Here is a funny email a mate sent me about his recent trip past the recently burnt down Victory Hotel in Brisbane:

I just went for a walk through the city and went past the burnt out shell of the ‘iconic’ Vic.

There were police cars outside with police milling about and crowds of men wearing fluoro. I had a peak inside (couldn’t resist) but couldn’t really see much, It looked like a black pit in there. The smell coming off the place was terrible too, like a hundred burning tires in an open sewer.

I walked off a little bit, turned around and thought….

“So what’s changed?”

Yes I’m still alive… Wish I could say as much for my laptop though! I’m now carrying around huge paper weight… So I guess this means I wont be able to upload any photos now until I get home sorry…

short version

For those of you without much time on their hands:

Flew to Dublin took some photos, saw the Guinness factory decided it was a boring city so flew to Hamburg. Did a English harbour tour that turned out to be in German, took some photos.. Ran in to Sebastian went for some beers, stayed out late. He did a uni exam with a hangover.. Pretty city but nothing left to take photos of so caught a bus to Berlin.. Took some photos of some wall.. saw very few Germans.. thought we’d stumble upon a snuff film in our hostel.. went out drinking with Lino, met a German girl who though I was ‘pretty’ ? haha.. Took some more photos of a wall, decided we had enough photos of walls and caught the train to Prague.. Ended up in Praha apparently the same place? Turned out to be the most beautiful city so far, but lost points for also being the filthiest (outskirts).. took heaps of photos.. drank heaps of cheap beer.. went clubbing with some Americans from Ireland.. saw way too many tourists, and souvenir shops with Russian dolls (bought one anyway) so came back to Hamburg to see Sebastian. Need to double check we didn’t miss anything in Amsterdam and London next.. then flying to Italy to take some photos..

long version

Since the last update we flew from Edinburgh to Dublin and stayed there a few nights… the city was about as exciting as the Halloween celebrations in Australia.. i.e. pretty much non-existent! We did a bit of a day bus tour of which the highlight was the drivers comedic commentary. We also stopped off and did the Guinness Factory tour (couldn’t very well go to Ireland and not)… Also did a tour of an old jail then had a Guinness pie in an old Irish pub. Not quite the pie an Australian might expect it was a beef stew in bowl with a piece of puffed pasty on the side.. Might have been a more interesting city if we’d gone out for a drink as there are pubs everywhere but only little ones by the look of it…

After Dublin we flew to Hamburg, Germany which was a pretty city but there wasn’t a great deal to see… It has a massive harbour and a lot of massive old red brick store houses which are still used to this day. We did a boat tour through the harbour didn’t learn too much though… It was suppose to be an English tour but as we were the only English speaking people on it the captain only gave a commentary in German. An older guy from New Zealand offered to translate for us, he’d been living in over here for the past 30 years.. When translating 3min of German apparent it just meant in English “he’s just saying a lot stuff that isn’t interesting”.. Haha..

One interesting things we did find out though was that a lot of the rectangular ‘islands’ were land that had been reclaimed hundreds of years ago by driving thousands of wooden stumps under then water.. to this day there are heaps of MASSIVE red brick warehouses still standing and in use on top of this…

We also walked under one of the wider parts of the harbour… there is a long tunnel under the harbour with two shafts either side with both pedestrian and get this CAR ELEVATORS… I guess that’s one way to do it? Do imagine waiting for an elevator would help Brisbane’s road congestion though ;)

We also caught up briefly with Sebastian who until days prior we didn’t realise was living in Hamburg.. And we had only planned booked a few days there, which is why we’re back now (but I’ll get to that).. But anyway, he had a uni exam the next day and I think we all had a few too many drinks and stayed out a bit late.. but turns out he passed despite the hang over.. Haha!

From Hamburg we caught a bus down to Berlin which was pretty cheap, only about €25… We’d booked 6 nights in Berlin and probably could have found a nicer hostel and area.. but we managed… To get to our room from the street you caught a lift up 2 levels, then walked up another 2 levels via a fire escape stairwell, then walked down two long corridors through 3 fire doors, and majority of the time it was so eerily silent you felt like you might stumble upon a snuff film in progress if you opened the wrong door! The rest of the time there were large groups of French school students running up and down the halls and slamming doors morning and night… Our room was quite large and clean though, and for some reason had four beds? There was also practically no usefully shops in the area as well, but it was only 15mins underground to a civilisation.

We did the main tourist attractions in Berlin including the Brandenburger Gate, and saw some of the still standing parts of the Berlin wall. The longest part is only a kilometer or two and did have art all long it, now mostly ruined by graffiti.. the other side of it which is a bit hidden has all big pieces of graffiti some of which were really impressive!! Also went to Checkpoint Charlie which was probably more of an American tourist thing… I didn’t entirely understand its historical significance… Saw some other touristy stuff not worth mentioning without photos…

While in Berlin we caught with with Lino another German guy we’d met in Australia.. went drinking with him and his mates a couple of times which was entertaining! He’d only just moved to Berlin couldn’t help much with the history of the city, so taught us some useful German instead.. Like how to tell someone to eat their own bi-products.. Haha

We caught a train to Prague on the 10th and then stayed for 6 nights in one of the best Hostels we’ve been in so far – I’d highly recommend it (Sir Toby’s) to anyone.. It had a massive kitchen so we prepared a huge banquet as soon as we arrive, since we’d been deprived of one for a little while at that stage…

Prague was a very beautiful city both day and night with the castle all lit up on the mountain which can be seen from the city centre. The city centre is just a maze of little old cobble stone street with beautiful old buildings everywhere, and very few cars with such narrow little lane ways… Everything was really cheap a nice restaurant was prices comparable to a cheaper one back home.. The city is really beautiful to see from the surrounding mountains as well (we climbed a few)… An massive old monastery was at the top of one which had a gallery with oldest painting we saw dating back to 1340.

I also caught up with a friend from Brisbane who just happened to be in Prague for the weekend. Second time on this trip (other was in Amsterdam) – Are you stalking me Heidi? haha.. Was good to see her because won’t see much of her back home now that she’s based herself in Ireland.

Right now where back in Hamburg after arriving yesterday by train… Sebastian has kindly put us up a couple of nights and his mate has offered the same.. After the weekend we’re going back to Amsterdam to meet Lawrie who’ll be joining us for the rest of the tour.. Then back to London again for the weekend… bit of back tracking, but maybe we missed something? Hahaha.. Then next week we fly to Venice, Italy with a couple of friends in London for ones Birthday….

Those of you who know me well would be proud to hear that I’ve been drinking a fair bit of beer for a changed… never quite acquired the taste back home, but when in Rome.. I.e. Germany, Czech Republic both renowned for their beer!

We’re in Edinburgh, Scotland at the moment as some of you may know if you got my email (if not let me know your email address).. We caught the train from London on Wednesday. That afternoon we saw Edinburgh Castle and some giant hill with heaps of monuments…

Yesterday we hired a car its a some euro Vectra looking thing, a turbo charged diesel which has been pretty fun to drive! Surprised I remember how its been so long! Windscreen wipers and Indicators on the opposite sides still gets me sometimes.. haha

We drove out to Stirling yesterday which has a very impressive castle a top a massive old volcano which they’ve slowly been restoring. Some of the original parts date back to the 1200’s from memory. Stirling Castle was retaken by William Wallace at one point which was when he given the title of the Guardian of Scotland.

There is also a 150 year old monument to Wallace on a mountain on the other side of the valley. We climbed to its top via the 246 stairs on a narrow spiral stair case just wide enough for 1 person..

But the worst part of yesterday was I had a contact lens tear while in my eye… pretty sureit had me in tears until I decided to pull it out on the road.. spent half the day and driving around blurry through one eye and clear through the other! Haha..

Today we drove to Loch Ness, about 4 hours from here, and didn’t get back until 9 tonight.. Saw some awesome ruins of Urquhart Castle right on the Loch. No sign of the Loch Ness Monster though… I presume she’s on holidays in warmer waters? It was a bit cold up north! We got to drive through the Scottish highlands where there was snow everywhere around us and covering all of the mountains… through that corridor it got down to 2 degrees.. but as you got further up north the snow disappeared!

Haven’t upload any photos from Scotland yet still need to finish uploading all of the others! But here are a couple of stupid videos of Ryan trying to get in the way of a photo of was taking…

We got back from Amsterdam Monday night after only just making our flight.. which fortunately seemed to be running a bit late. Andrews girlfriend Anna wasn’t as fortunate and missed her 1:30 flight and had to wait for another one at 4:00pm.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we just chilled at home and were suppose to be planning the next few days… but not much planning happened!

We were going to hire a car and drive up through Scotland and stay a couple of night.. but decided against it consider it was basically a days drive there, and another back… We’d like to spend more time – but want to be in London for the easter long weekend with everyone else.

Got back in to the planning today and we’ve booked a tour for thursday to Stone Henge and to see Windsor Castle and Bath which should be pretty good! Tomorrow we’re thinking of catching a train down south to see Briton Beach which I believe is also near where one of our mates Ben lives.. but we’ll be seeing hime again for easter when he comes up to London…

Today we tried to see a bit more of London after my brothers crash tour, before we went to Amsterdam. We saw Hyde park well half of it… it’s massive! Saw heaps of strange birds/ducks, a lot of tame squirrels… a Ferrari, a Lamborghini and a couple of Austin Martins.. the later few were my favour beasts.. Hehe. Also saw Princess Diana’s memorial fountain which was a pretty cool design a pretty big!

Before going to Hyde park we also went to South Bank and walked around near the London Eye… we saw it from north bank the other day but it was better up close! We also had a better view of Big Ben from that side of the river!

Ohh and I almost forgot we came across a Salvador Dali exhibit today to.. Cost us 11 pound and wasn’t too bad, but I saw pretty disappointed considering the lack of oil paintings they had on display which is why he’s one of my favourite artists… They had a lot of sketches and water colours and sculptures instead.. The sculptures were definitely the highlight as I didn’t realised he’d done so many!

I’ll have to tell you all the other stories from Amsterdam soon!

Well yesterday was interesting, up at 6:00am for a flight out of tokyo… Got to the airport with about 1.5 hours before our flight left.. check in was a breeze so we went down and did some duty free shopping… then decided to line up at McDonalds for some breakfast.. mistake number 1…

The line took forever and by the time we’d finished eating our plane would have started boarding 10mins prior… but wasn’t suppose to leave for 30mins so we figured we were alright… so on our way to the flight quickly popped in to a news agent to try get ride of my last few yen… Ryan walked ahead and by the time I followed I saw him running back with the most panic’d look on his face, closely followed by a short Japanese woman…

Apparently he’d noticed on the board the flight was closing, and at the same time saw this woman holding up a sign running around with our flight number on it.. hahah! So we piss bolted from one corner of the airport to the other and the japanese woman played tag with another woman along the way who ran the rest of the distance yelling in to a walkie talkie..

So we made that flight but were the last two on board I think… then 12 hours 50 mins on that flight! Wasn’t as bad as it could have been we had a front row with room to stretch the legs…

By the time we landed in Zurich (Switzerland) though our connecting flight had been cancelled due to poor weather in London… we lined up thinking we’d end up spending a night or something and the guy before us at the counter was in the same situation and was bitching about it and didn’t want to end up on a waiting list cause he didn’t have any confidence in them…. We however went straight on a waiting list and while we were at the counter got some seats assigned!!

My little brother came and collected us at the airport and gave us a run down of the tube… although after being awake for 24 hours at the time I don’t know that much sunk in.. hehe

Anyways time to go do some washing… really don’t want to have to start turning dirty jocks inside out.. hahahaha

So last night at about 1:00am I set an alarm to get up at 6am… We wanted to go to the Tokyo fish market or Tsukiji fish market which is busiest between 5am and 8am.. and is pretty much closed by 11am. It is also the largest wholesale fish market in the world, and is one of the largest wholesale food markets of any time…

I woke up to the alarm even though I had my ear plugs in… Ryan didn’t… but being so tired I just turned it off and went go to back to sleep, thankfully for Ryans snoring that didn’t happen – although apparently I was last night as well.. Haha!

Anyways 3 coffees later as the sun was still rising we arrived there… it was huge and you have to constantly watch out for people rushing past or worse forklifts or these other little crate transports that are everywhere.. and they fly around pretty fast!

There were soo many fish we’d never seen before some as big as a bar fridge (which they cut with a ban saw!).. oysters in massive bags the size of a 10L bucket.. some fish were still alive in containers of water… some crabs whose body alone was nearly the size of two hand spans!

The strangest thing though – when we were in the produce market next to the fish market we got the strongest whiff of vegemite!? We looked around and couldn’t work out where it was coming from… not long after I sampled a vegetable which sliced looks like a carrot, but looks nothing like one otherwise… it was crunchy like a carrot, but had a sweat pickle taste that turned in to a distinct taste of Vegemite!!!! I seriously need to try find out what it is so I can hunt it down back home to show you all!!

Didn’t see any whale meat though, I presume they sell it behind closed doors away from the Australian ;)

On Wednesday we went for a walk to a temple near our hostel which one of the backpackers recommended.. It’s known as the Sensoji Temple or Asakusa Temple and is suppose to be Tokyo’s oldest one… it was really strange to find this tucked away down some side streets… but it was really easy to stumble across it given we we’re really given very good directions… It’s easy to stumble across because all of the little alleys and streets around it are just littered with store or street vendors…

Ryan went all traditionally and rubbed himself with the smoke from the inscense which your suppose to rub on areas your sick as a kind of pray to give yourself better help I think… He also washed his hands in this fountain along with all of the locals – but we weren’t sure what this was for… I’d be interested to know if anyone does?!

The roofs of these temples were massive though and the surrounding gardens were pretty amazing! There was a Geisha there as well but very disappointing because it clearly was not a real one… quite pathetic to see them doing this actually… there were big blotches on the back of her neck which weren’t white, and the make-up and general behaviour of her was more of a clown in an amusement park…

Sorry I haven’t given you all an update since we arrived, I’ve been struggling the past few days to upload photos… There are some up there but only from our first couple of days! So there will be lots more to come when I have more success…

On Tuesday we went to Akihabara which is known as the electronic city where there are hundreds of alleys with street side vendors selling all sorts of gadgets like mostly memory sticks, and computer part or weird electronic toys… Its also the anime hub of Japan…

We saw heaps of strange shit but those that took the cake were:

• a large array of electronic toilet seats which you can adjust the strength of the spray from the bidet, built in heating and can make flushing sounds to hide any other sounds you might be making on the toilet.. Haha!
• an exercise device which can only be described as a ride on bull but with the way they were advertising it you’d compare it to the abdominal products they try to sell back home.. I have photos wait for them!!
• rotating car spaces – basically you drive in and the car is on a large round plate which will spin the car back around so you can drive it back out, no reserving or 3 point turns!
• figurines by the millions! no joke there is a figurine for everything and any thing… most movies you can think of you can probably find one for, then there are all the anime characters and kids shows.. there are even some very provocative adult ones which we bought from a vending machine which were hilarious!

We also stumbled across a few strange little shops that appeared to sell just random junk outside then you get inside and it looks more like a hardware store.. take a few steps further towards the back and they’re selling weapons like ninja stars, nun-chucks, samurai swords and knives.. take a few more steps and they’re selling adult DVD’s and sex toys!?

Speaking of which on our way back to the station we stopped in to a big book store trying to find an English book about Tokyo. The store was about 7 levels and you’d compare it to borders back in brisbane first few floors were normal books like computers, novels, magazines, non-fictions… but you get to the upper few levels and they were ALL manga/anime porn?! Some of which was very graphic… and the weird thing is some of the business men here on the trains will just read this in public with no shame even sitting next to elderly women!

So we arrive in Tokyo tonight.. after a LONG flight.. got up at 5am this morning just to get here at the hostel at like 9pm… Was an interesting journey! Ryan got padded down and swabbed before we even left Australia! Haha.. Then on our flight he walks in to the toilet on an 70 year japanese lady who didn’t realise there was a latch to show it wasn’t vacant.. LOL

Our room is about as big as my boot.. very comfy! Haha..  But the hostel is pretty cool, few well setup common areas with couches, pool table, free internet (where we are now)… But this keyboard is INSANE… its half in japanese and most of the characters you have to use shift for are all on the wrong keys.. trying to type from memory… took me 5 attempts to type a smilely face before ;) that one took me three.. getting better.. haha

All we’ve really done so far is have McDonalds.. You have to try it in every try it in every country.. had a fillet of fish which had prawns, and a terriyaki chicken burger.. Ohh and vending machine… Oh My God.. this country has been invaded, there is a couple every 50 meters.. Even had a hot coffee in a can out of one before! Most just have a WIDE selection of smokes though!

Train ride from the airport was an adventure… I’ve started learning to memorise the Japanese characters which has come in quiet handy… some signs have english so you can do the translation, but not all do… Except it nearly cause a problem cause I memories the wrong station.. hahaha! All good though Ryan spotted another English sign before we got out of the sardine can…

Anyways it’s only day one of this 3 month adventure… I’ll try keep this blog and photos updated as I go! Keep in touch…