5* in Bali

We hit the jackpot with Bali.  After much searching on last minute, asia rooms, agoda etc. etc. we found it.  A 5* hotel for £15 per night including all you can eat breakfast.  Beyond the incredible luxury of a cockroach free hotel, a pool, and a private beach, a big breakfast means no lunch necessary - save, save, save!  Really, we're saving money by going five star, so it'd be not only rude, but illogical not to. 

We arrived about 8pm, after a very friendly chat with the taxi driver (the people are lovely here), we pulled into the hotel.  Greeted by a glass of orange juice, we checked in, and were taken up to the room by a lovely member of staff called 'Addi'.  Loz and I could not stop smiling, as he showed us round.  There's a ballroom, a cake shop, our balcony overlooks the pool, and you can see the beach.  The hotel has its own nightclub and private beach, and we absolutely could not wait for it to get light so we could see it all in its full glory.  We headed to the restaurant for dinner, which was lovely, and we were entertained by a keyboard and singing duo.  Perfect.  I still could not remove the smile from my face - it was the best thing ever.

Very excited we got up the next day and headed for breakfast.  We've not really been eating big breakfasts while we've been away so we were a little out of practice and vowed to do better the next day.  Still, we had a day of sunbathing, swimming and beaching ahead of us so we suncreamed up and headed out to the pool.  We were the only two people in sight (apart from staff) and had the pool completely to ourselves.  We swam around, sunbathed a little and Cat settled down to write some of her postcards. 

 Having locked our key in the room when she came out earlier, Cat headed off to reception to collect it and we decided to head back as we were feeling a little hot.  At this point, we suddenly realised how red we were and began to realise that perhaps an hour and a half in the pool in the baking sun on our first day was maybe not the best plan.  ( I will cut in at this point and say, we didn't spend all of that time in the pool, a lot of it was in the shade, and I reapplied sun cream several times.  Loz had magic suncream so she didn't need to, or so it said.)  Skip to two hours later and this was definitely true as we winced around the room looking like giant lobsters practically crying from the pain.  We used all our moisturiser and we still hurt.  To make us feel slightly better, we decided to take advantage of the room service and ordered lunch.  Very nice but we still felt rubbish.  The next day we headed off to breadfast and on the way I nearly fainted.  We braved the restaurant, despite my swollen face, our very sore arms and Cat's blistered back.  After that, I was sent back to the room and Cat braved the outside world in search of moisturiser, water and snacks so we could hole up in the room for the day and try to recouperate. 

I booked a taxi at the front desk, which was supposed to cost 50,000 rupiah to the pharmacy.  The guy arrived, and I tried to explain where I wanted to go - in the end I showed him my arms, and gestured rubbing some cream on them... he understood.  We had a chat (like I say, the people are lovely), his name was Iwaran, and he offered (in a friendly rather than pushy way) to take us on a tour of the island the following day if we wanted.  I told him my friend was ill, so I doubted we'd be going anywhere tomorrow, but thanks... 'boy or girl', 'girl', 'ahhh' he answered knowingly.  I resisted the urge to add, 'by the way we're not together'... yes we will be spending the day in minimal clothing applying moisturiser, however, we will also be trying desperately not to flash one another too.


After a long journey - much further than the front desk woman had suggested, we arrived at the pharmacy.  The taxi driver took me inside and showed me where to go, bless.  I am not sure whether he took me to a pharmacy with a doctor because I said Loz was ill, or because it was further away than the other one we passed, which seemed more like a Boots or something, but given his friendliness and helpfulness I have decided to assume the best of him.  I told the lady over the counter I needed something for sunburn. 'ok, consultation fee will be 375,000 rp' - eek, that's a lot, about £25 in fact... 'I don't really need a consultation, I'm fairly sure it's sunburn, can I just go and get some cream?' 'Oh yes, sure' Phew I thought, nearly blew 5 days budget in 1 go to be told that the redness on my arm was sun-related.  (I should add at this point that neither the taxi driver, nor the woman at the front desk, nor the woman in the restaurant later that evening seemed to have a clue what sunburn was - they're clearly used to the sun.  We, being made in England, should know better than to take our pasty bodies outside in heat like this.)  Anyway, I bought their last bottle of suncream and all the water they had (which was 1500 per bottle, as opposed to the 8000 the bottles in the hotel mini bar cost), the taxi driver kindly packed them for me while I paid and he carried them back to the car. 


Fearing my unpopularity if I went back without snacks, and also not having been able to get moisturiser in the chemist, I asked the driver if there was a shop we could pop to on the way back.  He took me to a supermarket, which typically was at least 50% cheaper than the minibar on everything.  I stocked up for the long haul, found some moisturiser and natural yoghurt for cooling purposes, then headed back.  At 150,000 rupiah the journey was more expensive than we'd expected, but hey ho.  I think it was worth it.   


Loz, now feeling a little better after her rehydration sachet, greeted me at the door to marvel at my purchases.  She went to give me a hug, but realised quickly that was a bad idea - good job, there would have been screams.  Commence moisturisation.


Cut to a day later (we're blocking out the pain of yesterday which was mostly spent covered in moisturiser, anaesthetic aftersun and natural yoghurt - which really does cool you down - you're not getting any pictures of that lot) we are still burnt but feeling a little better, though we're still hiding in the room.  Cat is hoping to brave the pool later but I'm not sure if I'll be joining her yet.  We'll keep you posted.


So much of me wants to go in the pool, yet I can't have anything touching my back to cover me from the sun.  I'm currently laying with a wet bandana on my back (knew they'd come in handy... I also used them to tie cold cans of coke to my burning legs the other day).  Perhaps I'll go when it's dark.  It is only 23 degrees today as opposed to the 30 something it's been the last couple of days - if I don't make it out today, screw it, I'm definitely going tomorrow.  Can't believe we cocked up so badly, and on day 1.  Idiots.


Lots of love,


Lobster Cat & Lobster Loz xx

Relaxing in Kuala Lumpur

When we made our original list Kuala Lumpur wasn't a place we picked.  Frankly neither of us had any idea what was there, and I think we may even have had to look up what country it was in - shame on us.  It turns out though, that KL, along with Bangkok, is one of Air Asia's bases, and so if we wanted to do Bali from Hong Kong, that was the way to go.  Not wanting to waste an opportunity, we booked ourselves in for a couple of days just for a taster. 

It turns out KL is really cool.  The buildings are incredible - the Petronas towers being a prime example of this, but it's all set among palm trees, parks and public paddling pools.  Having googled 'things to do in Kuala Lumpur', we had a couple of things on the list - the towers, and a place called Batu Caves, though given the amount of sight-seeing we'd done in the first couple of weeks, and the cockroach incident the night before, we were ready for a rest before we headed out on our first day. 

First stop, Petronas Towers.  We went along to see what the deal was on getting tickets to go up to the sky bridge - it turns out you have to get up super early and queue to get tickets, as there is a limited amount per day.  Boo.  That's us up at six tomorrow then.  We wandered around the gift shop for a bit, and around the super-cool designer shopping centre at the bottom of the towers... Chanel, Bvlgari, Armani you name it, we can't afford it... so we went for ice cream (are you seeing a theme?) 

We then wandered to the public park to get some pictures with the towers, and to have a paddle.  We were both loving Malaysia.  32 degree heat, humidity that's like a big warm hug, particularly in comparison to Beijing's icy bitchslap.  The following days, played out pretty much the same.  We got up early Sunday morning to queue for the towers - I was incredibly tired having stayed up far too late hunting for hotels in Bali and failing miserably due to rubbish wireless.  I quite fancied going home for a nap when we'd booked our tickets, but timing wise it worked out better if we went to see Avatar earlier in the day rather than later.  We were quite fortunate in Malaysia, that English is practically an official language.  We went to watch Avatar in English with Malay and Chinese subtitles.  Amusingly they didn't subtitle the bits being spoken in Avatar in English, so we kind of had to guess the plot at that point - we enjoyed it anyway, even though I had to take a little nap in the middle.  Might get it on DVD when I get back...

We then went up the Sky bridge - the majority of the tour was security checks, and watching a 3D film about Petronas - which I unfortunately failed to nap in.  It was worth it though - the views were amazing, and I'd have liked much longer than the 10 mins we had up there.  I think they should get a bar or something.

We had another lie in on our last day, Monday.  We had planned to go to the caves, however we decided for a number of reasons, mainy laziness and money that we couldn't be bothered.  It was basically a temple with monkeys and hundreds of stairs.  We've seen both monkies and temples and climbed hundreds of stairs, so we decided to give it a miss, seen as it was never on the official list, and headed back to the shopping centre to get some pics of the towers in the dark... and perhaps for an ice cream - you never know. 

KL was just what we needed after China.  It was warm, and we were lazy and caught up on some sleep, and it had good ice cream.  We headed back out to the airport on Tuesday bound for Bali... and we could not wait!

KL and the Cockroaches

We were ridiculously excited to get to KL & check into our nice hotel.  Having been up for almost 24 hours, by the time we arrived, we were very happy to make it to the room, with the intention of showering and going straight to bed.  The dream lasted about 30 secconds, as Cat's blood-curdling scream pierced the night's silence, and I dashed back in from my bathroom inspection to find her dancing on her bed, pointing at the corner shouting about a cockroach, or possibly some other type of gigantic bug - she wasn't sure.  Needless to say, with all the stealth of a ninja I leapt onto my bed, taking any items I'd so carelessly thought it was safe to put on the floor.  We stared wild-eyed from each other to the bug, as we tried to decide what to do.  Now you may say it's only a bug, and (as my dad was told repeatedly by some frightened staff in Bali - yay that's where we're headed next) 'they don't bite', but 2 girls in a foreign country after being up for 24 hours... not impressed.  

So here was our dilemma, the bug was between us and the door, there was no way in hell we were going near it, and we had nothing we were willing to sacrifice to throw at it.  This coupled with our extensive QI knowledge of cockroaches (that they're the only thing that could survive a nuclear blast) posed a bit of a problem.  We concluded that we could temporarily shut it in the cupboard, and block off the bottom of the door.  This however proved futile when we discovered it was merely hiding under the door and couldn't get into the cupboard due to the ledge (cue more screaming).  Our next plan was to drop the ashtray on it, until we realised that this required potentially deadly close contact.  The bin, it was proposed, was a much better option - until we realised that with the cupboard door and the ledge this would be tricky.  It was concluded that death by bin edge was the only way.  We made a joint effort to squash it, and missed, until Cat bravel leant out and made a stab (I think she got more of the ledge than the cockroach).  I slammed the bin down which squashed it a bit but it's legs were still waving madly at us so further action was definitely needed.  I made a few more stabs and we eventually had him pinned half on the floor, half on the ledge.  Let the cupboard door slamming commence!  After several slams of the door, would you believe it was still alive.  (Well if a nuclear holocaust can't kill one...)  We had had enough by this point so decided to call in back up.

I headed down to reception and tried to explain that we had a cockroack taking it's (hopefully) last few breaths in our room and would they send someone to finish it of and remove its mangled carcus.  After several tries at explaining, including my best arm-waving bug mime routine, they promised to send someone.  I dutifully trotted back upstairs to check it hadn't eaten Cat while I was gone. 

I'm fairly certain the guy was highly amused to knock on the door (which we opened from the bed) and see us stood huddled together as if a poisonous snake or tarantualla were charging at us.  However, considering the amount of movement the bug made when he sprayed the (apparently reviving) bug spray, I think we were well placed.  He eventually killed it with his foot and carried it out by it's leg, much to our relief.  We were left in peace to try and sleep.  We checked the rest of the room and blocked up the gaps under the doors with spare bedding.  I can guarantee that not one of our belongings was left on the floor that night.  Later on in the week we got a little careless and this proved to be our undoing as Cat's mum's suggestion that the cockroach may be an orphan, proved to be false. 

We were left in peace until the final evening, and I was beginning to think that the cockroach was a one off.  Everywhere has bugs now and then, right?  Perhaps finding a cockroach in one's room in Kuala Lumpur is the equivalent to finding a spider in your house in the UK?  So feeling a little more confident, we ventured out to the shopping centre for a bit, to get a few pics of the Petronas towers at night, and of course to get some ice cream.  We had a lovely evening, and retired to our quarters to pack about 10.30pm.

This time, it was Loz that screamed.  Having lifted her bag to pack it, another little blighter went for her jugular - fortunately it missed and ran across the room instead, and into the cupboard (they seem to like it in there).  At this moment we made a grave error.  We should have shut the door while we knew where it was, but failing to think quickly enough, (and being busy getting everything off the floor) in a second wave it charged at my bed, and ran underneath (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH).  Now we were stuck.  Both of us were on our beds, neither of us was putting a foot, or anything for that matter, on the floor.  This time, I phoned reception, who sent a guy with a broom.  Loz managed to lean far enough to open the door from the bed, and the guy started scouring our room for the cockroach.  He couldn't spot it under either bed.  He moved everything, and searched the room for about 10 minutes, but no sign.  'It is real, honest' we protested as he looked at us like were were pathetic and stupid in equal proportions (fair dues, you might say).  Loz hopped over to my bed, as he pulled it out from the wall to get a better look, nothing.  I hopped over to Loz's bed so he could pull mine out and again, nothing.  Oh wait...  It was climbing up the side of my bed towards my pillow (run, bash, run, bash).  Turns out my fear of waking up with a cockroach on my face/in my mouth/in my ear/up my nose was not so far fetched. 

After the guy left (carrying the beast by its leg again), we began the long process of decontaminating everything we owned.  Every item of clothing was subjected to a tentative extended-arm shake, as we prayed we didn't find any more.  Fortunately we declared the all clear about half an hour later.  We were ready to check out!

A china summary

Things we liked about China:

1. The metro is cheap - in fact everything is cheap.

2. Some of the most amazing sights in the world - particularly the Wall.

3. Incredible acrobats

Things we didn't like:

1. Staring
2. Spitting
3. Snorting
4. Phlegming
5. Pushing/general rudeness
6. Pointing and laughing
7. Photographing and videoing
8. Being hassled
9. Internet Censorship
10. Dirt
11. Squatties and lack of toilet roll - amazing that China invented both the flush toilet and toilet roll (QI said so), and yet fail to use either. 
12. Mixed sex compartments on sleeper trains
13. Crossing the road - or 'china's greatest death trap' as Cat calls it.  In England, when you see a red light you stop and when you see a green one you go.  In China, you ignore the lights completely and drive wherever and whenever you want (regardless of whether there are people, bikes, cars, small dogs, etc. in the road).  We were debating whether the Chinese are just red-green colour blind but actually they just seem to like ignoring any road instructions given to them.  They beep continuously (despite the fact you're only trying to cross because the green man has lit up - which to us means it's safe to walk now) and we were told by our friend Janet that the lights are actually 'just for reference' (she's from Taiwan and finds it just as mental in China as we do).  So bad is there refusal to comply with lights that we spotted 12 policement directing traffic at one intersection which already had lights and crossings that would have been perfectly adequate in any other country.  We recommend a full suit of body armour and flashing lights before attempting to make your way across - clearly though, do not wear anything with red or green as they clearly have no regard for this.
Travel wisdom acquired in week 2:


We covered this before, but in China it was even more obvious that we had no where near enough clothes.  I wore my pyjama bottoms, shorts and trousers, as well as 2 shirts a fleece and a coat all the time - which was basically everything I own apart from beach clothes.  That made washing a little difficult too.  At least you don't sweat much in -5 degrees.

Getting behind...

We're moving so quickly at the moment, that it's hard to keep up with ourselves, never mind keep the blog up-to-date, however we are on our way to a relaxing week of doing nothing in Bali, so hopefully we'll be back on top by the time we've finished.  We're currently on a rather turbulent AirAsia flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bali - those of you who've flown with me before will know how well that is going down!  We pooled our few Rupiah to buy inflight snacks, as we were too cheap to book a proper meal.  It hasn't worked too well.  I really should learn not to experiment with new drinks at a time when we have no money to buy more if it goes wrong.  If anyone is ever in South East Asia, and fancies an iced chocolatey drink called 'milo' - DON'T DO IT.  It's not chocolate.  It lies.  It seems to be a chocolate/green tea combo.  Eugh.  I'm also being encroached upon by a woman who is sleeping on my shoulder - good times!

Anyway, last we spoke we were pretty hacked off in a Chinese McDonalds.  Things improved slightly before the end of the Beijing leg, however the relief when we landed in Hong Kong, and away from the line of people on our flight staring at us whilst going through passport control was immense, and even though Hong Kong is still under Chinese rule, it is very different, and much more pleasant in our opinion.

(Ah - the woman woke up, I have my arm back)

The Great Wall didn't disappoint.  We went to Mutianyu - follwing the guide book, which told us we could go by coach and change to mini-bus.  The bus driver told us to get off the bus, although we think he was probably on commission as he told us to get off early and go with this taxi driver who had been hassling us at the stop before.  Instantly we were hounded by people selling us a mini-bus - or some of them pretending to sell us a mini bus, when it was actually just a taxi.  After much manhandling, we found a driver who was a bit less of a mentalist, and got in. 

I think Loz thought we were being kidnapped, which made me rather nervous, so I hid my spare credit card and some cash in my bra for emergencies, and held on tight to everything else.  Turns out they were taking us where we wanted to go - who'd have thought?! 

On arrival, I bought a new hat, as I'd forgotten to take mine out - at least we no longer matched - and we began the ascent to the wall.  There were hundreds of steps, and many of them were sheet ice.  We made it up in one piece though, and unsurprisingly given the weather, it was very quiet!

The Great Wall is still my favourite place on Earth - despite it being in China.  It's so peaceful and quiet, and is surrounded by amazing scenery.  The snow made everything even prettier than last time, and if not for inevitable frostbite, I could have stayed there all day.  Keen to explore, I suggested we went for a wonder to the next tower.  Bits of the wall were quite slippy (srip srip), though it seemed a shame not to give it a go.  I managed to talk Loz into this eventually - though she wasn't over-keen, and before long she was flat on her backside, having thought she was ok, but in a moment of overconfidence sripped over.  Failing not to laugh, I went to help her up, and ended up after a bambi spectacular, clinging to the stones with both hands as my shoes would not grip at all.  Unfortunately, in true gladiator style, the icy travellator got the better of me and I slid back down the wall on my hands and knees.  Guess who was laughing now?!

(Oooh, we're landing - I spy beach :D)

(Change of location - now by the pool in Bali.  Before I tell you how amazing it is, I should finish talking about China...)

We realised when we got back down from the wall that we were actually stuck, as the minibusses, of which there were hundreds at the bus stop, were now a rare occurance.  In fact at this point there was only 1 driver, who wanted us to pay more than three times as much as we'd paid on the way there.  After haggling for ages we'd got the price down, but it was still more expensive than the same journey earlier, so we walked away.  Eventually the guy followed us and decided to lower his price more, and finally he agreed to go with the price we'd asked for... until we got to the taxi.  Loz got in, and he changed the price.  So she got out, then he agreed our price again.  I got in, then he whacked up the price to more than three times the amount.  I got out and walked off. 'OK OK' the guy ran after us, but we felt it was too late so we ignored him.  He grabbed my arm and started dragging me back to the car (which was not infact a minibus as promised).  I managed to shake myself free and elbowed his phone out of his hand across the carpark.  Oops.  Meanwhile another driver had been watching and offered to take us back for the price we asked for, without any fuss at all. 

I think China is the worst place for hassling tourists.  You can say 'NO' all you want but they will not leave you alone until you're out of range.  Don't worry mum, it's not malicious, it's just cultural.  However it is irritating.

When we arrived at our tube stop to go back to the hostel, I spotted something incredible, that made the day even more magical.  Pizza Hut.  I can't believe we hadn't noticed it before, but that was it, we had to go.  Despite the inedible Pizza we'd had on our first night in the hostel (made with soft sweet bread, and ham that a that tasted like they hadn't washed the pig before they killed it), it was amazing.  A perfect ending to a perfect day.  I hasten to add, China, having being served half a chicken head last time I was here, is the one place I am too frightened to eat anything that is local.  Unless it's vegetable fried rice, I can manage that.  After 6 days of vegetable fried rice Pizza Hut was like a gift from God!

For our last couple of days, we visited 'The Temple of Heaven', the Olympic stadium, and then the 'Forbidden City' and the 'Summer Palace'. Of those my favourite was the Summer Palace, which was stunning.  You can't actually go into the palace itself I don't think, but there is a huge lake for boat trips out in the summer.  While we were there it was totally frozen over though, and had people walking all over it.  Seemed to have cracks in though so we gave it a miss! 

I think towards the end we got a bit more used to China.  We met a couple of really nice people - Tina and Janet, both of whom were in our dorm, and neither of whose Chinese names I can pronounce.  Tina came out with us on the last day, which was fun, and particularly helpful on the Chinese speaking front.  We actually learned some Chinese - 'Zeeeen, woah shi-an yao' is I want that please, 'bu shur' is no and 'shur da' is yes.  There were other bits but I forget.  It turns out my Chinese name is 'Kar-li' and Laurens is 'Lau-la'... so when we open our ice cream parlour it will be called Carly and Lola's -  that's as far as our travel epiphany has got - ice cream.  Think we may have a bit further to go.

We saw pandas, we saw the wall, we saw the teracotta warriors, Tiananmen square - everything we went to see, and most of it was amazing, but I'm in no way tempted to go back to China.  It's too much.  A lot of other places have been culturally a million miles from the UK, but I've found them friendly and often different in a good way.  China was not so for me this time, which was a little disappointing.

Reflecting on China

So, we made it out of McDonalds eventually, and on to the train. We were sharing with 2 Chinese guys, who again snored. I’m surprised they don’t have single sex cabins actually, or at least have the option, but we survived. I seem to have managed to have lost a bra though. Oh well – thank god I ignored the packing list on that one too, else my boobs would be round my ankles by the time we got home.


Anyway, we’re still shattered, but in slightly better spirits today having spent most of the day in the hostel away from prying eyes. We’ve managed to have a shower (2 nights on the train – say no more), and we’ve also managed to do some washing (I mentioned Beijing is cold – we’ve been wearing everything we own for about 4 days – Pyjamas under trousers, 4 t-shirts etc.) I’m just waiting for my Pyjamas to dry so I can go to bed.

We’re going to brave going out in public again tomorrow with a trip to the great wall. Last time we went it was my favourite part of the whole trip – really calm and peaceful... but I’ve since discovered that was because the hostel we were in drove us to a random part of the wall that we shouldn’t have been on. There are only 3 official wall visiting sites apparently, and you have to pay to get on it – we’re going to try the one that’s a medium distance away (and we’re going by public bus), so hopefully it’ll be reasonably quiet. Last time was so amazing, I hope it lives up!

I liked China when we came with Choir. I guess it’s a very different experience being invited over and playing for big companies who bus you around everywhere. Shanghai also seemed a lot more westernised than Beijing – I do remember people looking at us, but then we were carrying about 25 saxophones around, which is much more worth staring at. I’m quite proud of us in the sense that we’ve opted out of the organised tours to the wall, and to the terracotta warriors – I’ll admit it’s more to do with being tight than searching for ‘the real China’, however maybe seeing a westerner on public transport IS unusual? It’s very easy here to jump into a limo and be bussed around for the day for about 20 quid without having to lift a finger – people try and sell you easy tours at every opportunity... but then it’s only 70p on the bus, so I guess we’ll carry on suffering for now!

It all adds to the travelling experience I suppose – highlights so far include managing to wash all our clothes in the shower, and fashion our own drying wonderland out of a combination of bag straps and peg-less washing lines (thanks Fraiser); and fixing my money belt with my own bare hands after the zip fell off (thanks Jen).

Beijing - a low point

It’s day 13, and I think we’ve hit the lowest point so far. We’re sat in McDonalds with our second hot chocolate in a row, being stared at by every single person in the ‘restaurant’. Both of us are desperate for the toilet, however I queued for 15 mins earlier, only to find that the only functioning toilet was a squatty with a cow pat in the middle, walls decorated by used sanitary towels, and a stench that makes me want to get my backside on a plane home right now.


I admit, perhaps this is a slight over-reaction to one poorly- cleaned toilet, however it’s been building pretty much since we arrived. We thought at first the staring may be due to our matching bags and coats – which are pretty snappy (the situation didn’t improve any when we bought matching bobble hats), however it turns out, even stripped down to the non-matching elements of our wardrobe, that we are still more interesting than all of the animals in Beijing zoo AND the terracotta warriors! In fact, my quote of the day from Loz is, ‘Jesus, there’s a UNESCO world heritage site behind you and you’re looking at us?!’ We’ve been stared at, photographed, videoed, pointed at, laughed at, spat at... in fact we’re thinking of charging for all of the above. I never thought I’d make money selling my body, but in China anything is possible. Seriously though, we are fed up, and can’t wait to get out.

The other phenomenon is the dirt. I am astounded at how I can clean my nails, then touch nothing (even have my gloves on), and the next time I look, they’re filthy again. It’s incredible! Alcohol doesn’t even touch it. I gelled my hands five times in a row this morning, and they still felt gross. The spitting is also the most vile thing I’ve ever encountered. Everyone spits everywhere – even inside, even in eating-places. But it’s not just a polite ‘hu-tu’, it’s a ‘ghauuuauauauauauuauuauauauauauauauauach tu’ – the noise you might expect someone with a serious lung infection to come up with. It’s nasty.

I hasten to add, we’re currently very tired, and grumpy due to sharing an over train with what sounded like a small dinosaur - ‘Dino-snore-ass’ as Loz dubbed him, kept us awake with his constant snore-gurgling most of the night. We’re also getting the train back tonight, and are looking forward to the same rigmarole. So China, in our grumpiness we say this – ‘Yes, we’re white. Yes we match. We do not apologise for this. Now stop pointing and laughing, or at least be more subtle about it. Grr.’

That said we have enjoyed seeing the warriors – I personally am not convinced it’s worth the £90 for the trains, however they were interesting, and there’s only one way to find out these things. We also thought the pandas were very cute. The best thing so far though was the acrobats by a long way. They were incredible!

Oh my god yes! I think that show is one of the best things I’ve ever seen in my life. We couldn’t believe some of the things they were doing – 12 people on one bicycle, diablo’s flying through the air, little girls who looked about 7 being thrown around like raggy dolls and landing on people’s shoulders. The whole show was completely breathtaking and I would definitely go back to see it again without hesitation. It kicked off with the whole troupe on stage for the ‘opening ceremony’ or something. They have these giant TV screens at the side with the title on telling you who it is and what they’re doing. They had other acts including glass balancing contortionists, an umbrella juggler and a slack rope walker, amazing rope spinning (bit like a lassoo but with lights on each end – much more dangerous), people balancing bowls on their head or gripping with their feet while they’re thrown from person to person, girls with bicycles who’d do tricks whilst still managing to ride round in a circle and culminating in all 12 girls being on one bike whilst it was still going round in a circle.. I’m sure I’m forgetting things but there were so many that as soon as you’d seen one fab thing something else distracted you. Anyway, I think we’re both agreed that it was absolutely fantastic and I think if it ever comes to London I’ll definitely be checking it out.  I think we’ll go again in Hong Kong if the opportunity arises in fact.

A summary of Japan, and trip-acquired wisdom so far...

Things we loved about Japan:


1. Every station has a 20 second theme tune, ranging from the bizarre to the ridiculous.

2. Toilets – heated toilet seats, multiple buttons, and recorded flushing noise buttons – presumably so you don’t have the embarrassment of plop noises in a public loo.

3. Incredibly friendly and helpful people.

4. Healthy and cheap fast-food chains.

5. Pretty lights & pretty sights.

6. Cold stone ice-cream.

7. Incredibly clean – owing to what can only be the world’s fastest and most efficient cleaning staff.

8. EVERYTHING runs on time – even the tube has a schedule down to the minute.

Not so great things about Japan:

1. Expensive – they say you get what you pay for... but everything was very expensive, and we’re about £250 over budget after 1 week. Eek.

2. Getting run over by bikes on the pavement.

3. The lack of Fuji.



Travel wisdom acquired in week 1:

The packing list was utter crap – clearly centred around people travelling to warm places only. Had we have relied totally on the list we would have been wearing socks and sandals in the snow – which really wouldn’t have gone down well. It was cold and wet enough in the trainers that we decided to stick in anyway. An extra jumper, maybe a 2nd set of Pyjamas, and a hat scarf and gloves are a good bet, and I’m pleased we stuck some of them in. The spare Pyjamas would have been handy, as it’s much harder to get things dry in cold places than in warm ones.

Natural wonders often require decent weather – missing Mt Fuji was a horrible way of being reminded of this, and we’ll be far more careful in future!

Take a phrase book/learn some language – we really enjoyed it, and contrary to popular belief, not everyone in the whole world speaks English (and nor should they).

Write down hotel directions/draw a map – nothing worse than thinking it’s straight opposite the tube station, when in fact it’s not – it’s hidden behind a building, a bit to the left, several side streets away.

Last bit of Japan

We’re currently in Narita airport (eating Pocky), waiting to board our flight to Beijing. The airport has orchids growing, plants all over the place, and more posh shops than you could shake a Pocky at. We, however, have pooled together our last 600 Yen (about 4 quid), and managed to find BLTs for breakfast (not quite the bacon sandwich, we’d both simultaneously craved, but it filled a hole.) Rather intriguingly there seems to be something on fire outside – hopefully not our luggage.
Anyway, last time we blogged, we’d got as far as the train to Nikko. As soon as we stepped off the train, we were greeted by snow-covered mountains and sun – it was a bit like a sleepy alpine ski-resort. We’d elected to walk to the hostel (save, save, save); what we didn’t realise was that there’s only one way in Nikko – and that’s up.

(Excuse us – Loz just had an urge to shove 2 pocky up her nose – I’ve wrestled her to the floor, and it’s ok. How embarrassing.)


We trekked up to the lodge we were staying at, which was lovely. The people were friendly, they had a real log fire, and they did breakfast (day off fruit buns for us – whoop). The owner, Ken, talked us through the sights and told us what was worth seeing and what was a tourist trap, and we headed off to some temples and shrines. We walked miles and miles and miles – mostly upwards, but it was worth the effort. The temples were stunning, and the grounds they were set in even more so.

We decided to pay to take a tour from the hostel the next day to see the lakes and waterfalls in the National Park area about half an hour away. In the end, it was just Cat and I and a girl from the hostel who came with us and the guide in the hostel’s little car. I have to say, I think Cat and I both thought we were going to die in the car as we tore round 40km bends on a mountain road at 60km – something must have shown on our/Eilena’s faces as he assured us the road was one way up and one way down – we just hoped the down wasn’t off the side of the mountain.

 Despite the scary driving (sorry, Cat just interrupted to tell me she’s found a combined sooty and sweep puppet on the tv – she’s very excited by this) we got to the first waterfall and it was, as promised, amazing. There were icicles and snow and even monkeys (one of whom stole a sign off the gate and proceeded to try and eat it – mental monkey we’ll call him). The next stop was a shrine where we were taken inside to listen to part of a ritual that was going on at the time (and where we bought our first souvenirs – a lucky charm each for our birthday years). After this we went to a second waterfall and walked up alongside the river past several smaller waterfalls to meet our guide at the road up at the top. Being completely unprepared for snow (we were expecting Japan to be positively tropical compared to England) our jeans/combats and trainers combo was not the warmest of attire and me being the klutz that I am fell over on literally the first step of the trail. We proceeded to haul our asses up the slippery (srippery) slope and stairs (practically slopes due to the ice) and eventually made it to the top where we dashed the car to get warm before the next venture into the snow. The third waterfall was definitely our favourite and we enjoyed watching some people sledging before venturing up to the lake at the top of the waterfall where we were practically bowled over by the horrendous wind/snow storm that had started. Our crazy guide started wandering out into the middle of the lake (frozen he assured us) to have his picture taken. We decided to stay firmly on snowy land (though we were still sinking up to our knees so perhaps not that safe either). We stopped off at the nearby onsen hot springs bath (for such a reserved culture they seem to be completely unabashed about bathing naked) and the beautiful lake Chuzenji before heading back down the mountain and stopping off for traditional tempura and soba noodles for lunch. We hadn’t managed to see Nikko’s famous statues yet so our guide kindly stopped off to finish the tour with these and we were so glad he did as they were absolutely fabulous. Ken had told us about the legend of the ghost statues as apparently if you count them starting at one end you get a different number to if you started at the other. Sadly we didn’t have time to try (Cat started but got bored very quickly when she realised how many there were). After that we headed back up to Tokyo and our new hostel in Asakusa where we crashed out for the night and tried to get warm after all that snow walking.

The next day we had decided to try and see some Sumo wrestling but (like Wimbledon) you have to get there really early and queue up for the day tickets unless you want to pay triple the price (no thank you – save, save, save). So instead we headed to the Old Yasuda Garden (beautiful) and the Edo Tokyo Museum (some fab sculptures/artwork and fantastic musicians demonstrating traditional instruments). After this we got completely lost in Shinjuku trying to find the tourist office so we gave up and went to see the Meiji Jingu shrine which turned out to have some very exciting ice sculptures going on as well. We stopped off in Harajuku for tea in an Italian (don’t laugh – we needed a break from noodles). A couple next to us in the restaurant had tried to sneak their dog into the restaurant with them by hiding him in a bag. We don’t think he liked it very much as he kept trying to escape and make a run for it.

On Monday we did finally make it to the sumo. We had a very early start and stayed at the tournament from when it started at about 8.30 until 6pm. I’ve never seen so many bums in my life! We eventually understood what was going on but the whole thing is so very ceremonial that often the ceremony took longer than the match (very, very quick most of the time and it seemed to only be one round so you could be in the ring for 10 seconds and then that’s it you’re going home). Part of the ceremony involved some singing and the first guy we heard was definitely our favourite. They got progressively worse throughout the day and by the end we were sure we could have done a better job than some of them. I’m trying to convince Cat to use the tune in a composition. That evening we decided to take advantage of the free Saki voucher the hostel had given us and went to the local bar to try some.

We were very fortunate with our timing at the bar, arriving just in time for a traditional Japanese show. This involved 2 lovely but mental guys, and a portable mini-theatre, with cardboard cartoon pictures, which they slid out one at a time, as they narrated a story. It was crazy, we couldn’t stop laughing, in disbelief as much as anything else, as they told us children’s stories in silly voices. Our favourite story being the one about the sriperry eels, which kept srip sripping out of the guys hand. Priceless.


Time to get on the plane...


We’re in China – it’s freezing. Snow is piled everywhere, and it’s currently minus five, due to go down to minus 13 tonight. Brr. Back to Japan for now though...


Tuesday was the last day of our rail passes, and we decided to make the most of this by going out to Kawaguchiko – where we were reliably informed was the best place to see Mount Fuji from in the Winter. In the summer, you can get a bus to a certain point on the mountain, but due to the snow it closes at this time of year – it wasn’t long before we saw why. We met an Australian family on the train, who seemed at least as clueless as us about where they were going. They kindly offered us accommodation when we go to Oz, as they live in Gold Coast, which is on our way up to Bundaberg apparently.


Pretty much as soon as we left Tokyo, it started to snow. By the time we got to Kawaguchiko, it was snowing heavily and fairly obvious that we weren’t going to see much of the mountain. The lady in the tourist office pointed to the white space, and said maybe you’ll see it tomorrow – unfortunately we wouldn’t be there tomorrow. She gave us a map to the lake, which I promptly read wrong, and directed us to an industrial area. It was still snowing, and we were soaking and very cold, so stepped into a cafe to ask directions. I asked one of the waitresses if she spoke English (in English – wet, cold and grumpy doesn’t make for good Japanese) she said a little, so we asked directions to the lake. She spoke to her boss briefly, then managed in broken English to offer us a lift! How lovely is that? Someone we’ve never met before, and can barely communicate with took pity on us walking around in the snow, enough to ask her boss for the time to give us a lift to the lake, and then drove us in her own car and marked on our map where she’d dropped us. I was really blown away by that – which in itself is a little sad I guess. If I met 2 random travellers on a train, would I offer them accommodation at my house, with my family, after a quick chat? No, probably not. If someone wandered into work looking for directions, would I jump in my car and give them a lift – again, probably not. Not because I wouldn’t want to, but it’s just not done at home... we’re always taught to assume strangers are axe murderers until they prove otherwise, just to be safe. Anyway, we were incredibly grateful to the lovely girl, and now firmly believe in travel karma, having given up our seats for 2 old ladies on the metro earlier that morning...


Unfortunately that was about the best thing about the day. We got very cold and very wet, trying to walk round the lake, but ended up giving up, buying some souvenirs (mainly pictures of what Fuji looked like the day before and day after we were there), and then heading back to the train station. We managed to get on a really slow train and had a long time to change trains half way so we found a noodle bar at the station. The self service noodle restaurants are the best invention ever. We should get them – they’re healthy fast food basically. There’s a vending machine in the corner, which you put cash in, press the button for what you want to eat, and it prints out a ticket which you give to the people behind the counter. They serve your food up instantly, and then you take your plates back at the end. Genius. We managed to pick up some tempura soba for about £2 – good considering the hot chocolate we’d had earlier was nearly twice as much.

That evening we looked for some pretty lights in town without a lot of success, before we headed to bed. The final day in Tokyo was spent looking at Tokyo tower (we were told if we went up we might see Fuji – however the weather apparently wasn’t good enough.)

At least they told us this before we spent our last 1000yen going up there on the off chance. Instead, we headed over to Roppongi Hills which is supposed to be the big shopping district, or so we’d read. We couldn’t really find that many shops but we did find an amazing ice-cream parlour called Cold Stone. They basically take your ice-cream and add whatever you want to it to make a sundae that you can have in a waffle cone or a little tub. Cat took a picture of the sign on the door which said ‘ice-cream makers only’ and the wall pictures showing some of the amazing concoctions. There weren’t any seats inside so we headed out onto the balcony with the other customers (bit weird we thought since it was very cold) and they brought out heated cushions and blankets for everyone. Amazing!


After the ice-cream we headed over to Ginza to see the Sony building and some more exciting lights to finish off our trip. This turned out to be a posh bit with all the Gucci, Bvlgari, Swarovski, etc. shops, as well as Cat’s favourite... the apple store! (She lies) Yes we did go in to have a look around but we didn’t buy anything. I think Cat just wanted to see if it was the same as our English ones. We also bumped into the Australian family we met on the train to Lake Kawaguchiko. Cat said she was completely confused when I started saying hello to people and was wondering who I’d managed to find that I knew in the middle of Japan. After that we headed back to the hostel, via a little noodle shop for tea, to pack up all our stuff ready for the transfer to Beijing.

Tokyo, days 3 and 4

Summary:
Bag lock-outs: 1
Near death experiences: 1
Bullet trains: 1
Supermarket challenge – moderately successful.
 After finally managing to untangle our legs from the sleep sheet, we woke up at 4am unable to sleep, and decided to take advantage of a bit of planning time before venturing out in search of breakfast. The morning’s supermarket challenge was very successful, having found yoghurts, juice and fruitbread to keep us going for the day.


First stop was the station to pick up our tickets – I will say at this point I’m very impressed with myself having asked to collect the ticket in Japanese, and then understood the reply! At this point of course our language skills ran out, but the lady did ask if we spoke Japanese – so clearly we had given some sort of indication that we might be able to... it’s a start. After that was the palace gardens, where we wandered for a bit and stopped to watch the fountains, before heading over to Asakusa to book our hostel for next week.



We’d separated our cash – just in case, though we’d actually bought it all with us, even though most of it was hidden... it was so well hidden in fact we forgot we had it and had to go to a cash machine to pay for the room. As if that wasn’t stupid enough, I had managed to accidentally reset the combination lock on my bag and lock myself out. Boo. We sat for quite a while, as I painstakingly went through 000, 001, 002, 003 etc etc. Finally at 287...(I’ve reset it – so anyone after my spare pants, you’re out of luck) it clicked and we were in. You can imagine how amused we were when we realised that we actually didn’t need cash at all. Oh well!


After that debacle, we went to a temple – I’m not entirely sure what type of temple – it wasn’t really a building as such, more of a street market with some chanting at the end... interesting all the same. We were followed by a strange man with a camera who snapped us just as we came through the gate, then seemed to appear round every corner after that – very weird. We managed to lose him, and paid a visit to the 100 Yen shop. 100 yen is about 70p – so it’s EVEN better than the £1 shop – it is of course full of crap, so look forward to your souvenirs guys!

Supermarket challenge 2 of the day, didn’t go quite so well. We found some musli and some more yoghurts for breakfast, as well as some doritos, and decided to take a gamble on tea. There was a hot food section, which had various types of deep fried crispy stuff. The problem with deep fried crispy stuff, is it all looks the same – and who knows what is inside. In her best Japanese Loz asked if our selection was chicken, and the guy said yes. We concluded later that he lied (cos Loz’s Japanese is faultless). We did however have some veggie spring rolls which were very nice – if a little soggy by the time we got them all back to the other side of Tokyo.


Having been up since 4am, we thought it might be a good idea to have a nap, when we’d had tea. It was around 5.45pm, so we thought we’d have 40 winks, and then pop off to Shibuya to see all the lights, (and the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing). That didn’t go according to plan, as we woke up at 9.15, having slept through 2 alarms (which I would swear did not go off – but when we tested it, it worked fine). Despite being ready to get straight back into bed, I’m pleased we went out, because Shibuya turned out to be what I imagine ‘real’ Tokyo to be like... lots of lights, lots of neon signs, lots of people... we succumed to a Starbucks and then headed back now wide awake.

 It’s now 10.20am, and we’re on our way to Nikko – having had four hours sleep... that’s gonna bite us on the bum later I’m sure... but we rode rush hour tube this morning. Now, I’ve done rush hour tube in London several times, and I’d say it’s unpleasant when you have a lot of baggage, but I’ve never thought I was going to die! Tokyo rush hour is mental. They have a guard for each door to shove you in – whether your legs want to go or not! Loz and I got separated, as we couldn’t fit both of us in (although the 10 people that got on after I decided I couldn’t disagreed) so we met up at the other end a little battered, but we’d survived.

 (Cat just chose this moment to announce she thought she’d lost her money belt on the bullet train – passport, drivers license, 15000 yen, you get the picture – happily it was in her backpack all along!)


Excuse me – panic over. I think I may have just given us both a mild heart attack. Don’t worry mum – we’re on it really!


Anyway, where was I? – yeah, we’re on our way to Nikko. We got the bullet train this morning – which was wicked. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more efficient. They have a cleaner for each carriage, who process on perfectly in unison, and then clean like nothing you’ve ever seen. They spin all of the seats round so everyone faces forward (very clever), and they wipe everything down in record time. Then they line up and walk off again. Incredible. Now we’re on a local train, which is nice enough. It has heated seats and our bums are burning quite a lot – not too sure about the safety of the emergency chocolate in this heat either. We think we might have seen mount Fuji, although we don’t know, as there’s quite a lot of snow covered mountains around at the minute.


Very excited to see Nikko – the bright lights of the city versus the greenery & peace of the countryside.


Cat’s decided to be brave & test the theory that Japan’s tap water is drinkable – not sure whether you’ll want to be kept posted on that one but if you ever decide to visit Japan let us know & we’ll tell you how it turned out.


The best word to describe Japan at the moment is probably efficient. Everything runs on time and you’d better be ready for those trains when they come. There are lots of little ditties playing in the stations to accompany your journey – somewhere in between muzak and something japanese – I’m looking forward to hearing how Cat’s compositions turn out with this wonderful influence.


Time to leave the train so we’ll get back to you later with an update on Nikko.

Love,

Cat & Loz x

Tokyo

Summary:

Holistic faith healers: 1
Lesbian couple assumptions: 1
Blisters: 4
Weird japanese dishes: several
Missing hotels: 1

We're here, unscathed, although unfortunately the same cannot be said of the pegs.  Claire has sadly lost her eyes, Martin his hair, however Michael and Fraiser have adopted Japanese babies together - so it's swings and roundabouts really.  They're all currently relaxing in the hot tub.

We set of from Kimmy's at some point Tuesday morning, with the bags - which should come with indicators and wing mirrors - and were 'found' by a holistic faith healer, who showed us the way to the station and promised to look after us while we were away (we only have to hold the card she gave us) which was lovely.  Watch this space on that one...

Amazingly Japan Airlines let us on the plane - we were a little concerned that after the previous STA blundering we may not be allowed, however all was well.  The flight was, well 12 hours - very hot, the telly broke for a bit, and the food was 'interesting'... but it's ok cos we had emergency chocolate (fruit and nut - 1 of your five a day). 

I don't think I was quite prepared for not many people speaking English, and navigating our way to the hotel was a bit of a challenge - but we managed to get the train and then the tube to the right place, before we got lost and walked round for ages trying to find anyone that spoke, or at least read a little bit of English.  We got there in the end though! 

Loz and I are sharing a 'semi-double room' - which doesn't have enough room to swing a cat... so it's a good job we're not into that!  Loz is scared of the toilet - because water runs when you sit on it... it's a fancy bum showering one you see, and I think she's concerned that a poorly timed jet may catch her out.  So far so good...

We went out for tea, and spoke a pathetic amount of bad Japanese, but the food was delicious (oi-shee).  Now we are totally knackered, and are going to bed - in separate sleep sheets, thank you very much mrs
manwoman from the travel clinic! 

Night night 

Cat and Loz x

3 days to go...

OH MY GOD.

Panic has set in quite severely now, as it's 2010, we've said goodbye to some people for 6 months, and are feeling fairly unprepared!

I keep being asked 'so are you ready to go then?' - and quite honestly the answer is, 'I have no idea'.  I have ticked things off my lists, and keep trying to plough through the countless things that are flitting into my head constantly - however I don't think we'll know whether we're prepared or not until we discover what it is we've forgotten.  Cross your fingers for something minor, that's cheap to buy, and easy to get hold of!

We did make it to Scotland and back, which is a good start - I did forget my Pjamas... however other than that we did very well I think...

I've been attempting to find time to pack my rucksack for about 2 weeks now, but haven't managed it yet.  Tomorrow's job perhaps?  I'm expecting to find time somewhere between now and Monday, but who knows what will distract me next...