The last stop on the world tour

Following Japan, there was one last stop to be had on the world tour - New Zealand. To me, it has always been a country that brings to mind sheep, a nice sav blanc and sarcastic colleagues. I wasn't disappointed in any of these areas. The best part? I kept thinking things were really expensive, then had a moment when realized that oh, hang on, that's NZD - bargain! (love getting paid in a real currency).

There were sheep. Lots of them too. I just checked with the New Zealand Ministry of Population and Sustainable Development and apparently there are 10 sheep to each human in New Zealand (used to be 20:1, not quite sure what happened to reduce e ratio so dramatically over the past ten years, but it leaves me unsettled...). Am a little disappointed I never made it to Sheep World (it is a real place in Auckland), will need to save that for next time.

I of course needed some kind of sheep related souvenir, and who could pass up this little guy...

There were also some cows that looked like they had bred with the sheep. We nicknamed them shows.

As I mentioned above, there was also wine, and a lovely weekend in wine country to sample some of the local delights.

Don't be fooled by the sunshine in these pics, for the most part the weather as as you would expect for this time of year in NZ - rubbish. I am not sure if I am relieved or disappointed though that for the week that I was there I didn't once get to sample those trademark Wellington winds.

I do like going up towers and checking out the view, and the Skytower in Auckland did not disappoint.

Thee are crazzzzzy people though who pay money to jump off the thing (which is the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere).

It also had a glass floor in parts...which freaked me out a little.

One thing about Auckland that I did like was the messages on the departures board at the aircraft. If your flight was not yet ready, maybe you should should follow their instructions...

I have one more post for the blog that I am going to work on in the coming week - so don't think you are off the hook on having to read my ramblings just yet...

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Japan - why are there so many stairs for me to climb???

I do not think I have ever climbed so many stairs in my life as what I have in the last week. I had thought that climb of over 1400 stairs I did that time in Romania to get to Vlad the Impalers castle was bad, but Japan was worse. I am a little shocked that after a week of consistently doing that I don't automatically have the legs of a pro athlete - surely there has to be a benefit in all that pain???

So, in Japan we spent time in 4 main areas - Yokohama, Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima. Turns out those years of Japanese lessons at school were not all in vain, and by the end of the week I could start to read the hiragana again (couldn't translate it, but at least I could look at the symbols and get a vague idea what it said to find things on a map).

Took a lot of pictures and did a lot of things, so will just stick to the highlights I think. First up was a trip to Tokyo. Finn was smart and decided to stay in bed, but I bought into Sid's craziness and got up at 4am to visit the Tokyo Fish Market. Place was packed with every kind of seafood imaginable (and a few that we're just...odd). They had the dried

And the fresh...

There was also some mad knife skills on display. Check out these teeny tiny fish fillets with my fingers for scale (keeping in mind my fingers are teeny - p.s. how awesome are the nails?)

For morning tea we went to one of the sushi places just outside the fish market, where we had all sorts of yummy things...

The tuna sashimi (not shown) just dissolved in your mouth. There was a kind of sushi on the menu though that we were unwilling to try...(we checked and that is horse horse, not sea horse).

My first trip to a public wash room in Japan followed and it was quite confusing. There are enough buttons in the loo to launch a space shuttle. I don't want to play Muzak, I want to flush!!!!

Now, I know taking a picture in a public toilet is creepy, and well, almost a little George Michael, but it wasn't the creepiest thing that happened all day. See Finn had this guidebook, and it mentioned a huge Manga store, where apparently sometimes people hang out in cosplay. We decided to go check it out. The store was massive, and we wandered through the manga that was what we expected manga to be (i.e. child friendly) and then it was like we crossed a line in the store. Suddenly the covers of the manga were getting a little Mills and Boon and before we knew it, we'd hit the manga porn section! Whilst we recovered from our surprise that it was so close to kiddies, we realized the were adult blow up dolls as well in the shapes of manga characters... Not at all what any of us expected.

We recovered with a beer and a discussion on what to do next. The guidebook provided two ideas, we could go to the Tobacco and Salt Museum, or we could go scope out the "love hotels". Sadly, the love hotels won (I was the only vote for the salt museum). The love hotels are rooms you can rent by the hour (perhaps with your newly purchased blow up doll from down the street). This was one of the classier ones we could find. Japanese like to put things in vending machines, and apparently at the love hotels that is where one can find their sex toys (though we wandered past a number of shops that would put fyshwick to shame in the neighborhood as well).

The evening was topped off with some yummy dinner...

A stroll through the lights...

And the discovery of a musical act in a CD store that really needs to be at Eurovision...

The following day we headed out again to Kamakura. There were lots of shrines and temples here. Including this giant one, which you could go inside of...

Finn told us of a walking trail in his guidebook that would get us to the next one. It was more like a hike through jungle...

4km later we made it to civilization again. At all of the shrines, much like at a lot of the Christian sites in Europe, you could write down a wish and hang it at the shrine.

We couldn't read most of them (being in Japanese and all) but there was this one...All that, AND a pony!

Next day we drove out to Mt Fuji, which was sadly covered in clouds. They did on a nearby hill had these sulfuric ponds that they cooked eggs in. The sulfur turned the eggs black. Legend has it if you eat one you will extend your life by 8 years. I didn't eat one. Firstly I hate hard boiled eggs and secondly, I am not sure the world could cope with 8 extra years of me...

We also went and checked out this bizarre outdoor art gallery (mostly sculpture). Is it just me or is this perhaps NOT the most appropriate sculpture to put outside a children's playground area?

Next there was Kyoto. The Kyoto style of bento box was actually one of the best I had the whole trip...

There were castles...

And interesting signs...

And this great temple

It had these gates going on for kilometers. We only only did about a third of the path, but they were very cool to walk through...

That evening was dinner in a 3 star Michelin restaurant in Kyoto. Could not believe my luck, dessert was a snow cone!

The following day was back on the bullet train to Hiroshima.

It is strange being in a town where everything has been built in the last 50 or so years and where the word war has been replaced with the word incident.

We visited the peace park. It was actually the day after the anniversary, so all the wreaths were still in place from the service the day before.

This is the view through the memorial, over the eternal flame and down to the building that was the epicenter of the A-bomb blast.

Because the bomb was detonated directly over this building, it was the only thing left standing (though burnt to cinders) for a 2km radius. It still stands today.

The memorial to the victims was unbelievably sad. You sat in a circular room, and the 360 view around you was the devastation that the survivors would have seen as the view from the makeshift hospital. The actual memorial in the middle of the room was a clock, with the time set at 08:15, the time the bomb was dropped.

One thing I did love in the peace museum though was the had some of the actual paper cranes that the girl that first did it to recover from her leukemia made in hospital. They were so small. She made the required 1000, but her wish sadly did not come true. The were so many all over the park, made by school children from all over the world.

We decided we were in need of a beer after that day. How is this for the food menu at the bar we were in...(we were not brave enough to try that last item).

There were some awesome looking karaoke bars...

Rather than karaoke we hit the arcade for a Mario kart tournament. You know those claw games at the arcade, where you put your money in, position the claw and see if you can pick up a prize? I always thought they were a scam. Not in Japan though. In Japan, I am Queen of the Claw! First go and I got a prize (which was if course met with mass disbeliefe and hysterical laughter). Even won the boys a lovely buxom anime mermaid. No idea why they were not impressed...

The following morning there was another castle. This one of course a replica as the original from the 1500's was destroyed by the A-bomb.

It was then back on the bullet train to return to Tokyo and pack, ready for me to depart the next day for New Zealand. Am currently making the most if the 6 hours (!?!?!?) I have between flights in Hong Kong to write this.

Before I go, let me leave you with a public service announcement - please, always watch your children...

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O Canada

I have had a pretty chilled week and a half in Vancouver. Being somewhere I have been before, rather than going out and doing all the touristy things, I have really just been hanging out. So, for this post, I figured I would show you some of my fav pictures from Vancouver (at which point you are sure to work out the kind of eclectic visit I have had!).

Granville Island is one of my fav places here in Vancouver. I like wandering through the market and eating yummy things I find at the market. You have to be careful though with your fish and chips (or calamari and chips in my case).

Crazy ass seagulls will try to steal your food. I ended up acting like a crazy person and had a full on conversation with a seagull about how he was not getting any of my calamari. I won, though one of his pals came back later to have a shot at my ice cream (whatcha gonna do with coffee gelato seagull???).

Speaking of crazy ass seagulls, we had one stalk our boat last week! Chris played skipper as we hired a boat and took it for a cruise for a few hours through English Bay (I think I have that right). We saw lots of sea lions on the way, and the scenery was quite pretty.

We made two pit stops on land, one of which was for ice cream (I like ice cream, I am using it to get over the cupcakes). At that stop there were lots of folk out kayaking and stuff.

People were out near Granville Island doing the same when I was there for lunch today. Felt bad that I was eating an ice cream and watching others be energetic...not really.

Back to the crazy wildlife, I went to Stanley Park one night last week to go to theater under the stars (they were doing The Music Man). On the walk to the spot where the theater was I got caught in a turf war...between two squirrels! There was this guy (who is looking at me as if to say "you taking MY picture?").

And there was this guy...

Both were not afraid of humans and full on had a go at me. Not liking squirrels.

I did find some wildlife in Stanley Park though that I did like. I went back to the Vancouver Aquarium. Those of you who have seen my Facebook profile photo anytime in the last three years know that I played with the beluga whales last time I was in Vancouver. This time around I played with the dolphins. Well one of them anyway, a pacific white sided dolphin named Hana. Whilst I was there though I did pop back to see my buddies the belugas.

I did wonder if they recognized me and were desperately trying to give me a hug to say hello. So much so that they ran into the glass...so cute.

There were sea lions there too. Think this dude was trying to escape...

They had just opened the new penguin exhibit...

As always, the jellies were super super cool...I sat and stared at them and thought about how they would fit into my evil genius empire. I am thinking laser beams in each tentacle. Now that would be a weapon of mass destruction...

And then there was the amazon enclosure. The macaws were my fav in there...

I went for a nice wander through the park, though it wasn't the best day for it...

Today was a much nicer day to wonder around the sea wall. I even found the sea plane airport!

Oh, and today I caught the Aqua Bus over to Granville Island. 

I think that I finally found a kind of poutine that I actually like. Normally I am all for weird, deep fried foods, but even I draw the line at poutine. There were a few takeaways that sold nothing but (some advertised over 20 different types). I ate every last bite of this one...It had liquid cheese though (ewww).

I picked up some cool nail polish in Vancouver. Check this out



Sent a pic of it to a few beauty bloggers and all are a little stumped over how to use it (only instruction on the bottle is "do not shake"). Got my nails done as well. The only downside was that the moisturiser the chick used was sparkly. I didn't realise just how sparkly until I walked outside and realized that in the sun I looked like a vampire from Twilight on a bright sunny day. Can't really see how sparkly I am I the pic, but how cool are those nails?



Oh, and the cafe at my hotel had the best name

Have loved being in Canada, but tomorrow I fly to Japan! Let's see how bad my high school Japanese has gotten...

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