From Japan to China

What can you say about hong kong its nothing short of incredible. I had originally planned to be here for four days just long enough to get a Chinese visa. It is already day six in hong kong today and unfortunately i will have to leave tomorrow otherwise i would have been tempted to stay for a few weeks. Admittedly being here for longer than planned is partly due to the fact that UK visas are double the cost and take double the time of everyone elses and hopefully i should have it today.

The last three days in japan were completely mental trying to fit everything i had left to do. From Hiroshima i headed back to kyoto to use as a base in order to visit Himeji castle as well as Nara. The castle unfortunately was under restoration and so only the gardens were accessible but they were the best i saw in japan so no loss there. The next day i day tripped nara which was the ancient capital of japan and has all the temples, pagodas etc set around a big park. Nara is famed for its tame deer which wander the busy streets in big herds and add to the calm and relaxing atmosphere. I also planned to go the baseball at some point in japan and that night Hanshin tigers were playing in osaka which is an hour away from Nara. I arrived about 2 hours before the game and found much to my disapointment it was cancelled due to the weather which had been raining on and off all day. Gutted i remembered there was a game in Kobe another city close to osaka. This story shows how amazing japans transport actually is as from the Hanshin stadium i caught the train back to osaka, ran and jumped onto a train to kobe before navigating accross the city on the subway and making it to kobe just as the game started. Relieved and happy at the situation i took my seat and settled in to enjoy the game and the crazy japanese fans. The team here the Orix buffaloes are pretty rubbish and so there werent that many people there although the chants of 'home run home run in the bag' were loud and pretty comical in there accent. Unfortunately one inning later the heavens opened and this game was also called off so slightly dispondent i went back to Kyoto. The one day in two weeks where it rained was the one where i needed it desperately not too. Theres not much you can do when you have a limited schedule so that remained the only thing i didnt manage to get done in japan.

That left me with a day in osaka which everybody had said wasnt great although their aquarium is amazing. It has to be one of the best in the world and it had a huge seven story central tank with whale sharks as well as a tiger shark. It was well worth a trip to osaka just on its own. The final night i tried out a capsule hotel which is a really interesting experience. If your my height its fine but people who are over six foot must struggle. The capsule hotel is only really for business men who missed the last train but mine had a gym, tvs and was really comfortable. Thats another month gone already nearly half way :-(

As i said before hong kong is great its more like i would call proper asia but has all the trappings of home as well. For me japan was too sterile a country and suprisingly i found it not particularly interesting or exciting but as soon as i was in hong kong its more like proper travelling again. I had a couple of days exploring the various areas of the city as well as lantau island the home of a spectacular cable car ride as well as the worlds largest seated budha. Hong kong has everthing you could possibly want from beaches and mountains to the best skyline both in the day and night i have ever seen. Hong Kong has the world record for the longest running light show but honestly it is appaling and the city without the show is much better and the view from the star ferry going between the island and kowloon will stick with me for ever. It really must have been the jewel in our empire. After a couple of days i met up with Ben a friend i met in Russia and we had a couple of days just chilling before joining a pub crawl with some others from our hostel on our last night. For what it is Hong Kong is really expensive maybe like 10x china where i am now. Drinking was around 6-7 quid a beer but somewhow for a tenner we got free drinks and entry galore. My night was cut short as i have another cold due mainly to the chinese obsession with near freezing air con in any indoor area. A week of going from 40 degrees to 20 then back into 40 really messes you about.

Another long one but i have had so little access to computers recently. Im now off to take a dip in the river in yanshou in southern china (the scenery from the HSBC cormorant fishing advert) which is stunning and also a legendary backpacker retreat.