Yokoso Japan!

Well after a bit of a long day that seems to defy logical reasoning I have arrived in Japan.

There is an ongoing spat between China and Japan lingering from WWII that means there are very few airlines that can fly from Tokyo to Beijing. Unfortunately for me, Cathay Pacific was not one. So I flew back to Honkers (3.5 hours) waited in the airport for 4 hours and then flew to Tokyo (4 hours) So all up 11.5 hours for what is in fact a 2 hour flight. But I am here so i cant complain.

I stayed as usual at the Holiday in at narita on the night I arrived and got into a corker of a discussion with an american and a dutch Geo-physist (I know thats not the right spelling) about their program the were doing to detect and verify nuclear bomb testing. Really interesting stuff. Amazing what discussions you will end up in after 12 hours of not speaking to anyone.

Come Monday morning and I went back to the hotel to meet up with my travelling group, talk about multi-national! We had 1 Canadian, 1 slovenian, 1 russian, 1 brazillian, 1 Australian, 2 frenchies, and a belge. Quite a fun mix. We set off in the rental cars and decided to take the "scenic" coastal road as we had heaps of time. It was not in the slightest bit scenic. In fact, we had to pull off the road and bush bash out way into the beach. But it was worth it!



Most of pulled the boots off and headed in to the water for a bit of a wade around and it was great. Some nice waves coming through, and the water wasn't too cold. We probably spent half an hour on the beach and it was a nice break to the trip. We arrived into Motegi around 5pm, just in time for the bar to open, Perfect!

We had a big night at the "embassy and pulled in around midnight, very tired and relieved to be in bed.

China

I arrived into China not knowing a single phrase of Mandarin, with no idea where I was going and with no idea what to expect. In a word it was…. BUSY.

I was flat out with work so saw very little of the city as I had a lot of meetings and the hotel was right next to the place I was working, yes, a shopping centre again, so it was very convienent. The hotel was the ritz-carlton and is just under a year old, as it seems, are a lot of things in the city. Another word to describe the place would be Burgeoning.

Seriously, it is impossible to conceive the amount of construction that is going on here. It is awe-inspiring and also a little worrying as 40 story buildings are appearing like zits on a 14yr old. It is incredible.

I was glad that robyn didn’t come with me. Not in a bad way, but more for sanity. Being a road safety person and riding in any vehicle in Beijing, are not complimentary propositions. It reminded me a bit of Bangkok, but with 10 million more people. There are 17million now in Beijing alone, I think I saw every one of them on the roads at the same time.

Lanes, indicators, speed limits, are all irrelevant in Beijing. It certainly makes for an exhilarating ride. I decided the best option was just not to look outside the vehicle at any stage, which was great but made me very ill from the smoke infested cab and motion sickness, so I couldn’t win.

Anyway… I digress, the real point of the Beijing trip (besides work) was to fulfil one of the things I have always wanted to do. Walk on the Great Wall of China.

So on Saturday I had a spare day so I booked a private car, and a tour guide and headed out to the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs. It was one of the highlights of my life. I cannot do it justice with my words, regardless I will give it a try.

I was not prepared for the first viewing of the wall. It just sort of appears on the horizon darting in and out of the mountains and seems to encircle you. It looks like a thin line of white dotted by watch towers. I went to the Mutianyu section of the wall which is far less touristy and far more beautiful than the badaling section which is the most common section people visit on tours.

The wall is simply incredible. 7000km. Now I know that sounds like a long way, but when you are there and see it heading off into the distance and that’s only 60km, it really blows your mind. I was not prepared for just how steep the climbing on the wall itself is. In some places the wall climbs almost vertically for up to 2000ft. The section I was on climbs 800ft in 200m. Its really really steep. I think I saw a mountain goat fall off in surprise as I went past, that’s how steep it is!

Anyway I loved it. I sat on the top of the wall at the highest watch tower and just looked out over the mountains and thought about all the people who had been involved in building it and how difficult it must have been, the struggles they must have had and the hardships of the weather. I LOVE history and this is about as good as it gets as far as I am concerned.

All up I had about 2 hours on the wall, I would have loved to have all day, alas this was not to be as we had to head off to the ming tombs.

Blogger is bad!

Well it must be as it is a blocked site in Beijing. Apparently there must be too much anti-government blogs on it. So it was banned and I couldn't do a single update for the whole time I was there. I wonder if the government realises that it is precisely this sort of activity that makes them unpopular.

Anyway, not back in Honkers in transit on my way to Tokyo. I will try and put some thoughts in about China shortly, in the mean time here are some teasers....

Leaving on a jet plane

I love that song..... anyway.

I am in HK airport at the moment with an hour or so to kill before I board for Beijing. Only have one day of work there and hoping to get out to the Wall for a look at that on Saturday, before I bum a flight back for Honkers to turn around and fly back up to Tokyo. Its a bit of a long winded operation, but Cathay do not fly PEK-NAR so I have no choice.

Anyway, back to Honkers. I loved it. I am sure the noise would drive me mad after a while, but as a stopover for a few nights you couldn't ask for anything more in a city. There are a few things that I noticed that tripped me up a few times, the biggest of these was escalators. Yes, I know, not very tricky devices. However, unlike in Australia, all the escalator you need is always on the right, as opposed to the left in Australia. They also stay to the right when walking. I find this odd because when driving, they stay on the left. Anyway I took a few near spills while trying to get on the wrong escalator.

Also a note for those who were interested, they were not hawks in the city but a very stunning Black Kite. Not the one with the string attached.

I did manage to get a new camera and have some pics below and also on my flickr site. I only got it last night so the pics are a bit ordinary while I learn how to drive it. I got the Lumix TZ3. Great camera been eyeing it for a while at home.

I am not sure if I have mentioned yet but I do have a travelling companion for the trip..... yes, you guessed it.... miniNICK is with me. He quite enjoyed his punt across the harbour on the Star ferry and also his wanderings around the back lanes. For those of you that know him, you will know that he loves experiencing all pasrt of a culture.

More news once we hit Beijing where the weather is now only forecast for -5 which is a lot better than the -8 it was going to be.

Bai-Bai

I like the girl!

Well I am sold. I think this is a great city. I am loving Hong Kong although today was a bit of a long day as I may, and I repeat, May...... be a bit hung over. One of the traps of entertaining clients I guess..... Anyway, this is what I love about the place so far:

The fact that everything is so close together, the way the lanes are full of all of the Aisan stalls you expect to find, I love the harbour, The MTR is brilliant, clean and ontime, I love the hawks that fly in and out of the highrises surfing the air currents for lift.

I am sure that the constant noise and bustle and the crowded nature of everything would drive me mad after a very short time, fortunately, I am only here for a very short time :)

So far I have done none of the things on my list of must do's. I think I should be able to get out and about a bit more tomorrow and will hopefully get a few of the fun things done then.

Went to a great little bar near the financial area last night and I swear we had to kick our way in through all the nut shells that people were throwing on the floor. Quite someting to see. Apparently if its on the floor you cant see it which means its all OK. We then headed out to another bar somewhere else (I am just going where I am pointed) and drank far too many beers. Great beers, great company, great city, what more can you ask for in a city.

Roll on tomorrow.

Honkers - Asia's International City

Or so they call it here.

Have just landed for my first ever experience of Hong Kong. Now those of you that have been here before should tune out because I am going to say a lot of the same stuff you have probably already said.

Also a first for me was flying Cathay. Unfortunately it was not their finest moment with a bucket o' crap A330 that was just tired. The cabin crew were also apparently as weary as the plane and in no mood for customer service. The Captain on the other hand, was one of the highlights of the flight. Came on a few times in the most cheery british accent you can imagine and seemed genuinly suprised that someone was letting him in the pointy end. Thats what you want, someone who enjoys their job.

The flight was just a flight, not enough bumps for mine, and as always for a lanky chap, not enough legroom. Sol Truillijo (is that how you spell it) was on the plane in first class and I am sure all the Telstra shareholders will be pleased to hear that costs about 12k on Cathay.

So my first impressions, well its a hilly sort of place with lots of rater tall and congested bits of concrete. I haven't really had the chance to have a peek about but will get out tomorrow with the work colleagues up here and again tomorrow night. Hope to have a new Digi up and running and will add some pics as I figure it all out.

I am keen to do a few things while here, head up the hill, check out the cricket ground (alleged to be the most scenic in the World) Maybe do a chopper flight if I can find the spondoolie, and buy the aforementioned new camera. Only got three days here so it will be a tight schedule.

After the three days I head into Beijing for 3 days, where the weather forecast tells me I have a snowstorm with -5 degrees waiting for me, oh happy happy days!

Back

I have decided to re-incarnate the Wolfie site on blogger. I was on Facebook for a while and have decided to burn that as its not terribly interesting, well in fact its crap. All you do is load new applications that just seem to send you more spam.

Anyhow, I am about to start traveling a bit more for work to international locales so i figured this may be a good opportunity to start afresh.

Stay tuned as tomorrow I head off for Hong Kong and Beijing for work. Then off to Japan for the balloon event in Motegi.