A day in the life of Tokyo, Japan

The photos from Thailand have been online for a while, but I forgot to write a brief report on the trip.

 

So here goes.....

 

After departing Japan on the 10th of November 2006, I headed to Thailand for a 7 day holiday with a good mate Cody (also working in Japan).
We arrived in Bankok late at night and got a speedster taxi to Khao San road, where we found many hostels and hotels.  We checked in and then had our first experience on a Tuk Tuk.  Many beers were had on our opening night and we ended up sleeping in a bit the next day.

 

On the Saturday, we did a lot of sight seeing around bankok, mostly on foot.  It seemed a lot more dirty than what we were used to from Japan, but people were generally friendly and always after your money...  I had none, well not too much, so I didn't have much to worry about, aside from my passport and ticket home!

 

At the crack of dawn on Sunday morning, we jumped in a taxi and headed back to the airport.  We were running a little behind schedule, so we paid the taxi drive an extra (AUD) $4 and he drove twice as fast and halved the estimated time the hotel had told us....  a 50 minute trip in 25 mins....   Happy to be alive, we boarded our morning flight to Ko Samui.

 

Upon arriving we negotiated our way to get a good deal in a pimped out taxi van with a 12 speaker system and green and brown retro interior.

We got dropped off in the wrong spot and jumped in the back of another strange ute-style taxi and headed to Hat Chaweng (East Coast of Ko Samui), the main touristy area with many shops and places to stay.

 

We found a really nice place at a good rate with it's own pool, bar, restaurant and more importantly, air conditioning!

We came across a scooter place with loads to offer and though we'd check it out.  We ended up walking out with a set of keys to a Jeep 4WD!  We even had red crash helmets, although i think they were intended for scooter use.

 

We spent almost the whole day driving around the whole island and trying to drive across the centre which is marked as a road on the map, but turned out to be an extreme 4WD track that we had no chance getting through, so after a 12 point turn on a rocky slope, we headed back and checked out some elephants.

 

Monday, I can't really remember much, think it just involved beer and beach.  But Monday night, we caught an old ferry at 6:30pm to the next northern island, Ko Pha Ngan in perfect timing for the Half Moon jungle party!  The party was seriously awesome, and full of glow in the dark stuff illuminated by black lights (UV lights).  We ended up hiring a scooter each on the island to scoot to the inland jungle event and stayed up all night dancing and having a few drinks.  The next morning we scooted back down to the beach and fell asleep on the pure white sand.  After waking up a bit burnt, we scooted back to the port, returned the scooters and hopped back on the ferry to Ko Samui.

 

Tuesday, we just spent around our local area checking out shops and playing Connect 4 with young kids who tried to take money off you when you lost.  They were surprisingly good, i'd almost say professional....  so c'mon Aussie kids, there's a market out there to make money off Connect 4!

 

We flew back to Bankok nice and early on Wednesday morning and Cody continued on back to Tokyo.

I had a brief sleep and then went out to Khao San Road again to gather a few more souvenirs.

I had dinner with friends we'd met on the Saturday and then went back for an early night.

 

On Thursday, I managed to walk around a few more of the sites and caught my last Tuk Tuk to Golden Mountain for a view of the city.

My flight home was just after midnight, so I had a bit of time to kill at the airport and ended up having beers with a German pilot and his mate.  Really nice bloke, and he even offered me a place to stay if I visit Germany!  Maybe one day.....

 

I arrived back at Melbourne Airport at about 1:30pm on Friday and was greeted by my mum and bro...... 

Now the partying has just begun all over again with my old Aussie crew.....  December flew by at the same pace of Thailand.

 

So now, back to reality, and on the job hunt!

ganbatene!

Ro

 

On the 16th of July, 2006, 4 Aussies and 1 Brit embarked on a journey from the Land of the Rising Sun (Japan) to the land of the North and South (Korea).  We decided South was the safer bet and ended up in Seoul.  We spent 5 days in Seoul covering most of the highlights including Insadong, Gyeongbokgung, Itaewon, the Olympic World Peace Gate, Lotte World, Sinchon (Women's uni area...), Namsan Park (including Seoul Tower), Dongdaemun Market and a day trip to the DMZ (Demillitarized Zone between North and South Korea).

 

The DMZ was a very sureal experience.  It was a bit scary as our bus passed over a bridge surrounded by millitary personnel, road blocks, tank blockades hovering above the road, ready to be deployed at a moments notice.  Anyway, the cease fire agreement (from 1953) held peace during our visit, so we returned home safely with a different outlook and understanding on the Korean War.  We were also lucky enough to get a tour that included a trip down one of the tunnels dug by North Korea to breach the DMZ and accommodate troops for battle.  Luckily South Korea had intercepted these tunnels before any conflict were possible.  Four tunnels have been discovered, but many more are believed to be in existence.

 

The food and beer were definitely highlights, with local Cass beer flowing down like water and Korean BBQ's resembling a taste from home (back in OZ).  The weather was the only downfall of the trip, bringing rain (and major highway floods) during the first 4 days, followed by a sunny day to end the brief vacation.  No-one got sick and everyone returned home safely to our current place of residence in downtown Tokyo.

 

I highly recommend the trip if anyone is travelling around Asia.

Ro

Well, I've just totalled up how many photos I took during our 8 day trip in China!!

A new record has been achieved, i somehow managed to take a total of 2,670 photos!!!!!

 

Now you can understand why I take so long updating photos to this website....

 

On the 16th of MAY, three Japanese English Teachers (Andy from England, Adrian from Australia and Rohan from OZ) embarked on a trip to China, 1st destination Shanghai.

 

We spent 4 full days in Shanghai and instantly noting the differences between Japan (the place we all currently call home) and China.  Shanghai was a relatively clean city with little street rubbish (garbage) and bins on every corner.  However, it just seemed dirty due to the amount of contruction taking place and fine concrete dust noticeably throughout the city.  The extensive amount of daily smog also contributed greatly to this perception of dirtyness.

 

Shanghai was a great place to shop and unveiled some unique attractions (ie. crazy psychodelic Tourist Tunnel) and still had a few spots of it's hidden past.  We all loved it, but I don't think we'd live there by choice.  The continuous honking of horns, houndering by street sellers and constant negotiating required to buy anything at any price....  it's fast paced!

 

On Saturday the 20th of May we wound up at Shanghai Railway Station and boarded an overnight sleeper train direct to Beijing (Pekking).  The journey took 13 hours and our 4 bed cabin style room was accompanied with a friendly native Chinese man who spoke less English than we spoke Chinese (we knew 2 words in Chinese! "Hello" and "Thankyou").

 

At 7am on Sunday morning the 21st of May, we arrived in Beijing.  "Wow!  Are we still in the same country?".  At the heart of China, Beijing seemed well behind the times compared to it's little (?) brother city Shanghai!  Beijing is supposed to be hosting the 2008 Olympics, but unless the events are changed to lobster races and Scooter drags then I don't think it will be ready on time.

 

It was noticeably older than Shanghai, but still comprised of many many apartment buildings and an array of new apartments and business buildings on the way up.  However, the average street person seemed a little more keen to attack tourists for money or to palm off the latest (?) discounted pack of postcards, watches and belts.  People went about their daily business and horns continued to rage the roads as white lane lines struggled to separate the agressive traffic battle between cars, trucks, buses and scooters.  People somehow managed to dart across streets without replacing the Audi, VW or BMW badge on the front of the car!  There were barely (if any) Japanese cars in China!

 

In Beijing, we covered a fair variety of the key sights including, Tiananmen Square, Fobidden City (site of the movie "The Last Emperor", Temple of Heaven Park, Summer Palace and the long awaited Great Wall of China!

It was a packed 3 days and a few more days would have been nice to get a feel for the city and explore a few more of the sights, however we were all eager to get back to Tokyo to return to life as we knew it.  Where the food seems safer, women take greater interest in making themselves look beautiful and people don't attempt to sell you souvenirs 39 times a day, instead they just give you tissues with a smile.

 

It's nice to be back in Japan, but China was well worth the visit and definitely an eye opener in understanding the different lifestyle that many Chinese people in big cities regard as normal.  Good luck with the Olympics!

 

Ro

(new gallery added)

Hi Guys,

 

It's been a long time and i do apologise for my slack effort (or lack of) in updating my little Blog.

It is not because of a lack of content, but a lack of time.  As usual I have been taking many photos (infact, a total of 31,735 photos since I arrived in Japan at the start of April last year!!!).  So I've been spending a fair bit of time sorting through photos and replying to emails.  I hardly have any time to instigate my own emails to people I haven't heard from for ages, so I do apologise. 

 

It sounds like not much has really changed back home anyway, so I'm sure i'll get the full run down when I see you guys (Australian crew) in late November this year.

 

News in brief:

 

  - Adam and Kerry are currently in Japan, so it's nice to have visitors again and show them how crazy this city is that I currently call home, Tokyo.  We went to Shinjuku, Tokyo Dome, Akihabara, Asakusa and passed through Ueno last Friday.  Then on Sunday we went to Ryogoku to check out the Sumo Building and the Edo Museum.  Then we came back to the Funabog (Funabori) and checked out the local highlights including the 100 YEN SHOP, DONKI-HOTE and the local Karaoke and Izakaya hot spots, accompanied by Andrew (my Aussie housemate) and Kelly and Darren (my 2 snowboarding wing men, who are also from Crazy Downunder!).  Many beers were had, and needless to say today's shift at Komagome was assisted with a mega strong (knock out style) Andy Special Coffee!! (some random photos in the latest gallery from the above mentioned events)

 

  - At the start of April, Japan celebrated HANAMI (Cherry Blossom Viewing Season).  It lasted for about 2 weeks in total and I attended 2 parties and hosted a 3rd.  The white and pink flowers did look mad, but realistically that's just a cover for the true reason of just getting blind through copious consumption of beer and Japanese Sake.  Ralph was not a factor though :P

 

  - On the 1st of this month, Andrew, Natalia and I hosted our 3rd FUNABOG HOUSE PARTY.  It was a great success with about 25 people in attendance.  There were plenty of bodies crashed out on bare tatami by the early hours of the following Sunday morning.

 

  - Post Niseko, Hokkaido, I furthermore followed my pursuit for Japanese Powder Snow with my snowboarding buddies Kelly, Darren and Jason.  We went to Gala Izuwa for a day trip (by Shinkantsen) and then to Joetsu-Kokusai for an overnight 2 day trip.  The Hotel was amazing and looked like something straight out of Europe!  However, the night life hosted within did not reach the same level of excitement, it was dead and deserted.  The souvenir shop turned out to be the place to be!  So we entertained ourselves with full face masks!  (pics also included).  Someone even went as far as a plastic shovel.... hmmm.  Yeah, beers were involved....

 

  - Lastly, I have planned a 9 day trip to China next month with two good mates, Andy (UK) and Adrian (AUSSIE), who I went snowboarding with over Xmas/New Year to Nozawa Onsen.  We are all stoked about the trrip and have booked a flight to land in Shanghai on the 16th of May and then get an overnight train to Beijing (Peking) on the 21st and fly back to Tokyo on the 24th of May. 

 

Then in July, Andrew, Pete, Kelly and I are planning to go to Korea (Seoul) for 4 days.  The company I work for makes it really easy to get time off as you can just swap your shift with other teachers to get extra time off work!  Too easy...  but this can result in working 2 weeks straight if you're on a tight time frame.

 

Anyway, that's all there is to add at this stage (that I can remember), so take care of yourself and each other (what a bog quote).

 

Seeya,

Ro

Well, I'm finally updating my website again, please don't faint with suprise!!!

 

Four of my close Australian mates arrived in Japan on the 25th of January 2006.  The crew included the following skips, with names all starting with "S" - Sam, Stevo, Stu and Scottie.  Sam flew in from Sydney and the rest of the fellas came from my original home city, Melbourne.

 

During their 2 and a half week stay in downtown Tokyo, we covered a lot of ground and including the following highlights:

- Korakuen

- Asakusa

- Akihabara

- Karaoke

- Shinjuku

- Shibuya

- Harajuku

- Odaiba

- Ginza

- Roppongi

- Ueno (Zoo)

- Nikko

- Fujikyu Highland

and ofcourse NISEKO, HOKKAIDO!

 

The 5 day snowboarding trip to Niseko being the highlight and the initial reason for the Japan Winter Vacation.

 

I have updated one gallery so far, which only includes photos from the first two days...  Korakuen (Roller Coaster), Akihabara, Asakusa and Karaoke!  More galleries will follow later.....

Take care all,

Ro

From the 29th of December 2005 til the 4th of January 2006, thirteen Nova Teachers from Tokyo embarked on a snowboarding trip of a lifetime!

 

We headed off to a tiny town called Nozawa Onsen high in the hills of Nagano.  Record snowfalls had just been recorded for this time of year leaving 4 meters of fresh snow at our doorstep!  We endured 3 days of intensive snowboarding on a massive mountain that accommodated for skiers and boarders of all levels.  The group segmented from the first timers to the more advanced boarders and we all returned to the lodge with awesome stories from our day in the snow.

 

The first day was pretty decent weather with partial blue sky and scattered clouds.  The second day was covered with low clouds and intimitent snow.  The third day brought clear blue skies and excellend boarding conditions!  The perfect way to spend our last day snowboarding.  We went to the summit of this huge mountain and decided to JUMP into the fresh powder snow (pics at the end of the Nozawa Gallery).

 

Overall, there were no injuries and everyone had a wicked time.  Next, Niseko in Hokkaido at the end of January for 5 days with my 4 Aussie mates.....  can't wait!

Ro

G'day G'day, what a nice hot sunny day!

NOT!  Tokyo is getting sooooo damn cold now!!!!  But I am not complaining, because there is snow starting to rapidly fall in the surrounding snow resort areas!  I've already "locked in" (booked) 3 snowboarding trips, one to Nagano, one to Nigatta and one with the Aussie crew to Hokkaido (Niseko) at the end of Jan!

 

However,  I am not writing to rave on about snowboarding as yet, instead I am writing to explain the latest gallery that now appears on my site, ChiChiBu.

A group of 5 of us (plus 2 others that we never found in the crowds!!!) went 2 hours West of Ikebukuro on Saturday night to an annual Festival in a remote place called ChiChiBu.  It was an amazing traditional Shinto Festival that included spectacular fireworks, 315,000 people in attendance and some stunningly lit up two-ton Portable Shrines that were being wheeled around by over 50 people using massive ropes!!!

 

Paul, Pete, Natalia, Jessica and myself cruised around the Festival eating YaKiSoBa and drinking convenie beers!  We communicated to some of the locals (in our limited Japanes) and one of the old geezers even bought us some drinks!!!  Pete also scored a traditional bandana (?) from this bloke who was rewarding his efforts for assisting on the rope.  The memories will remain a lifetime, and the chill on the hands at 4am will remind me to take a massive amount of gloves wherever i go during Japan Winter!

 

Anyway, the pictures tell the tail better than I can write, so check em out!

Ro

 

Here are some pics I took with my new camera (Canon EOS 350d digital SLR) in our downtown Tokyo apartment staring  Andrew, Tim and Cameron all armed with an array of BB Guns, including a shotgun.

Tim even put on some special effects with his "mid air" diving techniques!

 

a few pics just in this blog space (no separate gallery for these ones)

Hi guys,

 

It took me over a week, but i finally got around to updating the Glitterball photos from that CRAZY night out in Roppongi during the Halloween madness.  Some seriously awesome costumes were parading around the dance floor at the massive club (Velfarre) in Roppongi on the Wednesday night.  The party started at 7pm and kicked on until midnight.  Although, Tim, Andrew, Natalia and myself didn't make an appearance until 10pm.  We still made the most of the "nomihodai" (all you can drink) within the limited two hour window....  departing the club with cargo pants full of tinies and a bottle of wine.  Darth Vader seemed a big hit as he was constantly chasing his stolen light saber by Star Wars fanatics continuously during the night.  Some people even decided to have a sword fight with the saber with their primitive swords and wooden sticks.  Saber won on most occasions!

 

Anyway, pics are here, so no point reading more text.

Ro

In mid September, my parents arrived here in Japan for a two week holiday to experience this new place I currently call home.  The first few days were spent sightseeing in downtown Tokyo.  We also headed south to check out Kamakura, and dropped in on Yokohama on the way back.

 

We caught a Shinkansen (bullet train) down to Kyoto and spent 3 days seeing the sights including Kinkakuji (Golden Temple), Ginkakuji (Silver Temple), Noji Castle, San-Ju-San Gendo (1,000 statues), Toji and the modern JR Kyoto train station.  We then headed further down south through Osaka to Koyasan, a big mountainous area full of Buddist temples and monasteries. 

 

On the way home I stopped by Osaka to check out the second biggest city in Japan.  I went up the Umeda Sky Building to get a good perspective of the skyline.  It was a nice city, but my stay was only brief.

 

Anyway, the photos pretty much tell the story......

Okay guys, i'm not really going to write much in this entry as I basically haven't slept for 29 hours, except for a dose on the bus and plonking my head on the table in a cafe for half an hour.  So, you'll have to check out the photos and read the descriptions for further details.

 

In summary, 5 Nova Sensei's from downtown Tokyo, set on an overnight adventure to Mt Fuji to endure pain and suffering for the sake of seeing sunrise and being able to say "i climbed Mt Fuji".  Well, i gotta tell ya, if it wasn't for the sunrise, I don't care about the climbing business anymore!  But, if pain is your game, I recommend this.

 

The crew, consisting of 2 NZ'ers (Karryn and Heath), two Brits (Mike and Adam) and one looney Aussie with a light saber (that would be me), headed for the hills from Shinjuku Bus depot at 5:50pm on Tuesday the 16th of Aug.  Arriving at station 5 on Mt Fuji just over two hours later.  We began the hike at about 9:30pm and continued to hike up this huge, mamoth, steep, rocky dormant volcano during the night to witness a highland sunrise.  Our mission was accomplished, but at the cost of sleep deprivation, cold winds and sore legs.  Bah, it was a great experience!

 

Check out the gallery!

Ro

Last week I made a quick decision to catch a Shinkansen (Bullet Train) down to Nagoya to visit the World Expo.  It has been running since the start of this year and finishes at the end of September.  It is held just outside Nagoya in Aichi.  The official website is:   http://www-1.expo2005.or.jp/en/

 

Upon arriving in Nagoya on the Tuesday night, I found the cheapest form of accommodation possible, an internet cafe!  It came with a reclinable chair (basically so you can sleep in your cubical, TV, Internet, headphones, free drinks all night (soft drinks and coffee) and only cost about AUD $18 for 8 hours!  Bargain!!

 

The following day I went up the tallest building I could find, which turned out to be the JR Twin Towers that were built in 1999 right above Nagoya Train Station.  The view was okay, but a storm briskly swept through and destroyed the Kodak moment!

 

I then ventured down into the Subway and caught a train to Nagoya Castle.  This is an awesome castle that towers above most business buildings in Nagoya in the beautiful backdrop of a large garden.  It was destroyed in WW2 but rebuilt in 1959.  The museum inside also contains some amazing historical artifacts and a few interesting displays and models.

 

After exhausting myself strolling around the castle and surrounding park, I hitched a ride back down in the subway to head for the Expo.  On the way I stopped off at Toyota's Automobile Museum which had an amazing selection of classic cars from the past, and not just Toyota's!  I spent a good half hour or so just checking out these blasts from the past and then progressed on to the Aichi World Expo via the new Monorail (Linimo).

 

The Aichie Expo was packed as expected and all main Pavilions had no less than three hours queues!  Therefore, being pushed for time, I chose not to line up for a single pavilion.  If there was a queue, I moved to the next.  There were plenty of Pavilions to look at that were very impressive, but yet didn't seem to have lines of people, thus enabling me to enter for a quick peak.  I also took the Gondola at the start of my tour to get an air shot of the size of the Expo.  It was massive.  The gondola dropped me off at the South part of the Expo where most of the European countries resided.  So I gradually worked my way back up to the "North Side" entering random pavilions along the way.  I got to see many countries and a few company pavilions and hence there is a new gallery now on this website to highlight the key areas.

 

Check out these galleries if you want to get a taste of Nagoya City, the Castle or the World Expo.  There is also the Toyota gallery for car fans.

 

Ro

Okay guys, I've now updated the site again with another two galleries from a recent weekend in Tokyo!

 

The Sumida Fireworks was pretty impressive, loads of people and some decent cash spent on the hanabi (Japanese word for fireworks).   A group of 10 of us attended the massive crowded streets of Asakusa (a popular tourist spot near the Sumida River) and eventually made our way down to the bridge to see the action.  Many of got dressed up in traditional Japanese summer clothing (called Yukata), which basically looks like a fancy dressing gown!  The night was followed by a session of drinking at an Izakaya in Shibuya followed by an all-nighter at Karaoke with two new found Japanese blokes who gave us directions and decided to sing along!

 

The next day, on Sunday (31st July), another group of us went down south past Yokohama to the most disgusting beach I have ever been to.  The sand was grey (almost black) and the beach was full of rubbish debris wrapped in seaweed.  Consisting of many things that you could find in a reject shop, or some kind of junk heap!  We had a great time discovering many planks of wood, plastic products (bottle tops, pens, bags etc), and a token sponge that was used to play a few games in the water!

 

The fashion was also pretty astonishing!  Some of the blokes with crazy mullets and dyed grey hair!!!  And some of the ladies were more tanned than I thought was humanly possible!  Combine that with the new style coloured hair cuts and traditional Japanese culture will never seem the same again!

 

Check out the pics with the cool slide show function.......   you can speed it up too!

Click on the PHOTOs button in the top navigation and then select the gallery you want from the white drop down menu.

G'day guys,

 

I was going to make my own proper website similar to the www.bovsquad.com photo website so I could include more text and tell you all what's happening up here in Japan, but alas I am too lazy, too short on time and now have other things to attend to.....   So this little MSN style site will do the trick instead.

 

I arrived in Tokyo, Japan from downtown Australia (Melbourne) on the 1st of April 2005.  Japan was a pleasant ZERO Degrees (C) when we arrived at Narita Airport at 7am on the Thursday morning.  The temperature returned to a Melbourne style 12 degrees by lunch, but without the random rainfall.

 

Now, THREE MONTHS LATER, the weather is really turning up the heat.  We got hit with a few mid to high 30 degrees C days last week (36-38) and the humidity is taking it's toll on my remaining Aussie Lynx deodorant.  But just about every place in this MEGA CITY (Tokyo) is airconditioned, so it's still quite liveable.

 

Aside from the change in weather and the opposite seasons (on the dark side!  oops, i mean the North Side), the food over here is immaculate!   Loads of interesting stuff to try out each day and mostly pretty healthy for the internals too!  I've even tried BUTA SHlTA (Pigs Tongue), which I have to say was rather nice until I was told what I was eating!  hehe

 

The people here are really friendly and more than happy to help out a lost Gaigin (Japanese word for "Foreigner").  I've been trying to study the language to recap on my high school days of Nihongo, but things are progressing at minimum pace.  More effort required here!

 

I have decided to use this website for uploading photos from now on instead of  www.bovsquad.com  because it took too long to update the manual way on BOVSquad.  This website (MSN) is heaps easier to update so I can add and remove photos very easily!  Therefore, keep an eye on the latest photo galleries within this site, and refer back to BOVSquad.com for all of the old galleries.

 

Enjoy the pics!

 

Cheers!

Ro