"Time" in Tokyo.

After 4 days its time to move on from tokyo to my next stop,

(P.s the slide shows below have pictures on wrong angles and not in order, i will fix this next time its just the way i uploaded them to the net and i couldn't be bothered fixing it.... and the animation is automatic.)

My trip started out in Asakusa.
I arrived at the hostel with only minutes to spare before they closed, and in the dark of night.
The next morning, I found myself in the centre of a tourist hot spot, only 250 meters from the street that leeds up to the Senso-ji Temple.

I started off that day by visiting the Senso-ji Temple and talking with a local for a hour or 2. The temple is very beautiful and the level of detail in the work and buildings. The statues all had different gestures and faces, as well as uniforms.

I visited the new Tokyo Sky tower being constructed but couldn't get it, however i did manager to get to the base of it and see just how massive and impressive it was.

That night I visited Shibuya where there is a spacial crossing with masses of neon lights and people like time square in NY.



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The following day i started out by visiting the Imperial palace. I visited the sight where you can see the palace and a stone bridge, then I moved one of many parks in Tokyo, and found a replica viking stone.

I visited the tokyo tech town.
I must admit its not quite what i expected, i was thinking it would be shops with new gadgets and cameras and phones and thing.
But instead it was random electrical items like light, with 1 or 2 computer shops but the rest were dedicated to the japanese cult following if anime. With ladies dressed out as characters out of animation cartoon series  trying to get nerds in to buy films and see shows.
Even the saga zones which normally in western countries is arcade games and like was 3/5 full floors of the claw UFO toy grabbing things... with at least 1/2 of them in use by people.
Definitely a interesting thing to see....

From there i hoped on the wrong train and ended up at a random station, so i went for a walk and found a nice little temple with some statues and a dojo.

I finished off the night with my first sushi in tokyo, not bad although it wasn't what i expected... I prefer the set meal, it seems to be easier to get what you ask for. also with all the plastic displays its interesting to see what some of the items task like.



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My 2nd last day in tokyo i started out in the fish markets, up at 6am to catch a train and get to the markets while all the good stuff is still on display.
The outside markets were what you would come to expect or stereotype a outdoor market to be, lots of small shops each with there own unique way of preparing the dishes and items.
There was fish flakes, small dried fish you eat as chips, omelettes on a stick, fruits of every shape and colour and normally a shop to back them all up where you could try the dish.

For some reason though they were rather upset when you asked if you could take photos.. so it was hard a lot of the time to get pictures of these items.

After exploring the outside I tried to work my way into the main market, unfortunately since the large earthquake they have closed all the tourist access to the tuna auctions and main markets.
However by following some of the crowds and sneaking past a few guards i managed to get into the main market area. By this time the tuna auctions had already finished but the main market area was still teeming with activity.
Fish, Shell fish, Turtles, Eels, Snails of all shapes, colours and all fresh for a entire city block.
Again the locks were stand offish to the idea of photos but i took  few none direct photos of the stalls.

I took the advice of many guide books and had some sushi at the markets, the difference to the night before was like night and day, this was super fresh and tasty.

That afternoon a caught up with some old warcraft buddies of mine and went to the tokyo tower, the view from 150 odd meters off the side walk was amazing, you could truly get a gasp on how large tokyo is as a city.

we then went to Shibuya for dinner, we had this stone with 2  different types of soup that you then cook your meat and veggies in. The soup gives a different taste to the meats and adds the favour. A very interesting meal.

It was great to finally meet a few of the guys that i have played with over the net for 3-5 years now, and think back over the old times.

When i arrived back at the hostel a party had just started for a staff member that was leaving the hostel, it continued into the night and we ended up in the "red light" district of tokyo at a night club. Little did i know that the trains stopped at midnight and that was all good, we rocked on in the club till 6m and then headed back. A lot of fun.



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Last day i was a little bit "under the weather" from the night before, so i took a boat ride and relaxed and took some time out to write this piece. ;)

So where to next? will see in a few days...

Packed and Ready Including Teddy.

I’m off, off and away.

Im off and away, after a few issues in Sydney with tickets and check-in, I have arrived in Tokyo and off to the hostel.

A tradition in the Duelund family (well since I was a little one) was that I get presents to keep me amused on my travels.  When I was 10 or so I got a my first hand held computer games on a Gameboy, and other times I have gotten books and so forth.

When I was 7, I went to Denmark with my father, however the trip didn’t start well. I had to leave my teddy that I had traveled with since I was 2, at home, however a bit of trickery with mum’s help and it was stuffed in the bag, only to be ripped out as soon as the plane left the ground, much to dads dismay.

Bringing the story back to the presents,

I got a present the day before I was due to fly out, it was a large well rapped present. I opened it and it was my teddy, much to my parents delight and laughter. They suggested I take it and place it in my bag like I use to when I traveled as a young one. Shown below:

After arriving in Tokyo I had all of 1 hour 20 min to get from the airport to the city, and check into my hostel at Asakusa.

The train system is simple although ill take a picture of the map later, it looks like a bowl of noodles, I almost fell over when I seen it.  But once I was under way it was simple enough to follow the paths.

I made it to the hostel with a few minutes to spare before reception closed.

A brief night walk up and down the streets around the hostel for 2 hours and then found a nice shop that sold a mean chicken curry (oh my it was sooooo good). Then back to hostel and crash…

So…. now I’m in japan… ok…? Now what???

See what tomorrow brings.  

2 Weeks to go. Not that im counting or anything....

Well I sold my old car, Ive got the PDF's of travel guides, Downloaded Translation App's on my phone for all the starting countries. Ive got my bags... ok well maybe not yet. But 2 weeks is loads of time to pack for a years trip isnt it??
 Soo yeah im ready...

Im not going to put anything techy in these blogs but i was quite happy with my little idea to backup my photos. My little laptop's only got 20GB free space so I needed some way to off load the data, and USB disks although great are just to risky for a years trip. So here it comes...

./propellar hat on
Ive found a brilliant way of backing up my photos, quite nerdy actually....
I got a free 250 MB cloud storage folder with "Dropbox", I installed the agent on my mini server in Aus.
Then created a script (xcopy easy and simple) on the server to copy the Dropbox folder to another folder on the server, with only files that have changed.
Then i can clear out the Dropbox every few days and upload more. Ensuring that there is always a copy in AUS (as long as the servers up), Server also has inbuild backup to a external HDD...
./propellar hat off

This would give those at home a local copy to view of my photos and I can use it as a 3rd backup encase I lose my camera or laptop.


Ok promiss that will be the only techy thing I put on the blog... well maybe not.

Flights book

Booked my flights, hostel, and downloaded all the travel guides.

Also purchased a new laptop, to write out my trip on. Check it out: