our journey around the world

So I mentioned earlier that our stay in “Little India” in Hong Kong was good preparation for India.  I’m guessing that anyone who’s ever been to India will tell you that nothing will ever prepare you! Lonely Planet describes it as “falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland where everything is upside down”.  I think this is a good description.  This is a place where women cover their faces but their midrifts are visible; where tiny donkeys carry massive loads while fat bulls laze idly on street corners; where over 300 gods are idolised and there is a temple full of holy rats; and last but not least, over 30 languages are spoken, but not all can understand the official language and around 35% are illiterate.  It really is completely mad.. [Read more →]

Hong Kong didn’t get off to the best start.  We hadn’t even gotten out of the arrivals terminal when we realised we were missing Georgie’s Goretex jacket.  She had to think back to where she’d last had it and worked out she had left it in the bathroom at the luggage carousel.  Great!  That was
on the other side of Customs – there was no way they were going to let us through but I asked security if someone could just walk the 40 metres or so and grab it for us. 

Of course that would be too easy – no you had to go to the 7th floor and fill out a lost property form in triplicate and then maybe in a month or two they might contact us.  Paul (aka Frank) decided that the Customs guy wasn’t being as helpful as he could have been and with Georgie providing the added incentive of standing there crying helplessly, he convinced Customs to get
on his radio and get someone to check the bathroom.  Luckily for us it was still there and within  30 minutes we had the jacket back.

By the time we did all that, got tickets on the airport bus and actually rode to Kowloon, it was almost midnight and we were exhausted.  [Read more →]

Not far from Hiroshima you can catch a ferry to Miyojima Island.  I had read that there was a community of deer living on the island but when I read notices at the hostel in Hiroshima warning tourists to protect their train passes, I was intrigued.

“Japan Rail Passes are non-refundable and cannot be replaced.  Please do not let your pass be eaten by a deer (this has happened!)”

When we got off the ferry, we soon found out what the sign was all about.  There were deer waiting for people coming out of the ferry terminal and as soon as you got close they were sniffing you over to see if there was anything interesting in your pockets or bag.

There are signs everywhere saying not to feed the deer as they get sick from not grazing properly – which they’re obviously not doing.  Within our first 10 minutes on the island, we saw a deer trying to get into a plastic bag that had had a sushi lunch in it.  He gave up trying and just started eating the whole thing – plastic bag, plastic box, chopsticks – everything!  I attempted to wrestle it off him and he was not happy!  Luckily they’re not that big, as he wasn’t backward in having a go at me.

A little way down the road, we found another couple of deer breaking into a pannier on someone’s bike.  They had already opened all the flaps that had been buttoned down and were now working on the zip.  After a few minutes of patient nudging they were in – and scoffing biscuits!  Only problem was the biscuits were individually wrapped in foil packs and they were eating the foil
as well.  It’s no wonder they all look a little bit mangy and sick.

Miyojima is a big tourist destination for the Japanese so it was pretty busy but the weather was beautiful.  There’s a shopping street, various temples and the famous red gate that stands in the water offshore.

There’s also a mountain you can hike up (or if you’re sensible take the cable car).  Typically Paul wanted to just go up a “little” way to have a look.  Turns out it was steps all the way and by the time we’d been going about half an hour, the girls and I rebelled and refused to go any further.  Paul, of course, insisted it wasn’t much further to the top and that he was going to keep going.  So we parted company – us girls to the shopping street and the boys up the mountain.

2 1/2 hours later, they turned up having discovered that we had been nowhere near the top and they had walked up another 2km of steps before getting the cable car down. 

Us girls had obviously made the right decision as we wondered through the tourists – many of whom had little dressed up doggies and we sat and had a nice drink and some M&M’s.  That was of course until the deer realised we had food…

Hiroshima was a pleasant surprise after our whirlwind through other parts of Japan.  It’s quite touristy here and very well designed for foreigners and also very pretty.  We caught a tram to the Museum and Peace Park, which was something a little bit different, after flying around on the  bullet trains.

I have to share with you Georgie’s comment about the Shinkansen trains – she is such a world traveller!!  She said – “They aren’t that fast!  I don’t think it’s any different to the Eurostar!”  Pretty good comment for a 9 year old – she still has no idea how lucky she is!

Anyway, as you would imagine the A-bomb Dome was very thought provoking.  The bomb was detonated about 600 metres above Hiroshima and almost directly above the Dome – they believe that is why it was not completely flattened like most other buildings close to the hypercentre. [Read more →]

We’ve been and gone to Japan and it seems like the 10 days we spent there were over in an instant.  We started with Tokyo and firstly we were struck by the difference to Beijing.

Beijing is on the move..  It is bright and shiny and there are building works going on everywhere.  Tokyo looks like it moved about 1980.  We supposed this was when their economy was booming and probably Beijing will be like that in 20 years. 

Japan was a bit of a culture shock – a lot of which we can contribute to the fact we weren’t in any place long enough to get comfortable and some to the fact we’ve been travelling in the East for a while now and Japan is very western by comparison.  So whilst it was nice to be in cities that weren’t all that different to Australia – I’m sorry to say Westerners are probabaly far more concerned with getting to wherever they’re going – usually to work! and this can make them appear to be less friendly?  I think Japan suffers from this as well.

In Beijing, we only had to hold up a map and we’d have someone come up and ask us were we ok, could they help?  In Japan, we spent an awful lot of time just trying to find our way around – the maps were terrible and when you asked directions, it usually consisted of something akin to “just around that corner” with a vague wave of an arm.   We both had a bit of a meltdown with some staff at the Tokyo station when we were told to validate our train passes at the office “just around the corner”.  After wandering aimlessly for about 20 minutes, we finally discovered the office – around the corner, walk about 500 metres, up the stairs to another level, through a labrynth of tunnels, around several more corners etc etc!!!  Not happy Jan – I can tell you!!

You can imagine what we said, when after having validated our passes and got our tickets for the train, we asked the lady where we should go to get to the platform.  Guess what she said?  “Oh not far - just around corner” and vaguely waved her arm!!!  Paul made her come out of her ticket office and show us – she ended up walking us all the way there!

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6 Things we found out about China:-

1. The Chinese people are incredibly friendly and will go out of their way to help you;
2. The Beijing subway is the cleanest, most organised subway I’ve ever been in;
3. You have to put your bags thru an xray machine at every subway and attraction in Beijing;
4. Facebook does not work;
5. You can have ox’s penis in a hotpot(!);
6. There are 77 McDonald’s stores in Beijing city.

Favourite thing we did:-

Paul – The Wall
Amanda – The Wall
Caitlin – Terracotta Warriors, Xi’an
Georgie – The Great Wall
Ashlea – Bamboo rafting on the Yulong River, Yangshuo
Michael – The Great Wall

Favourite food:-

Paul – Double cooked pork at Sims & Stuffed green peppers at Yangshuo
Amanda – Best Chinese food was everything at Sim’s Cozy Garden Hostel, Chengdu - consistently brilliant (Pizza Hut was also refreshingly nice)
Caitlin – The Saddle Mexican Cantina, Beijing & Pizza Hut
Georgie – Sim’s Cozy Garden Hostel & Pizza Hut
Ashlea – The Saddle & Pizza Hut
Michael – The Saddle & Pizza Hut

Favourite Place:-

Paul – Beijing
Amanda – Beijing
Caitlin – Beijing
Georgie – Yangshuo
Ashlea – Beijing
Michael – Beijing

Thing disliked the most:-

Paul -  Multiple admission fees to almost every sight in Beijing
Amanda – smokers on the train and in restaurants
Caitlin – public spitting
Georgie – spitting
Ashlea – public toilets at Xingping
Michael – cruise on the Li River

Due to the way our round the world ticket works, we had to work out the dates for all our flights in advance before we left Australia.  We can change them but with a penalty of $80 per person – which obviously when you times that by 6 becomes kinda costly.  So the best we could do was estimate the amount of time we wanted to spend between flights and go with it.

We ended up with way more time in Beijing than we needed and so we were left cooling our heels, waiting for our flight day.  Not such a bad thing though, gave us plenty of time to investigate the sights we wanted to see at a leisurely pace (or not) and also spend a couple of days doing nothing but reading a book or for the kids – the dreaded fractions and grammar!!

We also worked on our French, which we’re learning as a family and generally sat around waiting for our clothes to dry (one of the disadvantages of having one set of warm clothes!!)

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We have continued working our way around the sites of the capital, including Wangfujing pedestrian mall (including the snacks in the night market – think starfish, seahorse or scorpion kebabs… ) and still attempting to order dinner at the largely non-English speaking Chinese restaurants. 

 Tonight we found a menu that consisted of lamb spines, whole pigs head in a pot and deep fried cow’s intestines.  If nothing else it could be developed into a good weight loss program…? [Read more →]

It would be an understatement to say that I wasn’t looking forward to taking the sleeper train from Xi’an to Beijing!  On the bright side, this time it was only 11-12 hours rather than 15, so if we were to suffer, at least it would be a shorter sentence.

It turned out to be no problem.  This is such a well worn route that there are numerous trains to Beijing every hour and most of the soft sleepers are taken up by foreigners who obey the non-smoking signs.  What a relief.. [Read more →]

Xi’an is the ancient capital of China and it’s sort of what you expect from the tourist brochures, with lots of beautiful old buildings with the ornamental Chinese roof decorations etc.  It also has plenty of multistorey apartment buildings, office blocks and mega shopping malls to service the teeney weeney population of 8 million!

Unfortunately we had to cut short our intended stay due to the lack of train tickets to Beijing if we didn’t go earlier.  We saw most of the highlights though, which are mostly clustered around the centre of town – the Bell Tower, Drum Tower, the ancient city wall and of course the premier event – the Museum of the Terra-cotta Warriors & Horses.

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