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.

Angkor, Angkor, Angkor Wat!

Now, let me admit here and now that I have been excited about seeing Angkor Wat from the day we decided to visit Cambodia. Now let me also admit that I got Angkor Wat completely mixed us with Borobudur in Indonesia and only realised my mistake when I was actually standing in front of said Wat. Not any of the pictures, photos, conversations about the internationally recognised symbol of Cambodia had actually penetrated my haze of blissful ignorance. Cough.

Now, onto the magnificence of Angkor Wat! As is my wont I can’t help a snippet of history geekdom slipping through, please bear with me whist I give a very brief overview of why on earth there are a whole selection of odd buildings nestling in the Cambodian jungle. Bearing in mind my mistake above a few hard solid facts would not go amiss. Basically the Khmers (pretty powerful in their time, ruling much of their neighbouring countries) starting building wats/temples and the outlying towns in AD802. As each King came along he built a new citadel, hopefully bigger and flashier than the previous one. Another action of these obviously retiring kings was to declare themselves as god-kings, the representation of the Hindu god Shiva on earth. They then built there temples as temple-mountains, supposed to symbolise the holy mountain at the centre of the universe. And they slept there. Puh. Anyway the upshot of this is a multitude (100s) of temples, made feng shui before they even knew what it meant, that reflected the (huge) personality and ego of each successive king. Let’s have a glance through some of these monuments to themselves shall we? Ego aside though you have to give them props, at its height Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples had a population of 1 million whilst London struggled to hit 50,000.

Now, as I’ve mentioned there are a  fair few temples out there so a little judicious planning and a large dollop of able assistance from our tuk tuk driver was necessary. We met him when we stumbled off the bus from Phnom Penh and he became our designated drive for the next 4 days. And what a gentleman he was.

For less than $20 a day he was at our often tired/hot/hungry/thirsty beck and call and guided us to the best temples whilst always making it seem like it was our idea. Genius. He even kept a smile on his face when we stumbled out of our hotel at 5 in the morning and remained unconscious in the back for the next hour whilst we raced to catch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. It was cloudy. No sunrise. Awesome.

We were pretty lucky (smart) as we established the route that all of the tours take, and they all take the same ones at the same time, and decided to do the exact opposite route each day. Cue our code language to our tuk tuk driver and speedy exits whenever we so much as caught a sniff of a coach on the horizon. The happy result of this is that we often had entire temples to ourselves which made imagining yourselves being there 1000 years ago that much easier. Us being us, following our early wakeup call (more on that later) we may have taken advantage of this solitude by having a nap or two propped up against a wall listening to the birds sing and the leaves rustle. Bliss. Don’t know what Lara Croft was thinking leaping about making a racket with her shiny guns. Missed a trick there.

There were, however, occasions where interaction with our fellow humans was necessary. Unavoidable, actually, at Angkor Wat, the behemoth cherry on the cake of all the temples. Well, it would have been if you could have zapped away the thousands of fellow tourists and bright green scaffolding. Yes, Scaffolding. Sigh.

Walking the gauntlet of the many hawkers selling anything g and everything wasn’t a joy filled activity either but Alex was kept entertained by the young kids selling bangles inexplicably decided to call me Michelle Obama henceforth. Loudly. I repeat, sigh. All Cambodian children were happily removed from my black books (more of a tome really) when we espied them playing and clambering in quiet corners of the further flung temples. Can you imagine the whole Angkor Wat area as your personal playing ground? Incredible.

Now before you think that I (and it would obviously be me) had coerced Master Southern into living a life of all work and no play I can happily report that Siem Reap easily lent itself to some food & drink fuelled play in the evening. Lots of bars and restaurants packed into one small street and filled withal manner of people. From young travellers sampling (copiously) the $0.50 pints of beer and banana/nutella pancakes to the families and the older crowd staying in posh resorts and eating up a storm in one of the many great restaurants and buying up trinkets. We fell somewhere in the middle. We drank till we got drunk for about $5 but believe you me we also ate up a BBQ flavoured storm. Post dinner spa treatments came courtesy of Dr Fish.

For all of the above reasons it was pretty hard to leave Siem Reap but we were always aware that this was Disney’s version of Cambodia so leave we did by catching a boat to Battambang.