peterebecca's TravelStream™ — Recent TravelPod.com entries TravelStream™ news feed for member peterebecca on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/peterebecca en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:53:45 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com Universal Studios - Osaka — Osaka, Kinki, Japan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227923040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227923040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227923040/tpod.html Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:53:45 -0500 The Blissful World of Travel and Unemployment...
Osaka, Kinki, Japan

We decided to take a day away from visiting the hundreds of world heritage sites in Japan and had a fun day at Universal Studios Japan.

Pete was in heaven when we went on the Back to the Future ride in a Delorean (some people just never grow up!).

Although these theme parks are always a little tacky, the rides were great and the shows such as Wicked made for a great day of laughs.
]]> Nara — Nara, Kinki, Japan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227836580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227836580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227836580/tpod.html Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:44:58 -0500 The Blissful World of Travel and Unemployment...
Nara, Kinki, Japan

Day trip from Osaka to Nara was filled with deers and Japanese school kids asking us to complete a survey plus the standard Katsu lunch (Yum!!).
]]> Kyoto — Kyoto, Kinki, Japan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227447060/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227447060/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227447060/tpod.html Sat, 13 Dec 2008 07:58:45 -0500 The Blissful World of Travel and Unemployment...
Kyoto, Kinki, Japan

We spent 3 great days in Kyoto. Such a different city to Tokyo. Checked out the temples and more autumn leaves at the bottom of both the Eastern and Western mountains surrounding Kyoto. Our first day of sightseeing was a bit of a rainy one but it was still great to check out all the temples in our rain jackets and made the hot beverages from vending machines more enjoyable. We were in Kyoto over a Japanese long weekend so everywhere we went was quite busy. On our first night we had dinner in a very small local restaurant that was showing the sumo wrestling final - Pete was hooked on sumo wrestling so it was a great experience.
Some pics here but more to come.
]]> Nikko — Nikko, Kanto, Japan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227360540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227360540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227360540/tpod.html Sat, 29 Nov 2008 03:32:59 -0500 The Blissful World of Travel and Unemployment...
Nikko, Kanto, Japan

We did a day trip from Tokyo to Nikko and had a great time seeing temples and shrines surrounded by mountains. This was a much more enjoyable day trip than our trip to Hakone.
Visiting shrines in Japan is quite a bit of fun - we played quoits at one shrine. We picked a good time to be in Japan because it is autumn and all the leaves are changing colour - never did we think we would take so many photos of leaves! But we did... so prepare to be excited by them....
]]> Shanghai — Shanghai, Shanghai, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226323500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226323500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226323500/tpod.html Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:22:53 -0500 The Blissful World of Travel and Unemployment...
Shanghai, Shanghai, China

Spent 2 days in Shanghai. Lots of funny looking buildings there. We went to an antiques market that was quite cool and kept our eyes open for an old school mahjong set - we found one that we quite liked and started the bargaining process... but our bids were a little too low for the vendor's liking so he essentially put his calculator down and told us to get out. We ended up buying a cheap plastic mahjong set for a good price.
]]> Tokyo — Tokyo, Kanto, Japan http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227533280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227533280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1227533280/tpod.html Wed, 26 Nov 2008 09:07:56 -0500 The Blissful World of Travel and Unemployment...
Tokyo, Kanto, Japan

We spent 3 days in Tokyo and had a blast. Such a crazy exciting bizarre at times city. The first thing I need to talk about is the toilets - those who have been to Japan know what I'm talking about. Most of the toilets have a side panel of buttons for various things including heating of the seat, turning the toilet into a bidet and the 'flushing sound'. The flushing sound is a recording of a toilet flushing that you can play to disguise the sound of your toilet business...very bizarre.

Tokyo was the place where I had my first hot canned beverage from a vending machine - I had a lovely (quite sweet) cafe au lait out of a can, was great! Once I worked out that you could get hot beverages from the machines I was hooked - at least 3 a day, sometimes coffee, sometimes hot chocolate. So convenient.

In our three days there we checked out most of the main areas of the city and spent money wherever we could - so many great retro/vintage second hand clothes shops - some that were a bargain, some that were very expensive. We found one in Harajuku where they wanted A$300 for an old Adidas t-shirt - we were out of our depth.

On our first day we went to Ginza where we thought the famous crossing was - it was an ok crossing but we felt like something was missing. Then the next day we went to Shibuya and we found the actual one - much more impressive, people going everywhere and so many lights and tv screens. Very cool.

Tokyo (and Japan generally) has also enabled me to feed my stationery obsession - so many little shops selling cool pens, paper, cards etc. I am in heaven but Peter not so much, he tries to rush me past the stores, not drawing attention to them, but I can sniff them out and there is usually a purchase of something I will probably never use.

We did a day trip to a region called Hakone where the main attraction was riding on various forms of transport. Both the Lonely Plant and Japan Info website actually made it sound like a lot of fun - but maybe they hadn't been there when every other person in Japan decided to take a trip to Hakone. We did get to see Mt Fuji which was cool and worth the effort but most of the day was spent queuing for transport (train/funicular/cable car/boat/bus) and riding transport with hundreds of Japanese tourists. Peter correctly summed it up when he said that he felt like he'd spent the day riding the Central Line in peak hour. At the end of the day we counted how many separate bits of transport we had been on and the count was over 10. Enough said.

We also did a day trip to Nikko which was much more successful than the Hakone trip. See separate entry.
]]> Beijing — Beijing, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226582760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226582760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226582760/tpod.html Mon, 24 Nov 2008 20:16:14 -0500 The Blissful World of Travel and Unemployment...
Beijing, China

We spent about 5 days in Beijing and had a cracking time. Check out the photos. More soon.
]]> Hangzhou — Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226149860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226149860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226149860/tpod.html Mon, 24 Nov 2008 08:13:56 -0500 The Blissful World of Travel and Unemployment...
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

The main sights in Hangzhou are the lake and the couple of islands that are in it. We spent about half a day sightseeing around the lake in the coolest weather we had probably encountered so far in China. Was some very pretty scenery and very busy with groups of Chinese tourists (a lot more staring to be endured). Next stop is Shanghai.
]]> Yangzte River — Chongqing, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226237760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226237760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1226237760/tpod.html Mon, 10 Nov 2008 09:06:30 -0500 The Blissful World of Travel and Unemployment...
Chongqing, China

From Chengdu we took a local train to ChongQing to board our 3 day cruise on the Yangtze River.  Catching a local train is definitely a different experience.  They don't let you onto the platform to board the train until about 1 minute before the train is due to leave so the waiting room is jammed with people lining up, waiting for the gates to open, and then it is a free-for-all to try and get to the train.  Made more interesting with heavy luggage and a massive Chinese fan that our local guide in Yangshuo would make a nice gift for us...I don't think it will be making it back to Australia.

 

We arrived in ChongQing and checked into our rooms on the boat (very nice) and then went for a hot pot meal in town.  Hot pot has got to be one of the most unhealthy things you can eat but a lot of fun.  Essentially the Chinese version of fondue but a lot spicier and a lot less cheese.  In the middle of the table you have a big pot of oil and chilli and and smailler pot of non-chilli oil stuff and you get a whole bunch of meat and veg and cook it in the oil.  Was actually quite yummy but you felt a little oily afterwards.
 
Because of the time of year the boat is made up of predominantly Chinese tourists who I think find us quite entertaining.  The food is good and the spin on western food is interesting - at one lunch we had chips and pasta both coated in sweet and sour sauce.  On the first day we stopped off at the Fengdu ghost city.  It is
interesting to learn about the effect of the Three Gorges Dam which has displaced approximately 2.3 million people due to the rising water caused by the dam.  The local guide we had in Fengdu was quick to explain how wonderful the dam is because she got to move to a nicer new city across the water... felt a bit like she had been told to be very positive about the dam.

Another afternoon we got off the boat and took a ferry up into what used to be a stream (now really a river) to be rowed in a 'peapod' boat by 4 poor Chinese farmers.  Before the three gorges dam was constructed (which caused the water level to rise by 185 metres) there was a stream where you would be rowed downstream and then pulled back upstream through the current (hard to explain but essentially the rowers would get out
the of the boat and pull the boat along while walking on the stream bed).  Apparently in the 'old days' these
rowers used to pull the boat naked because there home made clothing caused too much chaffing.  I'm serious - the ticket we were given for the tour had naked butts on it.  They were clothes theses days (thankfully) and because there is no longer a stream because the water is too deep we were just rowed about in a very unstable boat for an hour...
 
Late on the last night on the boat we entered the 5 stage lock process of the dam - essentially 5 locks required to lower the boat 120 metres.  Pretty impressive - much more impressive than Camden lock.  We visited the three gorges dam on the last day but because it isn't finished yet we couldn't go inside - just lots of pictures from viewing points.  It isn't the largest dam in the world but is supposedly the largest energy conservation project... or something like that, I kind of stopped listening, there was a lot of propaganda being spouted.
]]> Xi'an — Xi'an, Shaanxi, China http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1225979760/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1225979760/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/peterebecca/1/1225979760/tpod.html Sun, 09 Nov 2008 09:08:16 -0500 The Blissful World of Travel and Unemployment...
Xi'an, Shaanxi, China

We had a massive travel day to get to Xi'an: a six hour bus ride to Wuhan after we got off the boat to get to the airport then a 2 hour flight.  Erghh.  Xi'an is quite a big city and is the closest city to the Terracotta Warriors.

We had fun riding bicycles around the city walls which turned out to be a bit longer than we had anticipated (about 14km) and we did a bit of souvenir shopping in the Muslim quarter.  They had the best dried fruit I have ever tasted in the Muslim quarter - dried kiwifruit and mango for very cheap.  You can even buy a bulk packet of dried kiwifruit where each slice of kiwifruit is individually packaged.  They love individual packaging in China.
The Terracotta Warriors were very interesting.  I don't think we realised how many there were or how large an area they covered.  Currently they have unearthed 8,000 warriors.  It is quite a process to reconstruct them as most of them look like they are broken into many pieces.  They have uncovered more 'pits' of acrobats, concubines and other things that they are still excavating so not open to the public.  We felt a bit jibbed on the way there though when we were taken to a 'factory' that makes the souvenir warriors and were shown the process of how they make them, interesting enough, but then we had to wade our way through 6 rooms of lacquer furniture, carpets and cheap souvenirs to get to the exit!
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