Ohayo!

Hi to everyone from Tokyo again.

Since last time we have recovered from karaoke, had a day or two off, then checked out Osaka castle in the middle of the city, before meeting up with another of my friends (Showji) and had a walk around town. We ended up spending a few hours at Yodobashi Camera in Osaka - one of the largest electronics chains around. To get an idea of how large their store was, imagine a JB-Hifi, then multiply that by 5 stories. That was the size of the Osaka branch (still not the largest in Japan, more on that later).



A garden in Kyoto.



One of the main Kyoto temples.



Osaka Castle.

Unfortunately our time in Osaka was over, so we saw off Yoko one last time (and gave her some chocolates from Switzerland for being such a good tour guide) and made our way to the Shinkansen again. Upon arriving back in Tokyo, we immediately met up with Marie again (she had a day off the next day) and went to a local bar near out hostel. The next day, she took us to Harajuku, where we saw the Meiji Jingu (Meiji Shrine). This place was huge - much like Osaka Castle, it was surrounded by all sides by the urban sprawl of Tokyo.



The main gate at Meiji Jingu.

From here we had lunch at a buffet (still floored at how they charged more for males than females), before heading to a market street in Harajuku, where we bought some tshirts, gifts, and oddities at the \100 shop. Our night led us to Roppongi, the centre of Tokyo nightlife, where we had a few drinks at a bar (taking advantage of happy hour prices) before settling on some ramen for dinner.

Without Marie to guide us the next day, we made our way to Akihabara - undoubtedly the geek capital of the world. As far as the eye could see were stores selling Hobby arts (figurines), Manga (comic books) and games (games). It was here we found Yodobashi-Akiba - the largest single store I've ever seen in my life. It was larger than the one in Osaka, and 8 stories tall. I struggled to get the whole thing in the one photo.



Yodobashi-Akiba...almost all of it.

As you can guess, we got lost in there for about 4 hours, before emerging and browsing the plethora of markets that lined the streets, buying a few gifts for friends and Biddo again trying his luck at the UFO catcher machines (no such luck this time around). After two days of nonstop walking around Tokyo, we headed back and headed straight for bed (well I did, anyway).

Again, sorry for not being able to call/message but happy birthday to my brother Adrian and his new wife Nicole for the 28th. Hope you all had a good time.

Cheers, and sayonara. We head home in 3 days!

Culture shock in 3...2...1...

Hi All.

Well we've been in Japan for a week, so it's probably time for a blog post. Since we landed on Monday, we have been going non stop thanks to all the people Daniel knows in Japan (Hi Marie, Yoko S, Yoko T, Yoshi, Anna, Dan...). I can tell it's a lot more fun when you know some local people as they know where everything is (especially the bars) and it just makes travelling so much easier.

So far in Japan we have Visited an Onsen (Japanese spa), went to a sushi restaurant (and yes, I ate everything there, much to the amusement of Japenese dining companions who loved the different looks on my face),　Shibuya, where we met Hachiko (Dog statue) and saw a level crossing which just boggles the mind (I swear about one thousand people crossed it each time the lights went) and this was just in Toyko.

The onsen has to be in the most interesting place we visted in our two days in Toyko. An onsen is a big spa bath place were pretty much you get naked and sit in rideciously hot water with other guys and in the onsen we were out had an outside area were with bathers the sexes could imntermingle (and I could uncross my legs). The first pool we entered was a mild pool and not very warm or thats what we were told, this turned out to be a complete fabrication (or at least in our opionon) as Daniel actually yelled as he entered the water and I did my best to not copy him. It was Friggin boiling! In the end it was tolerable if I didn't move and stared foward thinking about how cold Europe was. Still it was an interesting experiance, especially considering I was the only white guy in the entire place, which aparently made me a bit of an attraction.

After two days in Toyko we headed down to Osaka, to meet Yoko and Yoko, Who we spent the next few days with. Together we visited the aquarium, Kyoto's main temples, a Karoke bar and many, many resteraunts. One of our traveling companions a certain Yoko S has a hunger that defies logic, one time just walking out a resteraunt (having finshed her own plate and helped Daniel and Yoko T finsh hers) she saw another resteraunt and declared we should eat there...and she ment right then.　

I will have to admit the most fun thing we have done in Japan has been Karoke! For the price of 2200 yen per person you get a room and unlimted drinks for 2 hourｓ, and they're not slow with the drink service. With enough alcohol even my singing voice is tolerable (not really, we just cared less -Dan), or in the case of a certain Yoko mabye a bit too much alcohol. While I won't go into too much details carrying her down the stairs was quite difficult and her decision to have a sleep on the stairs when the last train was leaving 5 minutes may not have been the best decisions. This was the cause of Wongo and I's first criminal activity of the trip as we both jumped the turnstile to carry her up to the platform. An entertaining night to say the least.

Kyoto was beautiful, the view and the temples were amazing. We spent a whole day walking around the hillside of Kyoto and it even started snowing as we neared the top - truly amazing given it was fairly temperate and the skies were half clear. Hopefully I'll be able to add some photos just to show because I will not be able to describe the view!

Anyways hope you'reall having an excellent time back home.

Cheers Biddo

　　 　

Quick note to those at home

Happy Australia day and Kong Hei Fat Choi to those back at home! Apologies for the delay in posts, but we've been flat out since arriving in Japan. I think Biddo has one on the way though.

All the best, from Michael and Daniel.

In Köln

And so our stay in Köln, and Europe, has come to an end.

A lot of the other students have asked me at the end of this week, if I was really bored of the city after following Michael here, but not partaking in any of the study tour activities. I survived, mostly by exploring the city, finding places to eat, and doing some shopping.

Shortly after my birthday celebrations (and the no doubt wonderful morning for all the students who had to go to Bonn the next day) the weekend rolled around, and we discovered a Go-Karting track halfway between Köln and Bonn to race around since the Nurburgring was covered in snow. We didn't know how much to buy though, so when we bought 4 races and found ourselves exhausted after 2 (it really killed my arms) we headed home and went back the next day. Before we left, we also headed out to Michael Schumacher's hometown, 30 minutes east of Köln by train, and went to the Go-karting track there as well. We had to compensate for not being able to see the Nurburgring somehow.

I also went with some of the other students to an Ice Hockey game last sunday, between the Köln Haie (Sharks) and Duisburg (unsure about their mascot). Despite not knowing the basic rules (the game is surprisingly played in thirds), it was very exciting to watch - a fight even broke out, much to the spectators delight. Köln ended up winning in overtime by golden goal, 4-3. Crowd was ecstatic.

We've been eating out quite a bit while in Köln (much to the detriment of my bank balance), though variety isn't the spice of life here - selection ranges from German pubs/breweries, Italian restaurants and Kebab shops, repeat. Despite this, we did have some fantastic food in Köln (including the best Spaghetti Bolognaise I've ever eaten), and all in all, had a great time with the other Aussie and German students. Proost!

(Daniel)

Biddo and the Chocolate Factory!

Hi All

Sorry about the delay between posts, but in my defense I've been busy. University is currently in full swing as I've had 6 hours of lectures today - one on the monetary policy and economic integration of the European Union and the other on business and economic structure of Germany (Germany apparently has a large manufacturing sector, who knew?).

Classes can be interesting as we have a good group of students (a mix of German and Australian students), but when you're studying international tax law, well...

We've been on a lot of tours and have visited both Bonn and Frankfurt, and after experiencing negative 15 degree Celsius in Frankfurt, I'm never going to complain about an Australian winter again. Frankfurt was, apart from the cold, very interesting - we had a meeting with Deutsch Bank (Germany's largest bank) and the German Share lobby group who spent the entire time calling Germans idiots for nott owning shares... which I thought was a big call when the market has just fallen 40%, but hey - it's not like he has an invested interest or anything.

Just recently a person you may know has become a man (Hey, I resent the implication I wasn't beforehand -Dan), yes Daniel Wong who just a few years ago managed to enter a movie as a child (or maybe it was last week) turned 21. This had to be celebrated and the remainder of the Aussie contingent agreed that despite it being a thursday night with an early start to uni the next day, we would have a fairly significant night. While I will not state the time we got home (my grandmother is reading this after all, Hi Judy) you can't just end a night like this early and we went to a Karoke bar to start (I'm currently taking orders for the video of Daniel and I singing Cant Stop by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Intergaltic by the Beastie Boys) and then to a nightclub called Das Ding - which played every type of music imaginable. Seriously, if someone can find me a nightclub that will in the space of a few hours play both Hanson's 'mmm Bop' and Heavy Metal I will be quite suprised.

Despite our extensive uni commitments, we have found time to enjoy a few attractions inculding go karting, which was fun if not a bit annoying for me as I discovered that I had a 20kg handicap to everyone else in the race (never thought I'd ever see the day where I was the fatty of the group). Despite this, it was good fun - even though I never was able to place anying better than third out of five and had to endure the humliation of being being overtaken by an Asian (I'll get you Daniel, just wait).

The most exciting attraction and the reason for this blogs title was my visit to the Colonge Chocolate Museum, which was both informative and entertaining. They also have a chocolate fountain which you are given wafers, which have been dipped in said fountain. I may have had more than one.

Hope you are all in good health.

Cheers Michael

2009

I've been strongly 'advised' by several people to update this - sorry for the delay. Internet cafés that haven't been shut down due to rent issues (wasted half a day walking around Köln before I found that one) are hard to come by. And yeah, I've been pretty lazy since we got here (ask Biddo, for once it's him waking me up instead of the other way around).

So shortly after Christmas we made our way east to Berlin. As far as first impressions go, Berlin's was the strongest yet, the -4°C winds we got in our faces as we stepped out from the Central Station making the trip to the hostel somewhat uncomfortable.

During the day however, the chill was bearable. We took the Third Reich walking tour the next day, where we were shown around to places like the Reichstag, Soviet Memorial, Jewish Memorial, as well as the site of Hitler's bunker, and the former SS and Gestapo buildings.



The Reichstag. The line for entry was easily 100 metres long.



The park adjacent to the Reichstag.



Officially titled 'Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe'. Highly open to interpretation.



A section of the Berlin wall, and the foundations of the thought-to-be-destroyed SS and Gestapo headquaters.

For New Years Eve, we siezed the opportunity to partake in activities otherwise illegal in Australia, and bought ourselves some fireworks (pack of about 8 rockets) for the night. Don't have very good photos of us setting them off, but I did take a few videos, so I'll upload them to YouTube when I find a computer with a USB port.

Went out drinking (responsibly) that night, then headed down to the Brandenburg Gate for the countdown (not before stopping off at Freidrichstraße for a celebratory bratwurst). However, given that roughly 4 million Berliners had the same idea that night, we got nowhere near the gate, but were trated to a pretty impressive fireworks show anyway, thanks to the multitude of people setting theirs off in the streets.





The fireworks (especially firecrackers) started in the streets as early as the afternoon on New Years Eve, and didn't stop until two days after the new year. Once everything opened again on the next day, we took a day trip to the Sachenhausen Concentration camp. Took some photos, whicl I'll upload later, but it was a pretty sobering experience. Our tour guide went into great detail on the living conditions, daily life, as well as the multitude of ways SS guards could torture of kill the prisoners. Not nice, though the tour was pretty good though. It was extremely cold that day too (negative temperature, plus a strong wind), but I think we're starting to get used to it.

That brings us to Köln, where we've been for the last three days. The first thing you see stepping outside from the station is the Dom - Cologne's massive Cathedral that only survived the bombings of WWII because Allied pilots used it to navigate due to its sheer size. It apparently houses the remains of the Three Wise men, which are only on display on the 12th day after Christmas (which happened to be yesterday), so I checked it out. It's definately bigger than the Notre Dame, and noone seemed to have any problems with taking photos inside (much like the Notre Dame, only they had signs).

Biddo's started his study course now, so I've been spending the last few days exploring the town and doing some gift shopping, while at nighttime we usually hang out with some of the other Australian/Malaysian/German students doing the course. It's also my 21st tomorrow (today for you guys) so we're heading out to a restaurant then a series of pubs that some of the other students picked out.

Tomorrow (or the first morning I get out of bed before 10) I'll probably head down with the students to the Uni so I can upload more photos using their computers (and enjoy some free internet for once), as well as frantically plan the Japan leg of our trip (of which everything is still unbooked, save for flights).

Hope you're all well, and wish you all a happy new year from myself and Michael!