orlao0's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member orlao0 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/orlao0 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:13:30 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com Cosmo Shanghai — Shanghai, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1208006340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1208006340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1208006340/tpod.html Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:13:30 -0400 Kieran and Orla
Shanghai, China

11th April
Arrived into Shanghai station and got out to our hostel as soon as possible. The hostel is only ok - they charge for everything, like stuff that is free in other hostels, like internet, tea, coffee...(beer...ah! no only messing!)maybe we are spoilt. Maybe we are moaning but all these add up to big bucks.......hmmmm!!

Anyway, we headed into the city center for a look around. WOW! Shanghai is very different from Beijing. The skyscrapers were amazing.All of the buildings are so eye catching and different , its really appealing. There seems to be less pollution in the air in Shanghai also - so we were happy about that.
Didn't do too much really as we were tired from the train journey but what we saw we liked.

12th April
Headed into thte city again - checked out the famous "bund" area - along by the river and all the amazing buildings over there. Then we did the lonely planet walking tour which mainly concentrated on the bund. That night we went up to see the cloud 9 bar for a view over the city. The view at night time when the city is lit up is fantastic.

13th April
We got up early and decided to go to Suzhou. Suzhou had been described to us before as "The venice of China"! Well, thats a bit of a reputation to live up to!

So, we went to the train station in Shanghai and tryed to book our train ticket, we asked a guy in the hostel to write down where we wanted to go and at what time etc, so we could buy our ticket at the station and off we went.
Queues don't exist in China. The Irish might not be the best especially in Reardens on a saturday night at about 1am but this is a different ball game altogether! All the latest queue skipping tactics are honed to perfection by the Chinese. It is hilarious to see it. Anyway we took part in the game and eventually got to the desk , handed in our sheet of paper and then got a sour look and a no (well as he shook his head!).At this an elbow to the head from the fella behind us dislodged us from the queue and we were at the back again. While we were contemplating what had just happened , a nice , clean looking young fella came up and asked us did we need help. Now we have been warned about the student types in China with good English , all from mongolia and out to do you kind of things but sure we were in a hold so we chanced on. Hong Kong was this guys name and he turned out to be a pure gentleman, that is the only way to describe him. He skipped the queues on our behalf and got us our tickets, as he was going to Suzhou as well, he said he would guide us along. Sound, so we got on the train and Hong kong wasn't menat to be sitting with is but he did.
]]> Terracotta Warriors — Xi'an, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1208875680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1208875680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1208875680/tpod.html Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:43:42 -0400 Kieran and Orla
Xi'an, China

Got collected for our trip to the Terracotta warriors by our tour guide and introduced us to the group. 2 Norweigians, 2 Swedish and us. The first stop was an old village, Banpo, occupied from 4500BC. That had been enclosed in a massive shed to protect it. In the village we saw the remains of old houses , includeing the moat , foundations, skeltons etc.It was really good.

Next stop was a factory that makes terracotta souvenirs- not great really so we didn't delay long.
From here we went to the masoleum (Tomb of Qin Shi Huang - the first emporer of China) which is the burial site. The real mouseleum has never been opened so all of what is constructed in here is based on the written descriptions that were found afterwards. It was very interesting to see.

From here we went to the teracotta warriors site. Basically this was the man attraction. The terracotta soldiers of which they reckon were 6000 of them made were buried to protect the mausoleum - which is the burial place of the 1st emporor of China. The soldiers are in combat formation and amazingly no 2 soldiers are the same - i.e. all the faces are different!! We went around all 3 pits and were truely amazed at what we saw. Its definetly a unique sight and well worth seeing.

After the Terracotta warriors we went for lunch and a tour around a silk factory and warehouse. It was gas, as we entered the factory they turned on the lights and as we left they turned them off again!!

10th April
It was raining today so we took it easy at the hostel doing internet jobs etc. We adidn't venture out too far and anyway we had everything we wanted to see in Xi'an seen by now. that night we got our night train to Shanghai - another long one about 15hours. Hard sleeper all the way for us.......
]]> Xi'an — Xi'an, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207636620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207636620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207636620/tpod.html Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:12:10 -0400 Kieran and Orla
Xi'an, China

After our 13hour train journey from Beijing we arrived here in Xi'an at 7am this morning. The train wasn't as bad as we had expected at all. It was cleanish....well alot cleaner that I had imagined. The beds weren't rock hard. They were triple bunk beds alright and we got the last 2 in our area so we were up the top. This meant that you can't sit up on the bed, so we had to lie down for the whole trip (or else stand in the hall way!) but overall it was a fine trip and another experiece.

Arrived into Xi'an train station and got collected by our hostel - they were there with the card for "Orla" held up high- very flattering. Off to our hostel - what a nice place. We are staying at a lovely hostel (Xiangzimen youth hostel) for 3Euros a night, its mad, its really good value for money we reckon! the hostel is like a tourist attraction it was so well preserved with courtyards and balconies - they really had it well done.
.
However, this city is even dirtier than Beijing, the pollution is worse here I reckon, its really bad.

We were knackered after our train journey so had an hourss nap first. Got up and headed our for a look around., Saw the city walls , Xi'an is one of the few cities in Chiona with the ofl city walls intact. Saw the bell tower and the drum tower as well. Went for a walk around the muslium quarter and the excellent markets. Xi'an is an interesting place to spend a day or two , there isn't a huge amount to see here but what there is, is nice. We got stared at even more than in Beijing and the spitteres in Xi'an are jsut as good s the Beijingers, spitting could be an new olympic sport!!!

We booked our train for Shanghai on the 10th (nearly got ripped off at the hostel though, they wanted to charge us double the actually price, as they were going through an agency so we went to get it ourselves in a place just around the corner that was in Lonely planet and saved alot of money, good ole LP!). Also we booked our Terracotta Warriors tour for tomorrow, so looking forward to that now.
]]> Beijing Olympic park — Beijing, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207402020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207402020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207402020/tpod.html Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:11:13 -0400 Kieran and Orla
Beijing, China

Today we went out to the Olympic park, that was great as well, we weren't allowed into the stadiums as they are still working on it, but it was fantastic to see it. We saw the famous "Nest" and the aquatic center. Also as the count down is well and truly on, we found the count down clock. It was really exciting seeing the place and everyone working really hard to get it up and ready.

Beijing at the moment resembles one big building site and the site is open 24hours a day. All buildings must have the exterior at least finished before the start date for the Olymipics. When we walk around the city at night, all we see are sparks flying from sky scrapers as the welders work away through the night. Its crazy, another example of it I guess! There is a huge drive on here as well to learn English before the start date, one example is the taxi men all have to have a little English for it.

After that we went to Tianamen square and they were lowering the flag when we were there, I think they do it every evening but there were still thousands of people around. The square is huge, it took us about three quaters of an hour to walk all around it, its really big and of course we saw the picture of the chairman himself.....what a man!

We met Kierans' cousin's husband Gordon for dinner, it was great to catch up with him. He certainly entertained us with the things he has learned so far from living here. He brought us to a trendy going out area so we spent the night chatting there.

Things are really cheap here though, my god, a bus ride for about an hour is 10cent. All the clothes here are for nothing, like fake designer gear for less than 2Euros!!!!classy!

Gordon brought us to this market where you see the Chinese actually eating scorpians, mice and other absolutely disgusting things, unforunetly I didn't have the right change for anything, so we were left hungry! ya right we nearly threw up.

Our last day in Beijing we spent in the Temple of Heaven, The Summer Palace, Tianamen square and hagling at the markets. Its great fun hagling here, you ask them the price and then you say "you are joking" and offer them under 10% for it. They laugh and it goes on, you end up getting it for about 15% of there original price - mighty craic. Orla was never really into haggling before but she is really getting into it here.

Our bus to Xi'an was at 5pm, so it was quick smart back to the hostel and head to the massive train station for our 13hour journey to Xi'an. We opted for the hard sleeper (there are ordinary seats, hard sleeper or soft sleeper, obviously the seats are the cheapest and the soft sleeper the most expensive). We'll see how it goes.
]]> THE GREAT WALL — Beijing, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207293360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207293360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207293360/tpod.html Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:10:45 -0400 Kieran and Orla
Beijing, China

There are many different parts of the great wall that you can visit (seeing as it was once 4000miles long!!) We decided to go to a less touristy one than the main (Badaling) one. The Badaling part of the wall is the best part of the wall that is rebuilt. The one we chose was Simatai, we actually walked from Jinshanling to Simatai and it was just fantastic. Most of this part of the wall is not rebuilt, so you see the real original.

The most famous is the wall built between 200 BC - 220 BC, but not much of this part of the wall remains today and it was much farther north than the current wall, which was built during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

The Simatai part of the wall is about 120km away from Beijing, a mere hours drive for us, right - no not in Beijing traffic, it took us 3 and a half hours to get there and about 4 and a half to get back. We left the hostel at 7am and got back at 9pm that night, it was a long day, but boy was it worth it. WOW! We hiked along the wall for about 4hours and it was just great. We had the best weather for a walk along the great wall, it was a perfect blue sky with not a cloud in sight. It was just magnificient. It was even so much better than I expected, the scenery from the wall was amazing as well. Some sections of the wall were heart thumpingly steep but this added to the excitment of it all.

We met this lovely Romanian couple at the start of the walk and we ended up walking all day with them, they were really nice and really funny, the guy was a bit heavy and he found the walk really hard going but he was so witty about it.

At the end of the walk there was a flying fox over the river back to the bus, (obviously you didn't have to do this you could walk down) but with every confidence in chinese ropes we hooked on and off we went. It was a perfect end to a great walk.



]]> 15 million Chinese and us in Beijing — Beijing, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207166280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207166280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207166280/tpod.html Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:10:15 -0400 Kieran and Orla
Beijing, China

The bus from Tianjin dropped us off outside the city and we then had to get another bus to take us to the downtown area. The bus which took about an hour cost a whole 10cent each, pretty good value for money.
We had awful trouble finding the hostel, we followed there directions perfectly, got the subway fine, walked along the right street but there was just no sign of the bleeding hostel. So we went into the reception of a posh hotel and asked them for help, they didn't know where the place was either, but the lovely receptionist rang the hostel for us and someone came and met us. Basically, you're not meant to find the hostel with these directions, its impossible. You have to ring them and they will meet you somewhere, but the hostel don't tell you this until you ring them in distress wondering where the hell they are. As the hostel is in an old part of the city in a "Hutong", its all alleyways, so I'd say the postman has trouble!! We were so knackered after our 2 days of travelling we got some pot noodles and hit the sack!

The hostel as well as every other house in the Hutong is designed according to the rules of feng Shui. This means that the dwelling is based on a central rectangular courtyard, the 4 buildings surrounding the courtyard are perfectly symetrical to each other (ying and yang), the yard itself faces south and therefore the doorway into the dwelling itself is facing north.

The next day we decided to visit the Forbidden city.

The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the mid-Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. It is located in the middle of Beijing and now houses the Palace Museum. For almost five centuries, it served as the home of the Emperor and his household, and the ceremonial and political centre of Chinese government.
Built from 1406 to 1420, the complex consists of 980 surviving buildings with 8,707 rooms and covers 720,000 square metres. The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 and is listed by UNESCO as the largest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world.

Since 1924, the Forbidden City has been under the charge of the Palace Museum, whose extensive collection of artwork and artefacts were built upon the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The Forbidden City was the most crowded tourist spot we've even been in, there were so many people around, so many tours going on it was crazy, so there was no hope of getting a photo without lots of heads in it!

We spent about 5 hours in here, just wandering around and taking it all in.

After the Forbidden city we went on a free tour with our hostel of the Hutong area. This was very interesting, we were meant to go into lots of temples for free but they were all conviently closed!The tour was organised at an appropriate time when they would all be closed. There was an lovely English girl with us who was cute enough to take the script off our 13year old guide and the script read for each temple "unforunately it is closed", sure the 3 of us were only laughing and the poor little guide just played along! But the tour was still worthwhile.

She brought us to the local market where they sold everything, I mean everthing, there were animals, spiders, frogs, turtles,snakes scorpians, every kind of fish you would imagine all packed into tiny aquariums, lizards, O! it was awful, and these are all for eating, not for pets, jeeze, they would eat anything and to top it all off we saw them selling maggots, hello like, maggots....O! my god, I was itching for ages after it, imagining they had jumped on me, O! dear, good to see it as you don't see these in the touristy markets.......
]]> Landing in China — Tianjin, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207118640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207118640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1207118640/tpod.html Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:09:36 -0400 Kieran and Orla
Tianjin, China

We arrived in Tianjin, China at about 3pm. We were really excited about stepping foot in China to see what the place is really like. We were glad to get off the ferry, 24hours was enough for us. We made our way to security and passed through without any problems, they didn't ask for anything other than our visa......we had everything in order but after the women in Oz freeking us out about the Asian countries turning people away if they don't have there flight back to their home country - this was a major phew! All the talk about China would have you thinking all kinds of things about the place but after all we had no trouble getting in.

Our luck in finding an ATM to get some RMB was scarce though. As we were being haggled to get into taxis and buses (something that we have not encountered since 19th of December (South America))We were not able to convience them to take Korean Won (We didn't want to use our US Dollars, as these are our last resort in a situation like this). Luckily a guy we spoke to us on the boat saw our distress and came out asking what was up. We told him we had no RMB and he said " No Problem I'll help ye". Fair play to him. He exchanged money for us at a fair rate for everyone and got us onto the same bus as him. Its only 130km to Beijing, but it took about 4hours.On the bus journey our friend got up and gave a speech to the rest of the passengers about China. He was Korean himself and was basically taking all there migrants under his wing and helping them along -a really decent fella.
]]> We got Seoul — Seoul, Korea Rep. http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1206967920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1206967920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1206967920/tpod.html Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:08:58 -0400 Kieran and Orla
Seoul, Korea Rep.

Sunday 30th mar
As we didnt have a huge amount of time in Seoul and we wanted to see as much as we could we decided to go with the city bus tour option (this is the first city bus tour we have taken on our trip). It was 10,000 Korean Won (about 6 euros) for a hop on hop off type bus tour all around the city.

So off we went and saw the following main sights:
Changyeonygung Palace, this place was built around 1418. It became a park with a zoo and a botanical garden during the Japanese colonial rule.
Insa dong area of the city, there were lots of stalls and markets here. There were people putting on cookery displays, lots of free samples, hot chocolate and wine.....pretty good. Also there were games on the street to entertain the shoppers, games like keepy uppy using a shuttle cock instead of a football, an arrow throwing competition which Kieran tried his hand at, however he will have to practice a bit more if he wants to win these games!!! There are lots of traditional restaurants and tea houses here aswell except that nearly all the menus were solely in Korean, no pictures or numbers of prices to help us. Anyway we managed to conjure up a tasty lunch based on street food, sausages on skewers and some sweet breads kind of like dough nuts, yum yum yum.
Back on the buses and off to see the Presidents' residence.

Then on to another few palaces, all good too. From here we went to see the 2 main museums in Seoul, the Seoul National Museum of Korea ( all 6.6 acres of the display!!!!) and then on to the War Memorial of Korea, it was excellent, we saw all the old weapons and videos explaining the conflicts in Korea, very informative and the 2 hours we spent here could easily have been 4 except that it was closing time there.

Following the museums, we drove up to the tower, this is a huge tower on top of a mountain in the middle of the city, very impressive and fantastic views from there of the city.

Finally we drove through the main market areas of the city, Dongdaemen and Itaewan shopping streets. These shops stay open all night and are packed full of everything you can imagine. We decided to refrain from shopping and spare our money for China where we will get better value we reckon.

So that night we went out for more typical Korean food, kimchi. This is a traditional dish of spiced cabbage, spiced to preserve it during the winter and it has now become so popular that it is now eaten all year round.

So off we went to a reataurant area and headed to the restuarant. As it turned out the guy runing the restaurant was a bit of a celebrity chef in Korea....BONUS!!!! We ordered savoury pancakes and some kimchi. So the bowl of kimchi arrives on the table and the waitress puts it on a flame that was built into the table. There were loads of side vegs aswell including some raw meat!!! We ate almost everything and then set our sights on the kimchi which we reckoned was about boiled up by now, just as we were about to dole it out the waitress came over and lobbed in 2 litres of stock/water into our kimchi. Oh no! so we had to wait for another 10 mins for this to heat up and boil off some of the water. Then we tucked in, it was delicious, BUT SOOOO HOT!!!!! I mean it was the hottest spiciest thing we had ever eaten, being honest we were sweating and nearly passed out from it. By now it had dawned on us why the waitress was topping up the concentrated spicy water in order to dilute it, ah well we learnt the hard way... After this excellent food we had to go for icecream to cool us down. It was delicious, Baskin Robbins, strawberry cheesecake delish!!!!

Monday 31st March

On our last full day in Seoul we had a few sights to see so up early and off out to see them. We went to see a traditional Korean village showing how the people used to live during the dynasties, and a time capsule that is buried in the ground.

We went to the Gyeongybokgung Palace as well. It was massive. The palace built in 1394 and is the oldest palace of the Joseon dynasty (which lasted from 1392 - 1910, and was the last dynasty in Korea as 1910 saw the Japanese invade and subsequently the dynasty fell. Then following WW2 when Korea was given back to the Koreans it was made a Republic. We spent a few hours walking around the palace grounds and it was very impressive. The highlight of the palace had to be the changing of the guards ceremony. All the style and pomp that you would expect with such a historic drama was evident and the costumes were amazing, it was great to see.

Then we went for dinner, it was nice but not up to the standard of the celeb chef the night before. We had a nice stroll around the markets and then headed back to the hostel. Back at the hostel we met up with the 3 lovely Scottish girls that were in our room and were chatting away with them. Then Mr Bong knocked on the door and asked us to come out to the main room (the only room really in the place) so we went out and found that he had got a nice big bucket of garlic chicken, some Korean rice wine and some Korean rice vodka.....strong tack. So we all sat around the floor enjoying this feast and then Mr Bong says 'anyone want to go to karaoke?' Sure how could we say no? So the whole gang of us headed off to a karaoke place around the corner. Basically the way it works is you hire out a room for your group for an hour or whatever. The room comes equipped with a song book, karaoke machine, big screen, disco lights etc and 2 microphones. Then somebody would sneak out and get some beer or vodka etc and everyone would sing away happy out until the hour was up. Then out you go. We had mighty craic altogether, the gang we had were brillliant, it was an excellent night.

Tuesday 1st April

Got the longest subway and taxi ever to Incheon ferry port. We wern't singing anymore!!! Then we got boarded on our massive ship and off to China we went!!!! The boat was nice, but there wasn't much to do really. The passengers were 99.9% Koreans and Chinese, so chatting wasnt really an option. We had a nice room though and spent our time relaxing and watching dvds.
]]> Korean Living — Busan, Korea Rep. http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1206844020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1206844020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1206844020/tpod.html Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:08:24 -0400 Kieran and Orla
Busan, Korea Rep.

The ferry crossing on the famous Beetle took 3hours and we arrived in Korea at midday. Busan is a port city and we've never seen such a massive port before. There must have been about 100 cranes for loading and offloading the cargo ships. It was massive. The place looked like its booming and we hadn't even set foot in the country yet.

Next problem, Korean immigration, the Jetstar ladies at Cairns a few weeks ago had us scared about entering Korea without a flight back to Europe because they made such a big deal about it and made us book the $2000 flights back to Oz. So eventhough we knew we had everthing in order (we have out ferry from Korea to China booked and our flight from China to Bangkok booked so if anything was to happen us, Korea wouldn't have to worry, just land us on the ferry to China!!!) we were still worried. Naturally, there was no hassle at all , the usual forms to fill out and they didn't even ask one question. They welcomed us with open arms!

O! was a morning! In Busan anyway we managed to find our way from the port to the train station ok and got our 6 hour train to Seoul.

As we noticed on the trains, Korea is a very mountainous country, they were all around us, pity we won't spend more time here to do some hiking, another time maybe. Alos, we passed hundreds of industrial green houses, loads of 'em.

Also we've noticed a few differences between here and Japan, definitely not as rich a country, the trains are not as fast or high quality. The people aren't half as glamorous but we've had more people coming up talking to us , asking do we want help-we must look even more lost than usual!


Arrived into Seoul train station ....massive spot. Got the subway to ourside of the city and walked to our hostel, past lots of neon on the way to Mr Bongs place. Its a small hostel, run by a lovely guy Mr Bong. In typical Korean style the house has one main room which serves as the tv room, office, internet access, dining, sleeping quarters etc, all done in this one room. It was a small and cosy place and very nice. We basically just dropped our stuff and headed out for a walk around. We had a lovely meal, nice and spicey.....

Korean Notes so far
Not as clean as Japan people
Not as trendy fashion wise
Not as many people speak english
Korean sounds a lot different to Japanese - more gutteral i.e. rolling their r's and sounds a lot like turkish really. Food is way more spicey here
70% mountaineous country
Marriage is a big thing as regards respect,
Older people are respected by their juniors but married people are more respected
]]> What a morning! — Busan, Korea Rep. http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1206794940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1206794940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/orlao0/kieran_and_orla/1206794940/tpod.html Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:07:53 -0400 Kieran and Orla
Busan, Korea Rep.

Well we had one of the most exciting/traumatic mornings that we have had in a longtime today. It started at 4:30 am with Kieran coming into my dorm telling me it was 6:30 and we are late already, as it turned out his watch had been acting up lately and the time had changed by itself during the night. And fortunately we were not late but an hour and a half early....nice!!!!!! guess who had to make the brekky this morning???!!!!

So we got up at 6 and headed off happily for the bus stop. We found it no problem and hopped on the no. 11 bound for the ferry port...so we thought anyway.... After a half an hour on the bus we became suspicious as to why we hadn't reached the port yet or seen even a seagull, not to mind a bit of water!! So we asked the bus driver in our best Japanese and he told us we were on the wrong bus, well the right bus but going in the wrong direction...feck us anyway.... We now only had 20 mins to get to the port so it was a major panic. We wouldn't have enough yens either as we had that calculated to a tee, how much we needed, bad idea. This situation never happpened to us before, so we were really disappointed with ourselves, someone must have spiked our sushi!!!!!
Anyway we flagged a taxi down (taxis in japan are notoriously expensive and not an hour earlier, before we had realised we were on the wrong bus Orla had been saying how good we were that we hadn't taken a single taxi while we were there, she jinxed us!!!!). Anyway, the taxi stopped and the lovely Japanese man with a car you could eat off of, a dickie bow and sparkling white driving gloves on smiles at us as if to ask where do ye want to go? Then the games began.........Our Japanese has never been our strong point, so we knew we were in it deep when he couldnt speak english. First up Orla tries saying to him "International Port, and Ferry and Beetle ( the name of the ferry we were getting), He would repeat every word but didnt have a clue if we were clucking or cackling. Like a tag team Orla leaned out of the window and Kieran leaned in. Kieran began by sketching a picture of a ship, unfortunately his art skills seem to be a little on the rusty side, and the message did not transmit. So Orla came back with her second wind and says "Korea", bingo, the old one word tactic had worked again. Phew! Well in fairness to the taxi driver he made some time getting to the port, passing out, ducking in and out of lanes he really did his level best for us and fair play to him he got us there on time.

So we got to the port at 8am just on time and the next problem was would the checkin take mastercard, visa or US dollars, as we had no yen left. We needed to pay about 8Euros each for the fuel surcharge. We were really worried about this as anywhere we went in Japan they didn't take credit car, its hard to believe as they spend so much money here but its mainly a cash society.So we weren't confident that they would take mastercard and we would be stuck again. Well, as luck would have it there was a money exchange at the port. (O! as well international ATM's are very hard to find here in Japan, you have to know where they are as they are usually tucked away in a back st post office or somewhere remote like that.)
So Orla queued for the check in and Kieran went to change some US Dollars, but then we realised that they do actually take mastercard-we won! problem solved.

So we checked in, went through immigration and boarded the boat, set to depart at 9am - Phew!! we made it. We could hardly believe it when we were sitting on the boat, that was the closest encounter yet!

The end of Japan though, it was a fast 2 weeks but porbably the most rewarding country to travel in. The people here are its best quality, they are so helpful and nice. WOW! we have alot to learn from there attitude towards each other. You see business men bowing to each other on the street, they have huge respect for other people.
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