Miyajima is a little island but a big tourist attraction located about an hour south of Hirsohima. It contains the famous floating torii. I have no idea why its famous but it looks cool and its classified as one of Japan’s three best views. You can get here using the trams from Hiroshima and a day trip will suffice. The tram will take you to Miyajima port and then you get the ferry across. It’s very simple.
The island has a nice little town which is worth a walk-through, mainly for the temples, the nice little souvenir shops and the cafes but also to see all the deer which just roam the streets without a care in the world. It may be small but Miyajima is one of the nicest places that I’ve been to in Japan so far and if you’re coming to Hiroshima then you definitely should come as far as here.
Known across the world for all the wrong reasons, Hiroshima is actually a very cheerful and surprising city. With a population of over 1.1 million, the city has been completely rebuilt since the atomic bomb detonated in the skies above it in 1945. The only building that still remains from those days is the A-Bomb dome, an eternal reminder of the tragedy.
We got the shinkansen (bullet train) from Osaka down to Hiroshima which was just brilliant. A train that goes 300km per hour and is incredibly comfortable, plus you have loads of leg room. Perfect!! A one way ticket costs about $100, it’s expensive but it only took about an hour, which is amazing. Every country should have a shinkansen.
In the city, the Peace Memorial Park contains a number of monuments dedicated to the memory of the atomic bomb victims. The Cenotaph contains all the names of the known victims. The Flame Of Peace which will only be extinguished once the last nuclear weapon on earth has been destroyed – this flame might be burning for a while. The Childrens Peace Monument tells the story of a 10 year old girl who developed leukemia as a result of the bombing. There is also a Korean A-Bomb memorial as more than 1 in 10 of the people killed were koreans working as slave labourers in japanese factories.
Traveling around the city is best done with the trams or streetcars as they’re called here and, just like Osaka, they are incredibly easy to use. The only annoying thing is that you pay the fare when you get off the tram which means you have to walk to the very front of the carriage, hit every old japanese person with your bags along the way, and then pay the driver. It should be easier and it probably is, but i’m just a dumb tourist.
We stayed in a traditional japanese style ryokan while in Hiroshima. It’s definitely an experience and something everyone should do in japan. The beds are small and you’re practically paying a lot of money to sleep on the floor but it’s fun.
Oh ya, we also managed to book a flight from Tokyo to Hanoi through a japanese travel agency costing about $1500 less than it would have in Australia. Excellent. I felt bad for the poor girl that booked it for us, she didn’t have a lot of english and we have no japanese but through the international language of pointing and nodding we were able to get what we wanted. Now to get a vietnamese visa.
Osaka is the working capital of Japan. It’s the second largest city in the country and also the biggest of the Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe trio in Kansai. It’s pretty much everything that you expect a japanese city to be. The prefecture contains 8.8 million people and I reckon we met at least half of them in our 3 days there. The place is crazy and the city has an incredible pace to it. It took a while to get our bearings but after a few hours you realise that it is an incredibly easy city to navigate through. The train system is just excellent to use and nobody should have an excuse to use any other means of transport when they’re in Osaka.
We spent the first night at a small J-Hoppers hostel in the western part of the city near Fukuoma. We didnt get in until after midnight as our flight was delayed and we were gone pretty early in the morning so I can’t really offer an opinion on this place. Its a traditional place so you have to take off your shoes before you enter!! It seemed nice except it didn’t have an elevator and I was wrecked after carrying all my bags up to the 5th floor. Not long into the next day we realised that the majority of people in Japan dont speak a word of english, which is understandable. I’m the foreigner so I should have learned to speak some Japanese!! But I didnt, so communications are a bit difficult. It took me 10 minutes to order a coffee and a donut for breakfast. The north (Kita) side of the city contains the big department stores but I didnt find this area very interesting. There is an excellent electronics/gadget store called Yodobashi Camera situated right behind the JR Osaka station. It’s huge!!
We spend the next 2 nights in the southern part (Minami) of the cit. This is definitely the best part to stay in. Everything is close by or within 15 minutes on the train. The weather on Saturday was awful, it poured rain but we still got our sightseeing done. First stop was the Osaka-Jo castle, it’s probably the highlight of the city and it’s pretty impressive. It was built to be impenetrable so it’s a bit of a walk over a few moats and then up some hills but it’s worth it. The shopping district in Minami is the Shinsaibashi-suji shopping mall. You will find absolutely everything in here and also along suomachi-suji. It’s got all the crazy flashing lights and neon lights that you expect to see in downtown japanese cities. The main nightlife area is also in Minami, it’s along the Dotombori Arcade which runs parallel to the river. It absolutely poured rain on the Saturday night so we gave up looking for a good bar pretty quickly. Minami also has Amerika Mura (America Village) and Den-Den Town (blocks of electronics stores).
I was very impressed with Osaka.
Ah Sydney. Definitely my favourite place in Australia and it was so good to be back here after spending all that time driving around the country. The drive from Melbourne was long, but a happy one as we knew it was the last leg. I began my time in Sydney at the WakeUp hostel in Central just about 3 years ago and I ended it right next door at the YHA. Before I went on this trip I was too occupied with sorting out apartment bonds, car rentals and flights etc that I didnt really realise what I was leaving but it definitely struck me in my final few days here.
Sydney is the best city that I have ever been to. It’s that simple. There’s just no other way to describe it or even a need to define it further. I’ve always loved New York and have a big soft spot for the place but I think Sydney is a better city. I am really going to miss this place and the friends that I have made during my time here. But hopefully it wont be too long before I’m back here downing schooners and stumbling through the streets again.
I think the footballing gods wanted me to leave Sydney on a high as Manchester United won the Champions League Final on that thursday morning. They beat Chelsea on penalties after a really good game ended 1-1. Chelsea fans and everyone else will say that united were lucky as chelsea hit the post twice and John Terry missed the opportunity to win it. I dont believe that at all. Van Der Sar slipped to allow Lampard to equalise and you dont hear any united fans talk about that slip. And hitting the post has the same effect as hitting the corner flag. The aim of the game is to get the ball in the goals. So maybe Chelsea should practice their shooting a little bit more next season!!
We had massive dramas at the airport trying to get to Japan without having a ticket out of there but it all got sorted eventually after a lot of stressful conversations!! Thank you Jetstar.
Melbourne is an amazing city and probably one of my favourites. I’ve been here 4 or 5 times and always seem to have a good time. The highlight of Melbourne, for me, is the Melbourne Cup. This is without a doubt the best day that one can spend in Australia. It takes place on the first Tuesday of November and is just fantastic. It’s called ‘the race that stops the nation’ and it really does. Every one in the country watches it but you cant beat being at it. And i don’t even like horse racing.
Apart from the cup it’s got all the other sports as well. AFL is the big one but it’s also represented in rugby league and the A-League. It also hosts the Australian Formula 1 and the Australian Open tennis tournament.
For non-sports enthousiasts (weirdos!!) melbourne also has a great collection of shops, cafes and restaraunts – it really is a testimony to how good Sydney is that Melbourne is only my second favourite place in Australia. On this visit I was staying up in North Melbourne, at the YHA again. A decent hostel with a spectacular view of the city skyline from the rooftop.
Again, I was delighted to get back into a city. Just to be able to relax and not have to drive for a few days. We spent Friday and Saturday in Adelaide and it’s pretty good. The weather is crap, it’s raining and freezing cold and as I was walking through the city, I felt like I should be doing my christmas shopping. Being in South Australia now means that I have been in every state in Australia which is a nice little achievement (I’m not counting ACT because it’s too crap to be considered an actual state).
Hindley St seems to be the liveliest spot in the city but it’s pretty sleazy, eastern terrace seems to be much better.
I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving. I am so sick of driving.
As we feared, this was utterly terrible. We left Kalgoorlie at 8 in the morning and got into a roadhouse at 10:30PM. Thats a lot of driving, plus we lost 90 minutes because we crossed time zones. Absolutely terrible. There is a stretch of road on this highway that is straight for 145kms, it’s the longest stretch of straight road in Australia. I can’t wait for Adelaide and it’s still 900kms away
This is going to be terrible. The drive from Perth to Adelaide is 2700km, roughly the same distance from London to Moscow. We’re going to attempt it in a little over 2 days which means a lot of driving. First stop is Kalgoorlie, and with 85000 people it’s the second biggest place in Western Australia. It’s only 600km east of Perth so this was an easy days driving and it’s a nice place to relax for a while. The funny thing about all these outback towns is that the barmaids in all the pubs have to work in their ‘skimpies’, lingerie in other words. So many hostels in Perth were advertising for girls to come work in outback pubs and earn up to $1000 a week but none of them mention that ya you can only wear your underwear. It’s hilarious.
Next stop is some roadhouse at the other side of the nullabor, which means roughly 13 to 1400km of a drive. Crap!
Margaret river is another one of these amazing little towns that you find scattered all over Australia. Despite it’s small size, it’s incredibly famous for both its surf and wine. Located about 250km south of Perth, it takes a good 3-4 hours to get here as you have to go through every little town along the way and stop at around 1500 sets of traffic lights. Anyways, it is a beautiful spot. There are wineries absolutely everywhere and the surf does indeed look amazing. The weather was quite stormy which meant that some of the beaches that we went to were just completely wild. There weren’t any surfers about, probably due to the weather and the recent shark sightings along the south-west coast.
I was so glad to get to Perth, in fact i dont think i’ve ever been as happy getting into a city before. Not because Perth is special or anything, it just meant no more 1000km drives. Well, for a few days at least. I am so sick of that car.
We got into Perth thursday night, checked into a nice hostel and just relaxed. Perth seems to be a lovely city, i gave a walk around the place on friday before heading out on the town on Friday night. I hadn’t been out since Darwin so this was definitely a big night. All the bars in Perth seem to be in the Northbridge area so that’s exactly where we went. Some great bars on these streets but I cant remember half of them.
Saturday was a nightmare, very hungover so I just spent the day in the hostel. Sunday was also spent in the hostel before heading out to watch united win the premiership by beating Wigan 2-0. Sweet!! One more premiership and we equal liverpools record of 18. I can’t wait until that day!!
