Paris

Paris, home of the beret, Gerad Depardieu and sex tapes, oh wait, that was the other Paris.
at first i was a little worried because you hear quite alot of horror stories of the french being rude but to be totally honest they were nothing but helpful. when i got off the train i had to find my hostel, which because it was on a small street it wasnt on the map, one old lady stopped and asked and tried to help me, but she didnt know she even offered to call them for me but i didnt have the number so i went to another hotel and the woman behind the desk got on the internet for me found my hostel, marked it on a map and pointed me in the direction. i tell you, the french are getting a bad wrap, they were extremely friendly. i think as long as you say 'bon jour' and 'merci' they are pretty happy that you made the effort. if anything the rude people are the tourists, for instance i was in Notre Dame cathedral and they were having a mass or something, and people were taking photos, with a flash i might add, and talking and pointing all while other people were praying. i thought it was so rude to have no respect for others. also people pushing in line to get into things quicker, i was more shocked to notice that it was more of the grey army than it was younger people. imagine what theyre like on pension day!

but one stereotype about paris is right, its so expensive here it costs an arm and a leg for everything, hence why some days it has reduced me to living off jam sandwiches. however, there was one free thing in paris. a tour and it was brilliant. it was a walking tour and it went for 4 hours to different parts of paris showing you where people were beheaded, what was stolen from other countries etc and just generally filling you in on the history of certain areas and some interesting facts ie: there are over 400 dog poo related injuries every year in Paris. The tour was also a good way of meeting people who were traveling.
eventually i found my way to my first hostel which is pretty nice, the guy that worked there is from Australia and we had a chat about the AFL grand final. i'm sharing the room with a girl fom norway a girl from argentina and a guy from the USA theyre all pretty friendly, Ben, the american guy was a pretty interesting guy, he was the same age as me and wrote for a environment magazine back in the states and was over here on a confrence to listen to Ted Turner and David Suzuki talk and decided to do a bit of touring around while he was over here. He and i got on really well and one night went out to Montmartre which in parts is a pretty cool area, but if you walk too far you walk straight into the red light district which isnt too bad because we got to see where the Moulin Rouge is, we didnt go in becuause the line was ridiculous and also because the price to get in was roughly 150 euros, i wasnt really that shattered i wouldnt see it. also in that area is Salvador Dali's studio, it was right on the top of a hill that overlooked paris, it was a beautiful view i can totally understand why he made it his studio.

both the hostels i stayed at actually werent that far from the eiffel tower which is HUGE and quite pretty at night its funny when they turn the lights on to hear all the tourist 'oooooh' and 'ahhhhh'. i climbed it as far as i could with a few people from the hostel, then i was luckly enough to get a free ticket to the top from another guy who didnt want to go up to the top anymore. bonus! the view was really cool. the second hostel i stayed at wasnt as nice as the other one but again i met some cool people, like 4 american guys, Matt, Andy, Wade and Adam from North Dakota. a funny story from staying there was one night we all were trying to get to sleep and someone in the room was snoring so loud, it made it nearly impossible, we could tell where the snores were coming from, but because we came in late and it was dark we couldnt see who it was. when we woke up in the morning we found it was a petite french girl who, by looking at here was not capable of loud noise that had kept us all awake that night. we were all left a little dumbfounded!

i figured while i was here i have to give the local food a go, even, how you say... escargot which is surprisingly nice. i wanted to give frogs legs a go but i couldnt find anywhere that sold them. the patisseries here have amazing food i find it hard not to walk pass one without buying something. there are some grat little shops around paris, i really liked some of there book shops, i found a really cool music shop here that had a Johnny Cash colouring in book. i thought that was kinda funny because you'd only use one colour... black!

it is quite a romantic city lucky josh didn't come, who knows what might have happened. but the 3 words that make my heart flutter in paris are 'YOU ARE HERE' i get so lost in paris, which is strange for me becuase my sence of direction is pretty good. i dont like getting my map out of my bag too much because A) then i look like a tourist and B) i look lost. lucky there are a few maps around so i can get my bearings that way. towards the end of my stay i was getting around without a problem.
one day i was walking around just taking in the sights like the Arch de Triumph i wandered across the tunnel where Princess Diana died. it was a funny feeling becuause i remembered where i was and what i was doing when i found out the news that she had died. its probably been about 10 years since her death now but it was strange how i could remember everything about that day and how tragic it was. anyway, as i kept walking a saw a giant white tent set up right near the eiffel tower so i went over to have a sticky-beak and on closer inspection i saw heaps of papparazzi then i realised it was fashion week in Paris, so i stood around for a little while then who should brush passed me but model/actor/singer Milla Jovovich. crazy! it was pretty funny to watch all the try-hard fashion people wearing strange clothes with bits shaved out of there hair walking passed like they were really important. by the way, it seems that red ray ban sunglasses are a must have item this season in paris, it seems everybodys got one... except me.

I experience parking in Paris 101 also. a watched a car ram into the back of another car and push it forward to make enough room to park behind it. i couldn't believe my eyes, it was like watching Mr Bean.

I should probably add that i walked doan the Avenue des champs elysee and had a look in all the big brand stores like Louis Vuitton etc, not because i like what they sell but there instore experience was amazing. also they had a few really good cool concept stores on the street like the Peugeot store, now for people who know me know that i'm not really into cars (hell, i dont even drive one) but this was really cool, one of the cars was really futurist and another looked like it was made out of fine china cups and were painted like them. you could even sit in a F1 with a simulator so you could feel like your driving it, also you could buy music, chosen to help you enjoy your driving experience.

Of course i couldnt leave paris without checking out the Louvre, which was ridiculously big, i spent a couple of hours there but it broke me after a while, just way too much to see so i ran around and saw the main attractions like the Mona Lisa (i think she had eyes for me because she kept looking at me the whole time i was there, but with a name like Mona makes me think shes got a bit of a reputation so i let her down gently) i also saw the Venus de milo and by accident i saw the painting thats on the cover of the new Coldplay album 'viva la vida' i never knew it was actually a piece of art. it was really cool to walk through Richard Serra's 'clara clara' which is more or less just outside of the Louvre. i also when across the seine to the Musee d'orsay and checked out some Monet, Renoir, Van Gogh, Cézanne and Gauguin, just to name a few.

i also checked out Napoleon's crypte and i went to Cimetiere du pere lachaise which is where a lot a famous people are buried like Jim Morrison, famous french singer Edith Piaf, Chopin and Oscar Wilde. i also saw the centre pompidou which i like to call the inside out building becuase it was designed to have the things that are normally internal on a building, like its pipes, are on the outside. it was a pretty cool piece of architecture, the different coloured pipes winding around each other was amazing effect. the Catacombes were quite interesting also, from what i could gather they are these underground tunnels that were made from mining, then when the plague hit they didnt have anywhere to bury people so they put them because the cemeraries were full so put them in there. all the femurs and sculls are stacked together to make a uniformed wall and then they threw the rest of the bones behind it, there were thousands upon thousands of bones there. it was strange to think that these were once real living and breathing people and now there stacked into a wall. the boys and i went to a jazz club one night, or a i like to pronounce it 'yazz'. it was pretty cool to listen to them play, even though its something i normally wouldnt listen too. it was funny too, because all could think of was beat poetry and Mike Myers in 'so i married an axe murderer' also because the trumpet player looked like Rob Sitch from the TV show the Panel.

oneday i was walking around Paris when i was again approached by a TV crew for an interview they waffled something in french to me and stuck a microphone under my nose. when i said 'hi...' in my australian accent the camera man started to laugh and interviewer realised that i wasn't french and said sorry for annoying me. i know what your thinking, your thinking 'Trent, if your not careful your going to be huge in europe this is the second time youve been interviewed on europe TV' i have to say, i know, damn these movie star good looks.

one thing i'm a little annoyed at is i didnt see a mime the whole time i was here, whats the deal paris? maybe they were stuck behind a invisable wall somewhere. but i do have to say i'm looking forward to seeing the south of france later in my trip. oh well, off to Munich to meet up with Josh and Kate.

Brussels

So pulled into Brussels station and went to find a phonebooth to call Celine, sounds easy but no so. i walked around for what seemed like ages, looking back now it was funny because i thought everyone was a gypsy and was going to rob me becuase it was so obvious i was a tourist haha! in the end i gave up and went to an information centre and pleaded with the girl behind the desk that i use her phone. she said i was lucky because she like aussies (i never thought being australian would be such a handy thing when traveling) anyway i called and within 15 minutes Celine found me and i was no longer homeless.

We went and grabbed a hot chocolate made with real belgium chocolate, probably the best hot chocolate ever! because we were in the area we went and saw the Manneken pis which is a fountain of a little boy taking a leak which was pretty funny. at different points of the year they dress the little boy in different costumes, they had playing cards of the different costumes, it was hilarious! celine told me theres a less well known fountain that is similar but instead of a boy its a girl squatting, i pis-sed myself laughing (see what i did there) and asked her to take me to it, it was a good thing we did because when we got there we found a english guy trying to fish out the coins out of the fountain (that was theft proof) with a McDonalds spoon. he was like 'check out how many coins in there, you'd be, like, totally rich and stuff if you could get em' we just humored him and were like 'yeah! you'd never have to work again' we left him to make his millions having a bit of a giggle behind his back.
while i'm on the subject of pissing, heres something for the catholics, when i was out walking around one day i found an old church, nothing too interesting, but then i walked around the side a found that there was a uniral on the outside of the church so you could actually piss on the church. having spent many years at a catholic school and being force fed there rubbish suddenly nature called. i have to say it made up for years of matthew, mark, luke and john.

Celine is quite the talented one actually, shes done a number of different creative courses like, illustration, interior design, photography as well as a few others and she make hats also. she showed me her studio in the city which she shares with a few other artists, it was pretty cool, its an old printing factory, it made me think that i should start doing something creative with my spare time when i get back home. on the way to the studio we were walking pasted the palais de justice (i think it was the biggest building i've ever seen and the view from there was amazing, you could see right over the city) anyway, we got on the topic of government. in Belgium they speak 2 languages, dutch in the north and french in the south. this causes a bit of trouble as you could imagine and the government can't make there mind up about which one to choose. i cant remember how we got onto this subject but celine was telling me about the freemasons and how they have quite a bit of power, she was saying that she watched a TV show about it and in brussels some of the parks are designed in the shape of the freemason logo. kind of scary huh, i'm sure Tom Cruise is involved in it somehow!

Celine is moving to a place called Gant and because i was staying on her couch for a week i offered to help her move some of her stuff the next day. it was the least i could do. so we did a bit of a road trip out to Gant which is quite a pretty little town north of brussels. we found a studenty kind of area and lo and behold there was a vintage shop! i went into and i tried on some jeans and while i was in the change room the sales assistant asked Celine 'is your friend part of Daspop?' who are a band in Belgium, she laughed and said 'no'. that in itself was pretty but then i got home and looked up the band and found they were ugly sods and one was fat! i was almost kind of insulted! haha!

as i said earlier, i'm crashing on the couch of a place celine is house sitting. the place i'm staying is really nice actually. its an apartment not far from the middle of brussels were on the 2nd floor. it has one of those beautiful old caged lifts that you see in european films and the apartment itself is quite nice too, i think it has been recently renovated cause. because of its location i think its an expensive part of town. it was such a nice feeling to leave my stuff somewhere and know that it wouldn't be stolen and to have a proper shower, without a timer. it has been really kind of celine to let me stay, i'm very lucky. it sure beats a hostel!

If Belgium is known for anything it's its beer, so Celine took me to her favourite bar for a beer, i had a trappistes beer which is when the beer is made by monks the brand of beer i had was called 'Westmalle' it was quite dark and i was a little worried at first but it was really tasty. its also known for other things like its mussels, which we had for dinner one night, they were beautiful. Belgium chocolate, chips and waffles also, which i have sampled but i'm still not fat. bonus!
another famous thing about Belgium is its the home of many famous comics, like Tin Tin, the Smurfs and Asterix. on the side of a lot of the buildings around town are murals of the characters which is a really nice touch, it seems they are really respected too because local graffiti artists don't paint over them. i went and checked out a comic book store while i was here and was a little shocked because the comics you find in there aren't what you expect. they are really beautifully drawn and in all different styles, and the customers aren't nerdy introverted wierdos you would get in melbourne comic book stores. heres an interesting fact, the book Tin Tin goes to the moon was actually written before man step on the moon but amazingly its still quite accurate.

A rather strange thing happened one day, i was walking around minding my own business when a TV crew came up and began to interview me. so i'm sure somewhere on Belgium TV there will be a riveting piece with me looking a little confused with a mouth full of waffle (i had no idea what they were saying to me).
i also found a flea market, it was cool to go through peoples stuff because in my eyes your kind of going through the history of the city through people that have lived it. whenever i see peoples old wedding photos, knic-knacs and stuff i try to imagine what there lives were like by seeing all the clues. i also found a cool little book shop called 'Alice Alice' it had some awesome books on art and design and it also had a gallery out the back. i stumbled across another place and in it window it had cool design posters in it so i thought i would have a look inside, i knocked on the door and had to get buzzed in so i thought it was some exclusive gallery. turns out it was a lightswitch showroom i was so sure it was going to be an awesome design exhibiton inside, nope just a shitload of switches.

i went to an underground party in brussels, and when i say underground i mean underground. it was held at an abandon train station that had been converted into a bar and performance place for people to have exhibitions or have gigs. it was a really cool space. on the night we went they had some video art and 2 bands playing. the first was ok, they had drums and guitars, as well as many a brass section, violin and a massive xylaphone which was a nice touch. the second i felt werent as good. it was funny because both band sung in english which i didnt expect at all.

anyway, off to Paris for a week then meet up with Josh and Kate in Munich for Oktoberfest.

Rotterdam

After such a great time in amsterdam i caught the train to Rotterdam. the train trip there was quite good i sat next to a woman i chatted too for a while about holland. she said that she loved my Australian accent and i asked why? she said because she loved the TV show Mcleods Daughters. i didnt have the heart to tell her what a terrible show it is.
And now for a history lesson! Most of rotterdam was flattened after the war so it had to be rebuilt. rotterdam seems completely different to amsterdam because amsterdam hardly has a new building in it. the architecture here is quite amazing. but because it was so new i kinda didnt feel i was in europe.

the hostel i found was really nice (well, at least compared to my last one) it was a beautiful old building (it must have been one of the few that survived the war) right near the water, it was cheap, the people were really nice, the beds were comfty, the internet was cheap, and also it included breakfast which consisted of breakfast cake, toast and tea or coffee. brilliant!

i found a few vintage stores, in one of them i asked the shop assistant where i should check out and she pointed me up the road, after a while i ran into a giant flea market, i was a bit shocked to find it because it was a tuesday. it was pretty cool checking out peoples stuff, i brought a awesome woolen tie for 2 euro its blue with little white dots on it. nice! they didnt just sell peoples old stuff there was a market there selling fresh veggies and seafood at one stall they battered the fresh fish, cooked it and sold it with a dipping sauce, i got one for lunch, it was beautiful, so fresh!

the only thing with rotterdam is there isnt a lot to do and a couple of days was enough, im still glad i went pretty cool to see different parts of a country and to see how totally different they were. I hopped on a train to Brussels, to meet up with Celine (Gabe and Annas friend i had met in amsterdam) to stay with her for a little while in a place she was house sitting. part of the reason i want to go there is to track down the dirty bugger that invented the brussel sprout! anyway, more about Belgium when i get there.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam... um, i dont remember much about Amsterdam. only kidding!

So i arrived at Amsterdam central where i was meant to meet up with Gabe and Anna but they werent't coming into later that night, so i just checked into my hostel (probably the worst so far) and wandered around the city. it was kind of cool because being a Hendrick, this is probably where i'm from. it's such a beautiful city. when you think of Amsterdam you automatically think that its seedy because pot is legal here and because of the red light district but that is such a small part of Amsterdam. it was kinda funny watching all the underage 16 year old kids wetting there pants in the red light district but also i found it a little sad. the girls were quite beautiful (something i didn't expect) and young and had there whole life ahead of them i couldn't help but wonder, what are you doing here?

I kept wandering around the city and found a couple of art gallerys that had openning nights so i had a look around them, the first was paints and drawings which were ok and the second was a photographic exhibition which as brilliant some of the subject was tokyo so it reminded me of a few places i'd seen only last week. lucky for me there were free beers and a got to sample some local cheese, wow the cheese is amazing! i also go chatting to a girl named Margot, that worked at the gallery (by the way peoples english here perfect) i was telling her that my first impressions weren't what i expected and she was telling me that the government here are actually trying to buy up alot of the red light district to clean up the area and are giving the space to small fashion labels to help them set up a business, but she said that is come with a few conflicts because a lot of amsterdams history revolves around it. for many many years sailors would come into port and go straight there.

the next day i went to Anne Frank's house, anne was a bit of a one hit wonder really, she only wrote one book. but her house is quite clean i'll give her that. in all seriousness it was pretty tragic to go through the house and see the way she lived, at the house i saw a video of her father talking about his daughter, i have to be honest and say i felt a bit of lump in my throat. i'm really glad i got to see it. if you want to see me in a video message at the Anne Frank museum click here.

Anyway, i met up with Gabe and Anne and met there friend Celine who was from Belgium and we hired bikes for a couple of days so we could check out more of the town, bikes are a HUGE part of amsterdam lifestyle, i thought Japan were pretty crazy with there bikes but Amsterdam are mental! probably from tourist like myself who cant get there head around riding on the otherside of the road. anyway, we found some really cool vintage stores, and again i had to restrain myself from going wild. we also went to the sex museum, turns out theres more than one position.

Another day we met up with another friend of Gabe and Anna's, this time an old uni friend Jennette who lives over here now, we were lucky because she had organised with her friend Martin to take us out in his boat, so we brought a few essentials ie wine and cheese (which again was amazing, we ate the whole wheel!) and took off around the canels. easily the best way to see Amsterdam. really beautiful. at one stage we had to fully duck to clear the bridge. i asked Martin about the buildings around the canal and how they were sagging, he told me that the lean outward is intentional, it was built that way to help people in the top floors pull there furniture up without smashing the other windows and they continue to build houses like that even today. however the lean side ways is mainly due to the Nazi's. during the war people were hiding things in the canals so the germans wouldn't steal it so the Nazi's mucked with the canals water levels constantly and it caused the houses to sag.

Of course when in Amsterdam you have to have some pot, (ok nanna this is where you stop reading for a little bit) we when to a coffee shop and ordered a spliff. to be honest i found the whole experience a little strange, the spliff came in a plastic package like it was a pen or something (which kind of felt wrong) and they don't come mixed with tobacco its pure weed. but i can't say it didn't really did it for me, and i wasnt the only one, Gabe and Anna felt the same way. but it was experience you kind of have to do while your here. (ok nanna you can start reading again)

I went to the Van Gogh museum which was really cool. i was totally blown away by some of the work, one of his self portaits in particular, his eyes torn straight through me. amazing! of course i saw the 'sunflowers' but unfortuately they had lent out 'the potato eaters' it was in New York or something, which was a shame. i was strange to see these masterpieces in real life, almost surreal because i read so much about them and seen them in magazines over the years and then to be face to face with them was some else!

Another night Jennette took us out to dinner and a theater performance, i was a little worried because it kind of broke the budget a little bit but i shouldn't have worried. We had to catch a ferry across the water with our bikes (which by the way was free because the government think its cheaper to have a ferry system than build a bridge) to an island. when we got off it was like an industral area, i was thinking 'where the hell is she taking us?' anyway, after a little bit of riding we found a giant glass house that had been turned into a resturant which was right on the water. it was pretty cool and was totally packed out, the food was pretty good too. after that we made our way to the play, it felt like we rode for ages and we got further and further into the industral area. (actually on the way i saw some amazing buildings, one in particular was a block of appartments that were made of old shipping containers, i remember reading about them years ago, i never thought i'd see them.) we got to the 'theater' and it was a construction site with a thousand seats surrounding it. the show began and is was so cool it used things within the construction site in such innovative ways even at one stage using a crane to drop in sets and a small plane! also they had some really cool lo-fi projections like shadow puppets etc and live music to accompany the play. it was quite funny too, even though i had no idea what they were talking about. The production company were called Dogtroep supposidly they get given strange environments and they have to make the story around that, which is quite clever what they come up with. They have been running since 1975 and this was there last ever preformance because the government have pulled funding, i can't imagine why, it was BRILLIANT and all the shows were fully booked. A bit of shame to see it end really it was easily one of the best things i've have ever seen in my life.

one thing i've noticed about Amsterdam is that how alot of travelers don't go outside the tourist areas, its so stupid. some of the best things i've found have been wandering around outside the tourist spots. also it seems English tourist in particular just go to places and don't experience anything about that culture, they find the nearest english pub and drink the same old beer they drank back home, get smashed and then go back to there hotel.

overall i really enjoyed Amsterdam, i could even see myself maybe even living there at some stage, the people are so friendly and the place is really cool. anyway, i said goodbye to Gabe and Anna and headed to Rotterdam... i'll keep you posted how it goes.

Munich

So we waved goodbye to Tokyo's vending machines with a tear in our eye and headed for Munich. A 12 hour flight i though might be a little bit painful and to be honest it had a lot stacking up against it, the movies were 'Speed racer' and 'Made of honor' a chick flick with that McDreamy guy in it (Josh and i figured out he has stepped into roles that Richard Gere would've done if he were a bit younger. i think its a fair point) considering it was a kinda long flight it went pretty quickly but it was funny when the food came around, josh and i were dying for some 'normal' food so we ordered so we ordered sausages and sour crou. i think most of the people on board did too because everybody seemed to use the toilet all at the same time. damn you sour crou!!

Our first impressions of Munich weren't that great the customs officer was evil i think he thought Australia was a third world country because i don't think he wanted to let me in. and our other bad experience was the lady at the train ticket office who was not helpful at all! and when we asked her to repeat where we had to go and where to change trains she had a tanty... anyway it looked up from there, we got the train and headed to Munich central station to catch our trains.

we had 2 weeks to go until Oktoberfest so we thought we would go elsewhere for a couple of weeks. Josh chose to catch a train to Rome and meet up with people and I decided to head to Amsterdam to meet up with my good mates from Brisbane, Gabe and Anna. The train ride went over night and i shared a room with a couple of older guys. I didn't get much sleep because it was quite loud but i eventually got a few broken minutes. its funny, i didn't really talk to the guys in the whole train trip but then i pulled out a Beatles book i was reading and suddenly they wouldnt shut up about the Beatles. it was pretty cool talking to them about them. maybe they should give books on the Beatles to the UN to encourage world peace.

anyway more on Munich when i head there for Oktoberfest. I'm looking forward to it!

Japan

After a brief stop over in Cairns we finally left Australia for Tokyo. I was surprised that the flight was quite quick, I thought i'd get fidgety because of my goldfish attention span. Luckly we had some amazing inflight entertainment in the form of Sex and the City the movie. I can't say i'm a huge fan of the show but when you have nothing else suddenly I became hooked and i was slightly annoyed when they cut the movie short so i couldn't see the end. Did Carrie get back with Mr Big? Will Miranda get back with her cheating husband? etc. Inflight food was rubbish of course. there must be someone out there that makes sure that what seems nice on the menu always comes out as goop! maybe i'll order goop next time and see if it has an opposite effect.

We got off the plane and quickly went to a CitiBank got some cold hard Yen and figured out the train system, which to my surprise was quite easy to understand, but theyre kinda funny too they play music when the train come and they get more intence as it gets closer, one of them sounds like Cat Stevens 'remember the days of the old school yard' and another is kinda reggae i reckon it could be a good 'work for the dole' sheme, heaps of musicians are on the dole so get them to sit at stations and play music when trains are approaching. just a though.
anyway, headed for our backpackers, the 'Ace Inn', which is quite nice really, the sleeping quarters are like enclosed bunk beds but there is plenty of room to sleep in, no bed bugs (touch wood) but most of all FREE INTERNET! hence the blog, I imagine there is going to be a lot smaller once I have to pay for it.

Weather here in Japan has been amazing. every day has been roughly 30C and its really humid so we are constantly trying to stay hydrated, which is quite easy with the amount of vending machines. but this hasn't helped my Coca-Cola addiction, i have to say i've been having quite a few. At McDonalds here they sell Coke in milk cartons! (no joke). I have been a little bit disappointed with the vending machines, you hear all these stories about finding wierd shit in them but i haven't come across any at all.

We went to Kyoko for a day it was such a really beautiful city i don't know what i really liked about it, i just did. I think its a really livable city, plenty of things to do and see, compared to Osaka anyway, that really didn't bring much to the table, but also chilled out compared to Tokyo, which at times could be a bit much. Both Josh and I thought it was a shame we didn't stay another night there.

It's funny, when we first got to Japan we would see every temple and castle we could, and be "oh, isn't this cool" or "wow, i feel so calm", but by the end of the first week we would see so many we would say "not another bloodly temple". There were only 2 temples I recommend seeing: the Meiji Jungu Shrine and the Kinkakuji Temple in Kyoto, they are both really beautiful and in a really stunning setting of water and cherry blossoms it quite amazing how calm and peaceful you feel after walking around them. Oh, and Osaka Castle which had heaps of artifacts in it like samurai masks, costumes that date back thousands of years, it was really cool to see something that old with that much history and still be in such good condition.

It seems Josh and I were a big hit with the locals in Osaka. On our first night there, we were both pretty exhausted because of the 9 hour bus ride from Tokyo, so we thought it would be a good idea to go for a local beer and a bite to eat. this was possiably the best idea we ever had. We walked into this little resturant and sat down and all the menu was in japanese and waitress knew very little english. some how we ordered 2 beers, which by the way was the best beer i've every had. Luckily, a local woman helped us out with ordering some food, we had some tempura and some. At one point all of the staff were staring at us and so i asked them in broken english how many Australians do you get in this resturant to which they replied "none, you are the first". We had such a good time we went back again a couple of days before we left and have another beer. they suggested we try sake. HOLY SHIT! I thought sake was meant to be had in a small glass but they gave it to us in a huge glass and it was so strong! they also gave us some food to compliment the sake. We didn't know what it was and it was probably good thing they didn't tell us first off because, when i eventually asked i found out it was fish stomach with chilli sauce (luckily it tasted better than it sounded). At the end of our visit we gave them our blog address and they gave us T-shirts the staff wear! Awesome! If your ever in Osaka make sure to look them up they are awesome people and the food is amazing!

One day while we were walking around Osaka we stumbled across a gallery of what looked like traditional calligraphy, we were walking around and an old man came over to us, he was one of the artists in the exhibition and wanted to show us his work. we wandered over to the 3 pieces he had done and he asked us to sit down on the couch opposite to observe them. Being the polite young men we are, we did and the old man started to try to explain his work in broken english, from what i could gather the symbol he did were ancient symbols used for thousands of years. Then all over a sudden the old man put his arm around my shoulder... i was thinking, this is a little strange. but i didn't want to be rude because i thought it might be some japanese thing i wasn't aware of. the man continued to tell us more about his work and how it was about love. then he put his hand on my knee and said "its about feeling concrete". it was then i realised that it wasn't some japanese thing i wasn't aware of, i think this old guy is trying to pick me up. i turned to Josh who was trying to contain his laughter and said "umm, is that the time?" and we both made a run for it. in hindsight, the old man is only human.

Josh and I went to Harajuku which was lots of fun, Harajuku is known for its crazy dressers (think the back-up dancers in the Gwen Stefani filmclip). We went down a few back streets and found some really cool vintage clothing stores (i could've gone mental in there), one store sold only cruise shirts and another only shoes and insence, it was hilarious!
When Josh and Leon met up with us in Tokyo we took them out to Harajuku, we met a guy at the backpackers from England called Ahmed so he came along as well. this was the first night we had sushi in Japan and it was brilliant i couldn't get over how much better it was to any other sushi i'd ever had before and i didn't think it would ever be repeated, that was until we went to the fish markets, considering it was 4:30am it was so hectic but the sushi was amazing straight off the boat, but thats another story.
We wandered around from bar to bar trying to find somewhere half cool when we met 2 girls, Courtney from Scotland and Michelle from Brisbane, both over here teaching english. they took us to this awesome lounge called 'Insomnia' and had a few drinks and spoke to a couple of Japanese guys around our age who were pretty cool. We saw the Hachiko crossing which is that main intersection you seen in every snippet you have ever seen about Japan. its pretty impressive to just sit and watch so many people crossing all at once.
Towards the end of the night i began to wilt (suprise, suprise) and I decided to head back to the backpackers with Ahmed so we got a cab but i think either there was a bit of lost in translation or we were so drunk we were slurring our words because i asked the cabby to drop us off at Akebonobashi station... turns out there is another station by the name of Akebenebashi station so when he dropped us off we couldn't figure out where our backpackers had got to! so we wandered around for a while until we ran into a policeman who showed us how to get home. in the end the other guys that stayed behind partying ended up beating me home. kind of funny now, but not at the time.

Another day when hired bikes and rode around Tokyo like BMX bandits (Josh was Nicole Kidman) over here you can ride on the footpath or on the road and you don't need to wear a helmet, i think i nearly died a few times from crazy asian drivers (thats racist!) and heat exhaustion (did i mention i have travel insurance) but it was a really good way of seeing Tokyo i was so exhausted after, i don't think i'd ridden a bike for years! That night, we went out to Karaoke! it was pretty funny. We went to the same ones as lost in Translation (but not the same room) our room was themed and had projections of the solar system. It was a great room to belt out Prince's 'Purple Rain' to.

When Josh and I flew over we thought that seeing a Sumo was all but lost because we heard the season was over. but while we were here we noticed that there was a huge contoversy in the sumo world, we later found out the 2 sumos had been caught smoking pot (imagine the muchies) and also the season had just begun, hooray! so of course we went and they were MASSIVE but so fexible, while they were warming up they would kick there legs up so high, some of them were real show boats, revving up the crowds and throwing what looked like salt. We were all so happy to be able to have seen a sumo fight, theyre such a big part of japanese culture and we had kind of written off the experience because of what we had heard.

Josh and I have invented a game called 'Cauc Spotting' whenever we see another caucasian we yell out 'CAUC!' before the other one does. Its proved to be a stable part of our days in Japan but i'm not sure how it will go when we head to Europe.

Josh and I also brought a frisbee at a 100 yen shop. Its proved to be a god send! When ever we find a park we rip it out, the first day we were rubbish but after a few days our technique improved, were even getting a little cocky, every so ofter we throw some tricks in the mix like catching it behind your back or between your legs. We also invented a game called 'Hit you in the face', its pretty self explainatory. Player 1 stands still, while player 2 throws the frisbee at player 1's face. Hence the name. Josh is really good at it, i think its a way of him venting his anger.

I have found a new love, Japanese televison. I don't understand a word there saying but i'm strangly intrigued. The hosts are always old men (think japanese Darryl Somers) with young hot models and it seems everything they say is hilarious. Come to think of it they should put Hey Hey its Saturday on TV over here, it would make a killing! They love the odd game show too, one I saw the other day was a game show about pulling faces. Brilliant! and they love putting subtitles on EVERYTHING. oh, and i also saw a anime film about a girl who was a witch and her pet cat. supposidly its a real cult film over here, i think it was mainly for children but i enjoyed it.

Josh has also found a love, the Coffee Float. Its like a iced coffee, but its not. Its cold coffee with ice in it and then soft serve on the top. We have a song we wrote about it and everything. I'm pretty sure it would go straight to the top of the J-Pop chart (by the way music over here is pretty average) Oh, while on the topic of soft serve, they LOVE soft serve icecream over here, it seems everywhere you look you can get one.

One thing I do have to say that Tokyo needs to improve on is the quality of its street proformers. We watched one guy who had a massive crowd and I swear he got so many laughs and applause for doing next to nothing. It's an outrage!

Overall the people in Japan i generally really nice, sometimes overly nice ie: old man trying to pick me up. but there was one day we were at Osaka castle just looking at a map and a little japanese man ask us if we needed any help, we said we were fine but he pointed out where abouts to go anyway. he then asked us where we were from to which we replied Australia. his eyes lit and and said "oh melu gibson! oh, nico kidman, wussel crowe!" and we giggled and said yeah and then he said "me tom hanks!" and pointed at his army t-shirt, i think he mean saving private ryan, i still don't know if he thinks if Tom Hanks is Australian but oh well.
In Tokyo i found more people spoke english and in the other areas they didn't as well but they did there best to help you out. Its also really clean here which i kinda didn't expect but the most amazing bit of that is that there are hardly any bins around. One thing about Japan, its really cool by day but it gets awesome at night time! the lights, signage (which they are constantly getting the spelling and order wrong) and advertising (by the way is very strange) create an amazing buzz.