji.

Again there was a heavy geisha element to our visit here, so much so that Al fit in like the 5^th pea in their colourful pod as you can see.

Kinkaku-ji (sound familiar)

This was the kicker, the highlight of Kyoto. With this place we were incredibly lucky as all the guide books were adamant that the best time to view Kinkaku-ji was when there was but a light dusting of snow. I’ll admit we didn’t feel particularly lucky as we carefully picked our way down the icy path (and neither, I imagine, did the poor old dear who did a spectacular nose dive in front of us) but all mutterings about frozen toes and itchy ears (damn ear muffs) disappeared when this came into sight! A whole pavilion encased in gold! Incredible. Beautiful. Jaw dropping. And busy.

Having decided that we were now hardy travellers and immune to the cold (fools) we decided to ignore warnings of a snow storm and follow up the golden pavilion with another highlight of Kyoto. The Bamboo Grove. Of course I only realised later that it was a highlight in spring. Nonetheless we creaked our way off another ridiculously efficient train and walked, bent over double, into the snow-laden wind to the fabled grove. Basically this a corridor through 10-15m high bamboo shoots (blades?). It ended up being a strangely soothing place to be. It was a windy day and the flexible bamboo were whipped, rustled and bent to the whims of the gales whilst we stood at their base completely protected just looking up at the green leaves that moved and sounded like an ocean. Lovely. Of course my famed patience was sorely tested as we had to wait a ridiculously long time for a woman and her daughter to get. Out. Of. The. Way. So we could take a photo but soon harmony was restored!

Following a few days of icy culture and unhealthy amounts of sushi we decided we deserved break. And what could be better than going to the world class Osaka aquarium to see a real live whale shark?? WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP. Sorry. Now we may have been more relaxed had we decided to go on any other day but a Saturday but as I may have previously mentioned we are often fools. I honestly never know what day it is these days. Nonetheless, despite the hordes of people and their offspring pushing us out of the way to get a better view and queuing up to get a photo taken with a plastic model of the whale shark the place was amazing. As well as the whale shark there were, manta rays, dozens of shark species, a sun fish, dolphins, turtles and the freakish looking Japanese fishing crab. (I may have made that name up as or the life of me I can’t remember what they are called). Ahhh bliss. 

Fortified by some marine entertainment we got straight back on to the culture trail the next day and headed out to Nara, once a capital of Japan even before Kyoto.

Once again a full day of ambling around but luckily Al discovered Japanese equivalent of elf bread…..huge spicy Japanese crackers, so we had the strength to go on with nary a whimper.

Not even the imperious and sometimes downright rude deer could veer us from our mission. Honestly, pampered much? 

Though I have to admit the odd snort-some snigger as we watched various groups of high pitched Japanese tourists squealing in a mixture of terror and delight as the deer ruthlessly hunted down any stray hands clutching biscuits. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, watch out for that monkey!

Whilst giving the deer the deference they deserved

we finally came to the piece de resistance, the world’s largest wooden building. I may have ruined the surprise somewhat for Al as I must have skipped over the all-important word ‘wooden’ whilst reading out from the guidebook and he was expecting a pentagon sized behemoth. Oops. Nonetheless the building was pretty bleeding impressive I’m sure you’ll agree.

What’s more impressive is that the building used to be even bigger but something or other happened and parts of it were pulled down. I’ll be honest, I may have been suffering from culture overload at this point so may not have been paying as much attention to the exhibits as one might think. This skim-reading, or sample testing, of Japanese culture was to come to an abrupt halt as you will see in the next blog as we come face to face with harsh reality and hope in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Until then, stay classy San Diego.

Possibly the second best city in the world?

I haven’t been this excited about writing a blog since Everest but if ever a place gets my blogging juices going its Japan, Tokyo in particular! Rather than go through a list of the places that we have visited in Tokyo I’d rather give you an overview of the many random thoughts that have zipped through my head as I have stared thoughtfully (gormlessly) at whatever treat the city has presented for my delectation at the time.

Firstly, it’s that famed duality of the national psyche. Namely the view that the Japanese are cool on the outside, furnace like on the inside. So far, nothing that I have seen has made me think that this is untrue. Tokyo is a city where you can walk anywhere at any time of night and despite most of the streets being completely deserted you have never felt more safe. Bikes are left unlocked on the side of the road, people always wait for the green man before crossing the road, teens will jump up to offer the elderly their set on the subway with many a deep reverential bow and general, common crime is probably the lowest of all the major cities. Cool on the outside.

Tokyo is also a city where the ideal look for all women under the age of 35 is the Lolita schoolgirl look (short skirts, knee high socks, pigeon toes), all animated girls have the skimpiest of outfits on with really quite anatomically incredible chests (Pammy eat your heart out),

 
anyone of any age can walk into one of the many comic/gaming shops and be presented with fantasy porn, grown men spend a lot of time and money in arcades role playing said skimpy animated females and some even go so far as to dress up as their favourite gaming characters for a nice stroll through the city on a Sunday. One of whom went on a rampage not too long ago in Akihabara (Electric City) and stabbed a number of innocent bystanders (gawpers). Hot on the inside.

An interesting thought (not mine, but stolen from LA’s very own Kevin) is that this will be everyone’s future. Are we following the young Tokyoites and slowly being sucked into a high tech world where gradually we lose the ability to connect on a meaningful level with people? Technology is predictable, always at your fingertips and follows your rules! All very profound, and I’ll be honest, I have NO idea but all I can say is that the site of 15 people in a hostel ‘common’ room all completely engrossed in their laptops/iphones/kindles (very very guilty!) is not at all a uncommon site. Now this could all sound like the ramblings of a fool who is in dire need of an honest day’s work but Tokyo definitely makes you think. I mean, you can even order and pay for a meal that you want from a vending machine outside the restaurant and have the food delivered almost immediately as you sit down. No human interaction needed.

Drifting happily onto more shallow plains I can’t even think about this without pondering the sartorial leaning of its inhabitants. Let me say here and now that Tokyoites are a very STYLISH bunch of people. Depressingly so far a woman oft to be found wearing her eye-scarringly pink rain jacket, warmth providing striped knee socks and grey fluffy ear muffs. Can I just take a moment here to sigh? Really, it’s ridiculous, and the situation is made all the more painful by the fact that Tokyo must have the highest shop per person ratio in the galaxy. Huge, glittering, beguiling streets full of awesome shops, quite a few of them owned by Louis Vuitton, they are obsessed with it here.

It would be impossible to go through all of the different ‘looks’ worn here that Al & I have gawped at as the wearer strolls by. But I can tell you that each and every person was wearing a completely ‘put together’ affair and was utterly self-conscious in their style. This applies to the tanned, dyed brown haired, huge eyed Barbie lookalike; the 1000s wearing tiny shorts/skirts, thigh high socks and knee high boots (furry on the outside) and the teddy boys with pompadours and skin tight all leather outfits. Genius.

Actually this unselfconsciously attitude is evident everywhere from the grown men in the 6 storey games arcades, the teens practising their dance moves in the park to the family taking their dog (dressed in doggy jeans, sunnies and a leather jacket) and rabbit for a walk.

Now earlier in my blog I may have seemed to question the healthiness of too much technology in society but let me say here and now they think of  absolutely everything here and I bleeding love it! The first clue was on arrival at the airport. There I was already in the midst of the first stage of hypothermia when it occurred to me that a call of the natural variety was in order. All I can say is HEATED LOO SEATS! Absolute, total bliss. Then other signs of the thoroughness of Japanese thinking come to the fore.  

The ridiculously fast shinkansen.

 It looks, feels, and travels like a jet plane. We managed to travel from Nagasaki to Tokyo, a distance of 1300km in approx. 8 hours and came out the other side only a little rough around the edges. When I compare this to some of the train & bus journeys that we have suffered through over the past 6 months….

Glasses cleaners outside opticians where all of the visually challenged can thoroughly clean their specs or free. I don’t think I’d ever get bored of these and would take my already verging on obsessive compulsive cleaning habit to new levels. 

Heated drinks out of vending machines. Never mind that their coffee is so sweet they’ll make your teeth rattle (as my mother would say) there is no handier hand warmer on those days those knee high socks just weren’t enough!

Sushi  trains that really are sushi trains. You sit at your table, peruse your menu on a touch screen computer, tap in what you want and how many then minutes later fresh sushi is delivered on a mini shinkansen. Eating food has never been so exciting. We probably ate a lot more than we should just so we could make  swooshing noises as our own personal train arrived.

Speaking of which I haven’t even touched upon a major factor of our trip in Japan, the food. In a word, sublime. Even in such humble environs as 7 Eleven you can indulge in feast of fresh sushi, hot steamed buns, countless cold coffees, noodles, gyozas, the lot! Outside of this you start venturing to the restaurants which is always an experience and unless you mistakenly order fish roe (shudder) you’re bound to come up with a gastronomic delight. Katsu don and katsu curry houses are on every corner, much like Starbucks but ultimately hugely more satisfying. Al and I have, again, perhaps slightly overindulged on this but whaddaya gonna do? 

 One of the things that I like about Japan is the restaurants concentrate on one type of food and if you don’t like that type of food, well, you’ve come to the wrong restaurant. Whilst this can be annoying, I imagine, if you are with a group of fussy eaters it does mean that that you are eating something that the chef spends all of his time making ( and no doubt dreaming about) so you know it’s going to be good. Ummm, dreaming about udon. Dribble.

Mention must also go to Okonomiyaki. This is basically layers of such foodstuffs such as cabbage, spring onion, bacon, noodles and egg all wrapped up in the thinnest pancake. It’s like the black hole of food where the raw incrediants start about 7 inches high and then gradually sink to an inch worth of the most condensed matter possible. Bliss but I couldn’t eat a whole one (almost did mind…)

Well, I’ve rattled on excitedly enough to put you in a coma but I can’t leave this blog without talking about sumo! I realise that this is a quintessentially Japanese experience but I was somewhat hesitant about munching on popcorn whilst watching what can only be called wobbly man mountains in outfits Borat would approve of kicking their legs high in the air and slapping each other around. How wrong (and sadly right) I was! Firstly, yes they may have more than their fair share of weighty chub on their bones but man these guys are actually muscly. They are strong men with thigh muscles a-popping but they need extra weight to simply bulldoze their opponents out of the ring. Hence the chub. An unfortunate side effect is that their legs and arms are so big that they have a funny, mincing walk where they kind of have swing their legs around in an arc as their thighs are too big, a la a chubby baby. Snigger. Also, it’s not just slapping around, ooh no. They spend a lot of time slapping their chests, eyeing up their opponents and doing eye wateringly high leg kicks and deep squats. Look at their skimpy outfits and you’ll understand why their eyes may water a bit.

 So there is a lot of posturing and time wasting and then suddenly they charge at each other like silverbacks and the slap of their bodies meeting reverberates around the entire stadium. Heady stuff.

As mentioned before they are unbelievably strong and lift their opponents off the ground and throw them off the ring, sliding into the audience. Apparently you pay around £500 to sit on a cushion at the front (I’d be in tears of pain after about 10 minutes, this woman was not meant to sit cross legged, ever) for the pleasure of getting squashed by a 20+ stone man in a g string. Got to love this country.

So, my friends, herewith is a taster of Japan, thoughts on the beautiful Kyoto in the next episode!

Trying to fit 6 weeks into 6 paragraphs

Now ladies & gents, let me the first to that the thought of writing this blog whilst growing slowly black and corpulent on Thailand’s beaches has not filled me with joy. So I haven’t done it. For 6 weeks. An entire country. Sigh.

As you have no doubt noticed from photos we have spent the last 6 weeks experiencing a holiday within a holiday, merrily chasing the sun and trying to find the world’s best green curry. Restaurant in a hill on Kata Beach on Phuket if you are interested. Beef, broccoli, baby aubergines, heavenly curry sauce….dribble.

I digress. I am now in Kyoto, Japan and am so excited about telling you all about this awesome, brilliant, ridiculously cold country that I am going to zip through my activities in Thailand, no doubt you shall get bored, if not a little irritated, by my repeated descriptions of lazy days on the beach, cold g & t’s and minimal exercise.

So, following 4 days mooching about in Phnom Penh awaiting our Thai visas (so we could stay more than 14 days) we braved another painfully long journey over the border and on to Bangkok. After a journey that involved 2 rickety old buses, a quick walk over the border and a pimped minibus driven by, the put it plainly, a bleeding maniac, we arrived in Bangkok at the famed Khoa San Road. The locals watched us ooze out of the bus and pick up our backpacks and instantly pegged us as green and tried to charge us 3 times the usual amount to our destination. Welcome to Thailand. After a (very) few pithy and quite possibly rude comments we went on our merry way and found an honest man to take us to easily the best hostel I have EVER stayed in. A free upgrade to a private room went some way to smoothing our ruffled feathers as well. We spent the next few days in Bangkok actively avoiding anything cultural and basically eating Cinnabons and going to the cinema. Bliss.

Following this we hotfooted it down to Krabi (bringing the rain with us natch) to see Jenny A and her rooftop bar. Despite the rain (or because of it) we managed to make a night of it drinking copious fruity drinks and grilling an American couple who had just spent a year (a YEAR!) on Antarctica. Well, I attempted to grill them whilst Al drunkenly educated us (repeatedly) on the nuances of the whaling wars, the perfidy of the Japanese when it came to whaling and the annual slaughter of dolphins a la ‘The Cove’. Happily he got to too drunk to carry on and slowly negotiated the stairs to our room leaving me to learn about people gradually going loopy whilst doing the winter shift on the ice continent. Heady stuff. This evening proved such a success that we would return to Krabi and Jenny a fair few times over the next 6 weeks, again bringing the rain with us every time. Sorry Jenny.

We pranced and skipped around the coast of Thailand so much that it would be easier all round if I just listed the places that we visited (some more than once).

So!

Koh Phi Phi.
One of the most beautiful islands you will ever see but always heaving with people. We went when we fancied losing a few hours each night to the vagaries of alcohol whilst never being more than 500m from our welcoming bed. It was here that we watched a bit of ridiculous Thai boxing by random drunk punters picked up off the street. Jeez.

 

Koh Lanta

We went to shrug off the hungover fug from Koh Phi Phi but unfortunately the sun wasn’t listening to our grandiose plans and didn’t shine. For 4 days. Humph. This was a little annoying to be honest as the beach that we stayed on was gorgeous and you could just tell that the water would be beautifully clear and  turquoise if for a little sun. Happily we filled our time be eating at some gems of restaurants and watching such cinematic greats as the Bride of Chucky and a few other straight to video films.

Phuket

Eeeeek. We felt that we had to go to the most visited island in Thailand if only to see the fabled lady boys that actually looked like ladies! You hear all these horror stories about people just not realising (in some gut churningly embarrassing situations) that someone was of a confused gender but either we missed something or standards have fallen somewhat. So easy to tell! So we went to Phuket, Soi Bangla, Al firmly attached to my side for his safety’s sake to check out the produce there. Well Phuket was everything that we imagined and more. I.e. heaving with Russians and drunken packs of boys eating kebabs and walking down the road shirtless gawping at the ‘ladies’. Got to be seen but once is enough for me. Happily we found the one bar one Soi Bangla that refused to let the ladies of the night to ply their trade on the premises and spent the night looking out on to the street singing at the top of our lungs to rock classics. Oh, and by the way, it was pouring down. However, as mentioned before Phuket did go up in my estimation by presenting me with the green curry of ALL green curries so much was forgiven.

Koh Tao

Ahhh Koh Tao, how much you gave us! It was here that we did as almost all visitors to this island do and got our diving certifications for riiiiiiiiidiculously small amounts of money. The diving was pretty cool, 1m long barracudas, a turtle, trigger fish and a huge school (?) of squid.We spent allll of our time on the island diving or reading/learning/talking about diving so can you believe that we didn't once lie on the beach and could only have a max of 2 drinks per eve? Shocking. But both the diving and the qualifications made up for this. Not only did I got to see Al's face awash with horror as he surfaced next to a man who had literally just chucked up his guts (seasickness gets the best of us eh?) but also as I quickly lost any embarrassment with my too snug wetsuit when I realised (through scientific research) that NO ONE looks good in a wetsuit. No one.

I must also at this point give props to Al for not only doing the open water but the advanced course in diving! Over the past year or so even mentioning the word diving instantly ratcheted up the tension between us. Me, convinced that if he just tried it he would love it as much as I do and Al, thinking that I was putting pressure on him to do something that he wasn't at all sure that he wanted to do. Happy days. So, with my new mature outlook on life I decided that I would have no opinions whatsoever on whether he joined me on the diving course. Al, of course, tested my determination to remain quiet by remaining undecided till the moment we had to book. I don't who was more surprised, me or him. However, once he made the decision he entered the fray with full gusto and enjoyed (he has confirmed this!) every minute of it. Sharks were mentioned at every possible opportunity and the night dive was preceded with worried silences and gloomy references but despite this he got straight in the water and once there spent the entire time loving the underwater world. Woop! Woop!

Koh Phangnan
Following our studious and focused time on Koh Tao we decided we needed a break. The upcoming full moon party on Koh Phangnan met our strict criteria of holiday enjoyment (drink, dance, eat & sleep, all in copious amounts) so of we trotted (or dangerously swayed on an overly full ferry in rough seas) to that hedonistic island.

The full moon party was interesting to say the least. About 15,000 revellers (mostly Russian it seems) decked out in flourescent clothes and paint, hopped up on backets and dancing madly on any available surface. It was definitely something that you have to experience once but I'm afraid to very salient points may prevent me from going again. 1. The music was AWFUL. The entire beach jumped to trashy europop except one bar that played drum and bass at deafening levels to try and compete. 2. More importantly, when looking out to sea we had a more or less constant view of men's backs as the inevitable effects of 3 buckets of alcohol took hold and they found themselves far far from the nearest toilet. Yeesh. Thank god the tide was going out or I would most probably have had a severe attack of my 'hating all kinds of bodily fluids'. Yeesh again.

Koh Samui

If Thailand was our holiday within a holiday then Koh Samui was our blissful retreat within a break within a holiday. We spent Christmas here and to celebrate this wondrous time of year, and also to reward ourselves for a job well done over the pervious 5 months we decided to treat ourselves to nice hotel and ensure that everything was in place for us to eat, drink & merry. And that we did. The pictures of our hotel speak for themselves. I can't tell you how much all of your posts and the news report on the snow, bitter cold and mayhem in th UK helped my relxation whilst by the pool.......

Similan Islands

This was our last hurrah before leaving Thailand and flying to Japan, and what a hurrah it was. A picture says more than a thousand words so use these pics to read my lips. I'm going back to go on a live aboard trip there one say. Oh yes I am.