Almost done

Wow I cant believe Hong Kong passed so fast. It's been 4 or 5 days but it felt like one. I'm so sad. But at least it lived up to its name. It's the most beautiful city in the world (that I've seen so far). Yes, more beautiful than Tokyo. I found myself sitting on the harbourfront at the water's edge for hours just staring at the island scenery. Time flies when you get yourself kinda lost in the moment and just sort of meditate. I wish I was a good painter, I could put that scenery on a canvas.

Anywho, now I'm back in Tokyo (well Narita..airport town). It will take me two hours to get downtown and two hours to get back. That will only leave me just a few min of fun so it's not worth it. Hotel shuttle stops running after 11pm. Speaking of the hotel it's really fancy schmancy (and free from the airline). After the places I've been in, this is almost too much. I even have a tv in room.

Ok, plan for tonight. Check out Narita city. One of the girls here was raving about this place where they only serve sweets and chocolate made fresh in front of your eyes. The way she discribed it kinda left my mouth watering, heh, so I will check that out. But first I'm gonna hit the pool and do some laps to wake up from the plane ride. They have a huge indoor pool too. Not bad at all. Tomorrow back to Canuck land..see you all soon!

Macau-weee

Greetings from Macau!

Well I had a blast in Macau as well. The Vegas of the east lived up to its name. I'll keep it very brief, sorry no time.

I woke up late, missed the morning boats, forgot my gravol in my luggage (eep!), got delayed almost two hours in customs, arrived safely, got a bird's eye view from the tower, did a little gambling (1 chip), marveled at the amount of glitz money can buy, crashed a wedding (for real), dined in on some fine macanese food (roasted whole pigeon anyone?) and arrived back to HK at the stroke of midnight.

Hong Kong

I'm in heaven and hell, both at the same time. How can that be possible?

Well I'm staying in a holding cell (yes, no exageration) surrounded by working girls, shady figures, and a door that wouldn't lock. 1 bed that takes up the whole room, as you open the door you jump on the bed, no room to walk. No window, toilet right next to bed in a building that's ready to collapse. Now this brings back childhood memories, now doesn't it? Hey, at least it's cheap, no?

Outside of the room is the heaven. Beauty all around. And I havent even gotten to the HK island yet (I'm on the mainland Kowloon side). Actually that's a good idea. I'm gonna do that right now. Shopping all day on the island. Sounds great. But first I'm hungry, gonna look for a good dim sum place.

Demilitarized Zone

Taking a pix with the MPs. This was allowed.	Taking a pix of the army's bunkers. This was NOT allowed.

Welcome to the world's most heavily guarded border. I'll try and keep it short.
Right from the start we could see from one of the roads leading out of Seoul that the traffic is getting thinner and thinner. Finally just before reaching one of the first stations the highway was completely empty (aside from our bus). Very eerie feeling. Also the sides of the highway were peppered with barricades, barbed wire and anti-tank obstacles. We crossed the Imjingang river and went through the last check point where our passports were verified by the MP's. We visited a bunch of sites, including an observatory station where you can get a bird's eye view on the entire DMZ area and even see some north korean villages. We also visited one of the tunnels discovered by the south koreans (and built by the north koreans for a possible invasion). It's only 50km from Seoul.

From the last checkpoint we were strictly forbidden to use our cameras or recording devices and I would soon find out the consequences of breaking this rule. There were certain spots where they were allowed, usually parking lots and specially marked areas (where you couldn't see anything anyway, so what was the point?). Before entering the tunnel we needed to leave all belongings and cameras at the door. I managed to sneak mine hidden in the palm of my hand (same way I do it at concerts) and got off four shots inside the tunnel w/out being spotted. I had to fall behind my group on purpose and dodge the surveillance cameras. That gave me a boost of confidence for the next area, Panmunjeom and the Joint Security Area.

This is the only place where the North and South meet and where South Korean civilians are not allowed. So here we got a military escort. This made things a lot more tricky because I did not come all the way here and not be able to get a picture memory of it. So when I stealthly pull out my oversized bulky junky camera and snap a shot of the area I get spotted by an MP and get a lenghty lecture from him. And of top of this he makes me delete ALL the pictures that I had in my camera. Luckly I had the foresight to anticipate this in advance and switched SD cards before arriving at the JSA. So I was only forced to erase 2 JSA pics and 5 of the tunnel area pics (not the ones in the tunnel itself, those were on my other card). So no big loss, but my heart did start racing while I was lectured :) Getting in trouble surrounded by army bases and soldiers everywhere is not a smart thing to do.

Well that was it. On our way home we had a sweetie of a tour guide who took some of us to a great korean restaurant (we paid our own of course). But this was not part of the tour and she stayed and joked and talked with us all afternoon. Let's see, from what she told me I had the dried pollack fish (spicy as hell), some Bulgogi that we all shared (broiled beef cooked at the table) and of course the Kimchi (pickled/fermented vegetables, in this case radish). Also hot as well.

Seoul City

Yesterday I took the bullet train again, this time to Osaka. It was a beautiful journey straight through the mountains of Japan. We got near Fuji again, but this time the train went all around it so we saw the great volcano from all sides. Osaka itself is another marvelous city. A lot of buildings downtown had a crazy and weird architecture.

Then I quickly flew over the Sea of Japan (?) and in just two hours I was in Seoul. It was late in the evening and headed straight for a local restaurant. Authentic Korean BBQ yummyness made fresh before my eyes.

Today I got a chance to visit the city. Completely different atmosphere than Japan (even though they are so close to each other). I saw two imperial palaces, got access to one of its gardens (that is normally closed to tourists) and visited a nice folk museum where I learned a lot about Korea's history. Now I'm very tired from all the walking so I'm going to find another place to eat and crash back in my room. In this city every other store is a restaurant. My block alone has about 20 of em. There was also another little incident, but no need to go into those details right now.

Fuji Time

Well, another exhausting day today.

Yesterday it was Shibuya (shopping town). Heaven on earth for both guys and girls. It just shows yet again how far these people are ahead of the rest of the world. And I can't believe some of the items I was forced to pass on due to me being such a big guy. The large sizes couldn't even strap them on, let alone have them fit. Such a shame, I would've loved to wear some of that stuff. It was so me. They screamed Alex!

Today was Fuji and Hakonen all day. Took a bus to Fuji and climbed to 2,500m. I think that was about half way up. Then in the afternoon I took the bus to one of its many crater lakes (Hakonen) and spent the sunset atop one its peaks. It was freezing, but 100% worth it. I think I caught a cold, but that's very unimportant right now. From there I took the Shinkansen bullet train back to Tokyo, 270km/h only way to travel. Tomorrow it's Osaka time bright and early again, then onto Seoul in the afternoon.

Fun in the city

Well wasn't today a busy day?

It all started at 6am when my phone's mp3 alarm started blasting and woke up everyone in the room :) I had to wake up early..with only so many days here, I cannot afford to waste any extra minutes. 5 hrs of sleep is all that's allowed for now.

Today was indeed a busy one, but I still could not do eveything I had in mind. I started by visiting Tokyo's biggest temples. The Meiji shinto shrine and the Sensōji buddhist temple (the two biggest in Tokyo).


Snapshot of Sensōji temple

From there I moved to the Imperial Palace gardens. Very relaxing and very interesting (the history behind it). I then passed quickly thru the financial district (Nikkei stock exchange) and moved to Ginza District. I was in luck, it was Saturday and the street is closed on weekends. Lots of shoppers buzzing everywhere. The prices are insane but it's so tempting. The Armani store was calling me.

After that i moved to Akihabara town (electronic town). Again, words cannot describe it. I assume it's like Vegas (tho I've never been to Vegas). I spent a lot of my time here, gawking at all the stores and finally gave in to temptation and bought something for myself.

By the time I exited one of their huge stores, it had gotten completely dark outside and I realized I was completely exhausted. 15 min walk to subway station then collapsed in one of the trains that brought me back home to Asakusa. I planned for Roppongi tonight but it will have to wait. My leg muscles literary gave up and gone soft on me. I just noticed I've done more stuff today that my whole year in Toronto. And that was the point. After some refueling, a sweet bottle of sake (damn it's good) and sleep, I'll go back at it tomorrow, soaking in the rest of Tokyo.

Chapter One

And here I am.

Words cannot describe the excitement I'm feeling right now. I can't believe I went through with this. And now being here I'm so glad I did. I just checked into the hostel. It took a while to find it in the dark, hidden in a maze of alleyways. It's 7:30pm now and surprizingly I've got a lot of energy in me even after 13 hours of non-stop flight. No jetlag at all. After a much deserved beer and a yummy sandwich from one of the vending machines here it's time to head out and explore the neighbourhood. Tomorrow I gots to be up 6am though, so I hope to be back by midnight.

The Calm Before the Storm

Well, it's around 3:30am and I don't know how long I can last without sleep. Flight is at 8am. Might as well test this blogger type thing.
Red bulls and coffee can only go so far. After 3 of each I can tell you they don't last more than an hour. So unless I keep chugging them throughout the night I need to think of a different way to stay awake. The comfy, comfy and very warm bed is calling me.

I have to keep my chin up thru customs, thru my Toronto flight and finally thru boarding the Nippon flight at Chicago. After that I have the green light to collapse and take a much deserved rest.