Photos so far

The plan has changed a bit on the photo front but I'm pleased to reveal that you can peruse the pictorial record of my travels so far by following these links:

Uganda
Tanzania - Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater and Pangani River
Zanzibar
Malawi - Mzuzu and Kande Beach
Zimbabwe - Great Zimbabwe Ruins and Bush Camp
Zimbabwe - Antelope Park
Zimbabwe - more Antelope Park
Hong Kong
Narita
Japan - Sapporo I
Japan - Sapporo II
Japan - Sapporo III
Japan - Nagoya
Japan - Osaka's Rice Planting Festival
Japan - Kyoto, first visit
Japan - Himeji
Japan - Hiroshima and Miyajima
Japan - Fukuoka, Nagasaki, Beppu and Kagoshima
Japan - Nansei-shoto I

There are a few more to come from the past week once I work out what this computer wants me to do...

PS It's raining here too...

Typhoo - NOT tea

I was going to continue the post I've started detailing what I've been up to since leaving Sapporo about 5 weeks ago but thought, nah, I'm already behind so will make the shocking and unprecedented move of writing about something that just happened. I know, I might have to lie down in a minute too...

So, you may have heard that Japan is currently in the grip of a typhoon, either from me or because you've been intently monitoring the meteorological status of my last known whereabouts... Really, no? Maybe that was just a dream then... Anyway, I'm in Naha airport on Okinawa island an have to share the reason my current excitement.

I've just fulfilled one of my ambitions for this trip. After several false starts at trying to make it off Ishigaki island and being thwarted by the cursed typhoon (pronounced taifoo in Japanese, geddit??) I am finally a little bit nearer to Kyoto, where I had planned to be all along by tomorrow for their biggest festival of the year, Gion Matsuri (will report back on that once I've actually been to it) and the final step happens in 50 minute when my flight from Naha to Kobe takes off.

The ambition didn't have to do with a freakily accurate premonition of tropical-cyclone-stops-play proportions, but rather to do with the way I came about being on the flight... You see, I've always wanted to saunter up to the airline desk, credit card gleaming in my clammy paw, and buy a ticket for the next flight. Yes, there are Friends and Hollywood influences aplenty, and of course it's cheesy as all hell, but so what? So that's what I just did - and it was a bargain!

Check facebook for some recently added photos with some more to come. Apologies for the lack of photos on this blog and of links in this post, but hey, I've got stuff to be doing here!

Mata ne!

Japaneasy?

Oh dear, I fear that I was at the brink of admitting that Mr Carney may have been right about me... again... Matthew, my boss at LU, loves to tease me in much the same way a big brother does his little sister... this time that I wouldn't be able to keep up this blog or a journal... Well, in a way he's right as I've not been to consistent with either but I'm not ready to throw the towel in yet... Here's what happened during 3 weeks in Sapporo:

I spent most of my brain power on learning Japanese, as in how to speak... Reading is a whole other challenge that I don't have the energy to put myself through just now - I'm sending my books home and will be revisiting Nihongo for sure :) It's such an interesting language, logical in so many ways but then you realise that after learning a tiny bit of it, that to be able to actually say what you want would take at least another 6 months of intensive study... Eesh! I can say what I had for dinner, when and where but a full on political debate is a little out of teach just at the moment! And apparently I speak with the register and delivery of a news broadcaster!!!! Not bad for 3 weeks though... A million thanks to Senseis Shima, Ozawa, Uchida and Kimoto for their patience, wonderful teaching and general all round loveliness :)

Of course there were plenty of opportunities to sample the local cuisine, and I tucked in... As some of you may have already heard, my lovely teacher Ozawa-sensei took me to a friend's house just outside the historic fishing village of Otaru after I had been studying wih her for just 2 days - how's that for local hospitality!! The friend, Ken-san, built a summer house a few years ago overlooking the Sea of Japan and we were invited for a barbeque. What I hadn't bargained on was the local delicacy - see Lisa's blog for a full description! Another delicacy I got to sample that evening was shako, or mantis shrimp. Apparently they possess the most complex eyes of all animals!!! We ate ours, without eyes, after they had been boiled and stripped of their hard shell - the flavour and texture was more like lobster than prawn. Delicious!!!

In between lessons at school and studying hard in the evenings, I made time for some excursions and sightseeing, and here are the highlights...

- Sapporo Beer Museum with my new friends Esther and Rachael - we could have learned how the famous Sapporo beer is made if we could read Japanese so instead we drank 3 kinds of the product and marvelled at the oddest ice cream flavours we'd ever seen... Salt, squid, sesame seed and kim chee were some of the less appetising flavours on offer so we wimped out and went for cherry blossom, grape and green tea - yum!!

- I got an initiation into the way of the Japanese bath, or onsen, and was hooked pretty much straight away. My first trip was to a lovely onsen at Ishikari beach, where we watched the sun set over the sea after relaxing in the 41 degree hot spring water. It's an interesting way to get to know new friends intimately pretty quickly as nudity is obligatory!! Usually women and men are separated though so you only get to look at other people with the same bits as you!

- Another way to reveal the true you to new friends is at the karaoke box, which is where I went with Canadians Ellen, Rob and Kevin on their last night in Sapporo. The highlight of my set was Cherish, originally by Madonna - Johnny, that one was dedicated to you!!

- The morning after the singing extravaganza I had an early start with a sore throat for the drive to Asahiyama Zoo, a couple of hours north of Sapporo. It wasn't my best experience of Japan and the killer hangover didn't help - 4 sorry, almost deranged looking polar bears were being kept in an enclosure that was far to small and lacking in stimulation for them... Most of the animals seemed happy enough and well cared for but the bigger mammals such as lions, giraffe, rhino, elephant, tigers and leopards just didn't have enough room - it was pretty upsetting, especially after seeing so many of those animals in their natural habitat in Africa only a couple of weeks before... On the plus side, the chimps and gibbons had loads of room in newly built houses but I still couldn't help feeling uneasy...

- Finally, the day before leaving Sapporo I made a return journey to Otaru, scene of the fallopian tube eating incident of previous weeks... The second time, I played safe and went for sushi, which was extra fresh as the fish are sold at the market right there in Otaru every morning. There was also beer ice cream to be sampled - surprisingly tasty and sweet :)

Those are the highlights of my 3 weeks in Sapporo - since then, I've been to Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto and Hiroshima, where I'm staying tonight. Tomorrow I'm heading south to the island of Kyushu for a few days then some island hopping, and maybe surfing, in Okinawa :) More updates on those coming soon - thanks for your patience and keep writing comments and news from home!!

I've been a helicopter - ner ner ner ner ner!!

I'm thinking that I owe a big fat post since it's been so long so here goes - may have to come back for more tomorrow though as I've already been in the internet cafe for 2 hours and my tummy will be rumbling before long! I arrived in Hong Kong at lunchtime here (it's 7 hours ahead of the UK) and have been wandering round in a daze ever since! It's so strange to just stop for a second and realise I'm not in Africa anymore and am not with all the lovely friends I made on the trip there... I even patched it up with the know-it-all American boy (patched up the hatchet wound in his head, that is!)

I'm going to be really quite sad going to bed on my own in a room tonight after sharing tents and dorms for so long but I've got lots of reading material (2 novels bought in Joburg airport + The State of Africa - can't wait!) and journal writing to catch up on so there's plenty to keep me occupied... I'm currently feeling ever so slightly rubbish but at least the internet here is about a million times faster than the fastest one I used in Africa... Actually, according to the HK Lonely Planet that I was reading in a bookshop in the station here without the slightest intention to buy, Hong Kong was the first whole authority to make broadband available to every single one of its residents. Not to sure the same can be said for the rest of China...

To fill you in a bit on what's been going on since the last post from Zanzibar it will be easiest to work backwards and then get my journal out (once I've written it!) to refresh my memory of the middle parts... Hannah, Kat, Nic/Yvonne and I left the truck after spending 3 nights at Victoria Falls (or Mosi Oa Tunya - The Smoke that Thunders) in Zimbabwe, one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World, no less. We definitely collectively made the most of our time there: bungi jumps (not me, before you ask); gorge swings (yes, me); abseiling bum and face first; microlite flights and my 2 favourite parts - chopper rides and jetboat outings. Wow, I didn't know I had that much adrenaline in me!! The Zambezi River that flows over the Falls is at its highest in 50 years right now so Judith will be relieved to hear that white water rafting was deemed too hazardous for anyone to do until the river had calmed a bit.

I've actually been to Vic Falls once before when I was 4 on a family holiday to South Africa and Zim so as much as you might think it's doubtful that I'd have memories of it, it was exactly how I remembered. We got utterly drenched by the spray (like walking through torrential rain that stops and starts every 5 paces) when we walked to view the Falls, just as I remember from when I was little!

Now I've decided that I need to earn/get enough money to buy/live by a lake, preferably with a waterfall nearby so that I can drive a jetboat around it all day, waterski (still have to learn but that will come!) and fly my helicopter to wherever I need to go!!! Hmm, is Richard Branson already married...?

As promised, I'm off to get some yummy sushi for dinner - it's everywhere here! Don't forget to keep me posted with what's going on at home and I promise to reply to every single personal email in time - should be so much easier now I can get on the net almost daily. Ciao for now :)

Jambo from Zanzibar

I'm in Zanzibar - WOW! It's amazing - all those white sand beaches and turquoise waters in the postcards are real here and it's a tough life coping with it... Yeah right! I've just got back from snorkelling at a live reef on the east side of the island and now the worst part of my evening is going to be trying to finish this post so that I can skip across the courtyard to see the sun set from the bar, beer in hand.

It's not all easy peasy, as Charlie and anyone else who's done camping and the overland truck thing will know. We're taking it in turns to cook for everyone else in allocated groups of 3 and of course it was my group's turn for breakfast the morning that we were in a rush to get a ferry from Dar Es Salaam to Zanzibar - it was peeing with rain and we'd optimistically gone for a fry up. The most interesting part about cooking with people that you've only just met is the clashes in personality and how easily people get worked up. I'm included in this, as perfect as I am, I was a bit peeved when an 18 year old was getting stroppy with me for trying to tell him to get the carrots into the sauce at the same time as the onions or they'd still be crunchy an hour later!

Ah and I just managed to read all of your comments from the last post - thanks so much and I miss you all too!! There have been quite a few time since I left Judith that I've arrived at the dinner table and been disappointed not to find you all there - this trip would be a million times better if you were all her doing it with me and laughing about things that we find funny but it's too long or pointless to explain to the guys on the truck. That's not to say that I'm not having a brilliant time and that we're not getting on - I am and we are but I miss you all and know how much you would love being here too!

Before I get too mushy and quickly to catch up on the last week: we left Nairobi and Kenya pretty quickly on the way to Tanzania for the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti, where we saw lions with cubs and with a freshly killed buffalo, loads of giraffes, buffalo, impala, Grant's and Thomson's gazelles, zebra, wildebeest, haartebeest, hyenas, a few elephants and a bat-eared fox. There was also a cheetah just at the side of road, front paws up on a rock looking for its dinner - that was my highlight :) It's towards the end of the Great Migration of the grazing animals across the Serengeti so we saw thousands of zebras and wildebeest with their month old babies making the trek so that they'll have food in the dry season, due to start in a couple of months. The whole experience was straight out of the Lion King - Simba even means Lion in Swahili! Jambo Simba! And every one says Hakuna Matata - no worries - all the time here!!

There's more but that's the most part of what I can remember for now - will get photos and more details up when I get a chance but access to the internet is rare and it's usually really slow so I've hit the jackpot with this place!

Keep letting me know what's going on at home - I want more gossip!

First stop: Uganda

I've been away almost a week and this is the first chance I've had to sit down and put some thoughts on the blog - it's been pretty manic here and that means I've seen a lot so have loads to tell you all :)

Firstly, this post is coming to you from the lovely oasis that is the Kabira Country Club, a posh resort hotel up the road from Judith's flat - today we're swimming, having a sauna and making the most of the free wi-fi access.

This is my last whole day in Uganda as I'm flying to Nairobi tomorrow afternoon and it's been really great and definitely feels like I've been away longer than a week! For Easter weekend Judith and I went on a road trip with her friends Marcel and Kiki to the south west of the country, crossing the equator on the way. We drove a couple of hours from Kampala and camped in the beautiful Lake Mburo national park on Friday, where we shared our site with a chilled out hippo and loads of warthogs. On Saturday after a 6am bush walk to see hyenas, zebra, topi, buffalo and waterbucks, we headed further south through Mbarara to Kabale, a vibrant town at the foot of the mountains that border Rwanda. There we had an ear-splitting dance session in a club that would give most of the soundsystems at Notting Hill Carnival a run for their money and fell into bed slightly worried that Marcel, our designated driver, has malaria...

Driving on the roads here is a nerve shredding business and even though Marcel was very cautious and had our full trust, we were glad that on Sunday he could more or less have a day off - we were headed to Lake Bunyoni and one of its islands for the day and night and as it's only a couple of miles from Kabale along a dirt road with very little traffic we arrived, nerves and fingernails intact, by lunchtime. Lonely Planet likens the Lake and its islands to The Shire of the Hobbits and it's easy to see why: rolling hills, meandering waters, cultivated terraces and canoes expertly guided by those used to needing to get somewhere quickly in them or not so expertly by the likes of us... The tranquility of the island was briefly disturbed by Judith and I getting a fit of the giggles over dinner - I'm sure it's back to its laid back normailty by now.

So, first impressions of Uganda are that it's a lush and fertile place, Kampala can be a bit hectic but in general the people are very polite and friendly, to the extent that a bus will wait for you top cross the road (no mean feat) for several minutes, just patiently wait. I've learnt some traditional dances and seen stunning scenery, drunk waragi (like gin but femented from millet) and eaten an Ethiopian buffet that had me wanting the room for third and fourth helpings but not finding it. I'll get some photos posted at some point when I have a bit more time - they're worth waiting for.

And as for me and my general state of wellbeing, it's good. There was one wobble the other night but I'm putting that partially down to hormones... I'm still catching up in my travel journal and will do a bit more in a minute after a dip in the pool - determined to keep it up even if it is just bullet points...

Leaving (a bit late)

I was planning to write a final blog post before I left on Weds 4th April but didn't get a minute with all the packing and journeys to deposit my possessions around south London... Moving the large majority of your stuff in boxes single handed is hard work but maybe it's easier to comment on those last few days now that I've had some time away - succinctly, of course I was sad to leave my home, family, friends and everything that is so familiar.

Everything happened a bit in a rush towards the end of my time in London but I packed a lot in to those last few week and will keep those memories with me as I move around: mum and dad waving me off at the airport (not sure who cried the most!), the barbecue at home with my family, Charlie and I taking a trip up the Natwest Tower for cocktails and amazing views of home, Lisa's 30th birthday celebrations, having a great time at my leaving work drinks and seeing as much as I could of everyone I enjoy so much.


I wanted to write a few words on that and have some photos that I can look at when I'm missing home - the view out of my bedroom window in Spitalfields in the snow and a sunset that was pretty spectacular in the city. Although I know I'm going to be seeing a lot more of those, this is the one at home and that makes it special.

In a minute I'll write a bit more about my first week in Uganda and get some pictures uploaded so you can see what I've been seeing - it's been amazing!