Dear All

Right this moment I am sitting in the foyer of the World Friendship Centre in Hiroshima, a lovely, homely place run by two American volunteers, Sarah and Kent Sweitzer, and open to travellers from all over. There is an Englishman, a Scottish girl,and I can even hear the male half of a Spanish couple snoring loudly upstairs from here. This is probably as youth hostel-ish as it will get though, given that such a place complete with communal TV rooms/bed bugs is not on our agenda, however we are surely bound to run into some characters at the Capsule Inn in Tokyo later in the week, so fingers crossed for that.

I am sad to report that, unfortunately, I do NOT have wooden slippers on, nor… Read More

Dear Friends

I am writing to you now in the comfort of a kimono in `Kikokuso Ryokan`, Kyoto, having just exited a `family bath` with my travel mate, Eugene, and sitting in the lounge/smoking/internet area trying to comprehend and recall all that has happened so far. I would like to attach photos to this email, however my feet and lower back are slightly sore and the call of my bed is slowly getting ever louder, hence I will provide a summary of our activities and observations in bullet points. Our days have been absolutely packed with walking, climbing, snapping, phrasebook~ing, JR training, avoiding the lure of yellow~coated men ushering us into presumably reputable (surely!) establishments in the red light district areas (and, it needs to be mentioned, evading older… Read More

This blog is not so much a rant but a direct attack on the stickers that are, quite frankly, rubbish. You know the ones, they’re like the annoying kid on a rollercoaster ride: you try to peel them off but they don’t want to come off, so you keep tugging and in the end it’s just a whole big mess left over. The thing is I reckon we have ALL suffered as a result of this sticker debacle, so…you bloody adhesive residue pains in arses, this blog is for YOU. And YOU, rollercoaster kid, YOU ARE NEXT!

Note: This is not to say that there aren’t any good stickers out there, because there are. But just like the rotten apple that spoils the bunch, it’s always the worst stickers… Read More