unusual hotels

Eating gyoza in Japan

Asia ~ Japan ~ Tokyo, Kobe & Kurume

Well, it’s official, my most favourite-ist place outside of my home country is Japan. I don’t know why I haven’t been back here since I first came in 2000, I’ll definetly be visiting more in the future. My Japanese is pretty rusty, I haven’t really practiced or studied it for about a year, but it’s coming back to me in droves. The customs guy at the airport pulled me up, saying ‘Hello, could you please open your bag’, to which I replied ‘Konnichi wa’. We then chatted in Japanese about the weather, where I learnt Japanese and where he thought I should go in Tokyo. He then let me pass, bag unchecked!

Tokyo was my first stop, as I had never been there. I stayed in a fantastic little hostel right in the heart of Tokyo. They say Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world, but I don’t agree (Dublin wins the award for that, in my opinion). The hostel I stayed at cost just 2000 yen per night – about half what I was paying in London. I also spent one night in a capsule hotel – something I just had to experience. Because trains finish up early, many Japanese business men (and women) miss that last train, rather than catch a taxi home (can be extremely expensive, particularily in Tokyo), they created the capsule hotel. In the room where I was, there was a long wall full of ‘capsules’ – tiny rooms, about 1 meter high and a bit over 2 meters long. In each capsule, there was a bed, tv, radio, light and tiny holes in the wall for a book and so forth. On another level, there was a [women only] traditional Japanese bath room. It really was suited to a person who misses the last train – they give you a towel, facewasher and pajamas. In the bath there was shampoo, conditioner, toothbrushes, everything for free. Lots of fun, very Japanese.

Tokyo Capsule hotel

Tokyo Capsule hotel

I met up with one of my host sisters, Sawako, whilst in Tokyo, which was great. Sawako is on her last year of studying acupuncture, and she showed me around the city, helping me with the subway (a big blessing – the Tokyo subway consists of a heap of different lines, the map looks like a ‘messy plate of colourful spagetti’). We visited Asakusa Jinja – a huge shrine around the corner from where I’m staying and watched all the school kids running about. October is the official month when school trips take place and so everywhere we went in Tokyo had middle school kids racing about, taking photos. The next day I visited Akiharaba – electrical town. I had so much fun that I spent 3 hours in a single store. Just playing and looking and playing. Electronic dictionaries, digital cameras, mp3 players, rice cookers, even eletronic toilets! During my time in Tokyo, I also visited Ueno Park (and spent a couple of hours playing with a kitten and her ‘mum’ – a 3 year old Japanese kid), Ginza (very happening, busy area, full of ‘modern’ tokyoites – and the occasional kimono clad woman) and Harajuku (home of the Japanese ‘alterative’ lifestyle)

Next stop was Kobe, where I visited another of my host sisters. Asako came out to Australia in 2001 and spent 6 months living with us. It was great to see Asako and meet her family. Asako took me to see Kobe, where we spent most of our time wandering around, shopping and seeing the sights. The highlight of the visit was definetly the time spent around the dinner table – listening and talking with her family, watching her grandfather do magic tricks and listening to the concert they put on for me (Asako’s sister played the keyboard, Aunt played the piano, Cousin played the flute and Asako worked wonders with the xylophone). It was hard leaving, but I’ll be back!

Eating Okonomiyaki with Asako's family

Eating Okonomiyaki with Asako's family

The final stop on my trip around the world – Fukuoka – was fantastic. Kurume, a small-ish (about the population of Melbourne) city on Kyushu is where I lived when I was an exchange student, way back in 2000. Seeing all my host families again was fantastic, as was visiting all the places where I used to hang out. My host families took me all over the place, it really was weird seeing all the places from 5 years ago. So much has changed, but so much is the same. Also went to my old high school and saw my old home room teacher, as well as a few others. Managed to find my way to town and ride around where I used to, all on my own, which I thought was a pretty decent effort. Visiting my host families and catching up with them has been great, I wonder if Japan is where I should be, after all? Only the future will tell…

Me with 3 host families, at the local Chinese Family Restaurant

Me with 3 host families, at the local Chinese Family Restaurant

Of course, I’ve been enjoying the Japanese food too. Gyoza – Japanised Chinese dumplings – is probably my favourite, but sushi, gyuudon, yaskisoba and takoyaki are up there too. The food is reasonably cheap too, about $5 or $6 for a sit down meal, as long as you know where to go. I love being able to order food and know exactly what it is you’re eating. That said, it doesn’t always work out that way – the other day I wandered into a resturant, looked over the menu and realised I only understood one thing – yakisoba. That was fine, I thought, I love yakisoba. But when I ordered it, I was told it wasn’t available. Glancing over the menu again, I decided not to risk it and point, but rather to ask the waiter for his suggestion. He raced away and came back with a delicious dish, but I’m still not sure what I ate!

Well kiddies, I’m now ready to go back to Tokyo for a few more days, then I head for home. What a fantastic year, I’ll miss the traveling, but am quite looking forward to having my own bedroom, a bathroom where I can leave my shampoo and a kitchen where I can store stuff… And of course my family, friends and pets!

xoxo Bobbi!!!

Foulksrath Castle (Kilkenny, Ireland)

Best hostel I’ve stayed at. Ever. The surroundings are fantastic, you are staying in a REAL castle, dating back from 1320. The caretaker, Jack, is awesome, and willing to retell the (ghost!) stories of the castle. The rooms are big and warm – the toilets and showers are clean. It’s better if you’re staying in the girls dormitory, the bathrooms are just next to the main bedroom. However, the guy’s room is upstairs, so it’s a trek down the stairs if you want to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

The only possible drawback is actually getting to the place — the last bus leaves town at 5:30 pm, otherwise it’s an expensive taxi fare. Even with this in mind it’s definitely worth the effort. Make sure you bring dinner and breakfast, as there are no dining opportunities anywhere near the castle!

Saying G’bye to Edinburgh

Europe ~ United Kingdom ~ Scotland ~ Edinburgh

Edinburgh is gearing up for festival season, its amazing. I’ve slowly got used to the idea that I’m living in a tourist town, but now we are in the middle of Edinburgh’s biggest festival – or rather a collection of big festivals. The Fringe Festival, the Military Tatto, the International Festival, the Film Festival, the Literary Festival and a few others are running concurrently, meaning that there are performers and big names all over town. The Royal Mile is a delight to see, clowns and ‘robot people’ everywhere. Of course, its also great watching other tourists getting lost and confused – knowing our way around the city now we’re now able to laugh and point them in the right direction. Bagpipes are everywhere and every now and again you wander past a Highland’s band. On Sunday there was a parade on the High Street to celebrate the beginning of the Fringe Festival, lots of marching bands (mainly military ones, from the Military Tattoo) and floats. So many people lined the streets to watch, I haven’t seen so many people in Edinburgh (except, perhaps, when the protests were happening, but then it was almost all riot police).

Highland Band

Highland Band

One of the boys in our room had a nasty shock last night. Poor guy had just moved into our room, drank too much and passed out on his bed. At 3am the fire alarm went off and the hostel had to be evacuated. Tash and I jumped up and threw on our shoes, then attempted to get Nuffy up. He wasn’t having any of it, we finally rolled him onto the floor (off the top bunk, OUCH), where he continued to snore away. Whilst we were trying to slap him awake, some of the boys came in and just dragged him down the stairs, he woke up about 3 flights down. Luckily it wasn’t a real fire – just someone smoking in the wrong place. It’s the third fire alarm since I’ve been here, they don’t have false alarms, if it goes off the whole building is evacuated, and the fire brigade is automatically called. Interestingly, there is a hostel on the floor below us, and they never evacuate (even though they can clearly hear the alarms). I guess they figure that its just an activity our hostel enjoys, not one for them to join in to. There’s gunna be problems the day it is a real fire…

Apart from dealing with the hoards of people, not much else is new. We went and saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the other day, very fun. Of course had to get the compulsory hoard of candy before the movie, needless to say the four of us finished the GIGANTIC popcorn before the movie even started. Many of the people at the hostel are starting to move on now, so alot of our original friends are gone. Consequently, the hostel is a lot quieter, people reflecting what they are going to do, and people planning their next leg of their trips. It’s sad to see everyone go, but great to hear their plans and see another persons opinions about the MUST-GO places.

Elysha, gathering her candy

Elysha, gathering her candy

I’m off to Ireland tomorrow, so incredibly excited. I plan on staying in a castle, visiting the various breweries, going to see Giants Causeway and a heap of other things… Thanks to all for the help with all the advice on places to see, sorry to those who requested leprechauns, not sure I’ll be able to fit them in my luggage, but I’ll keep an eye out!

Hugs and Kisses, Bobbi

Tackling Huang Shan

Asia ~ China ~ Huang Shan & Shanghai

Getting ready to leave mainland China now, about to head off for Hong Kong. From Xi’an we headed down to Huang Shan and then onto Shanghai and finally back here, to Beijing.

Huang Shan was beautiful, said to be the most well known mountain range in China, the ‘Mt. Fuji’ of China. The scenery was amazing, we stayed in a little hostel full of Chinese tourists. On our second day in Huang Shan we jumped on a minibus and headed off for the mountains. Turns out our hostel booked us in for a Chinese tour group, we all got yellow hats and little badges and walking sticks. We have seen these tour groups all over China, little groups of people wearing matching hats traipsing around the tourist spots. Anyway, finally ended up at the mountains, and off we went. Tash and I decided we didn’t want to walk to the top (a 3 hour hike), so we took the cable car up. Our guide freaked, convinced he was going to lose foreigners in the mountains and found some other people to babysit us while we waited for the cable car. Once at the top we hiked around for about 5 hours. The scenery was awesome, the hike wasn’t too tough, or so we thought. Whilst we were up the top we saw a total of 3 foreigners, everyone else was Chinese. And what a lot of Chinese, I’d say about 10,000 people, all in red hat and yellow hat and blue flag and green flag tour groups! Although we started off taking photo’s of the beautiful scenery, we ended up taking photo’s of the thousands of Chinese people taking photo’s of us!!! Finally it was time to go, our guide pulled us aside and asked if we wanted to take the cable car down, or walk. Well, stupid us decided that since it was all downhill anyway, we’d be fine. Over 9km of steep steps going STRAIGHT down the mountain… We basically fell down the mountain, our legs were jelly, and I’m not sure that our knees will ever be the same. [My legs are still extremely sore, that was a week ago.] We stumbled into our hostel that night, everyone just laughed at the silly foreigners – there were grannies doing the walk who seemed to be power steaming ahead!

Huang Shan Mountains, China

Huang Shan Mountains, China

The next day we took off to Shanghai, what an amazing difference. Shanghai is truly a destination for foreigners – upon arriving we ran into 3 separate groups of Aussies, almost more than we’ve seen in the past 2 months! Our days in Shanghai were basically spent sleeping and shopping, the nights reserved for the clubs. Clubs were good, met a lot of interesting people, a lot of people from Germany, surprisingly. Beers are expensive in Shanghai though, we were paying the same as what you would back home, bit of a shock! We tasted the foods – I tried stir fried bull frog, very tasty, if not a little difficult to eat. Shopping was good, Shanghai has a great selection of pearls, not exactly what a backpacker needs, but exactly what a backpacker wants!!! We stayed at the ‘Captain Hostel’, where all the staff were dressed as sailors, very full on. Our bar overlooked the city and the river, which made it a nice place to wind down after a tiring day shopping. Oh yeh, on our second day in Shanghai Tash and I took out my hair – I’m now blonde again, no longer have purple plaits down to my waist. It took us 3 hours to get out, and my hair has never been so frizzy and knotty in my life! Starting to get back to normal now.

Now we’re just chilling, doing our traditional ‘end-of-country’ shopping, we’ve been picking up some great bargains, mainly because we’ve finally got the bargaining thing downpat. Next stop – Hong Kong, should be fantastic!