Tokyo and the Imperial Palace

The next morning we woke up and went for brekkie round the corner at a cute old school designed cafe. now Japan is very cheap contrary to recent beliefs. This being the Yen has dropped considerably. All our meals for everything never cost more than CHF 10 each! Belly's full off we went to the imperial palace..

Now being English and used to castles and medieval shizzle, it occurred to me that being English when someone mentions castle we have this view in our heads... The Robin Hood princes of thieves, the holy grail and so on... If you're Japanese or of Asian decent when someone says castle these images pop into your head..Samurai's, ninjas and these wonderful things...

 

Eat! 食べる

Because I could quiteeasily eat my arm, and we all know there's nothing worse than ahungry Jodie, Noriko and I slip round the corner for a snack. Now alot of the restaurants are on street floor but a lot of betterrestaurants are located up stairs, elevators and lifts. I again wouldn't of found these as everything is written in Japanese. Thanks Noriko!

So up the elevator we go to this great little "business man after work place". We are greeted by a faceless voice.. something something simasen... and the waiter pops out of the darkness. We remove our shoes. This is usual in Japan and think it should be taken on by it's western relatives.

Noriko asked what I'd like to eat, and I replied with "anything what you think I'd like" "but you like everything?" "I want Japanese, what the Japanese would eat" Noriko then became my food ordering guide for the trip. And she did a fantastic job!

 

The alcohol list also gave me a giggle, advertising "cheese white" cocktail.. Naturally I had to try it.

It wasn't cheesy...

 

This one was a replica of the Tokyo tower complete with glowing ice cubes...

 

I'm literally in Love

Japan.=)(/&%ç*"+東京ええ！

Well what can I not say about this mad country! So I finally land with a short delay in Tokyo. I am met by the lovely Noriko, of whom I know from my time in Zermatt. We catch up on times lost buy some tiny sarnies and board the shuttle bus to Tokyo Central.

The bus takes about an hour, and we finally arrive in the night. No loons just your average construction workers dressed like the Beastie Boys from the Intergalactic Video. Or should I say the Beastie's dressed like them R.I.P Adam Yauch.

We get over to the huge Tokyo Central and get on a tube to our destination our British style hotel hand picked by Noriko!

I'd like to add at this point, although I'm a weathered traveller and speak a few languages, without Noriko I would of been lost. And with my very small knowledge of Japanese I would of definitely been lost. Some Japanese will or do speak English but most not. Either way thank you Noriko.

So we arrive at the hotel, check in, and that's when it's starts..... My obsession with Japanese toilets.

It seems to me that Japan has obsessions with certain things, and other things not. One being personal hygiene. I am personally not obsessed but I totally see the point in these high tech bogs! A quick low down...

The red button is the stop button. very important. The Bum sprinkler button is exactly that.. Then there's a lady sprinkler, to be honest I didn't see/feel the difference (with hold the jokes)! And the plus and minus buttons are intensity jet power. Now taking in account that this was a run of the mill one, I encountered way more high tech ones with blow dryer, flush control, flush sound... yes flush sound.. let me explain.

So the Japanese are very private polite people. And I have noticed some contradictory scenarios which the toilet flush sound button to be one of them. So here's the scenario. In Japan it's incredibly embarrassing to be heard squeezing one out, as well as the plip plop and the straining. Now I think for most people (I mean westerners) this is embarrassing but I presume that everyone knows they have to do it and thus it being slightly embarrassing but natural. Well the flush button gives you a 2 minute sound of the toilet flushing and the water being sucked away to allow you the time to wrestle out and mirage the plip polp avoiding and embarrassment. Now I don't know if it's just me or not, but the sound of a fake flush is dramatically un similar to a real flush, so if one presses the flush button surely cubicle person next door will realize your having a dump thus cancelling the whole thing out. I don't know you decide.

 

 

 

4509 Km

So my final entry into the blog for Australia. Having spent over a week in a very torrential rainy port Douglas with the lovely Tara and Dylan. I've been there and done that, and I've think I've seen a good wedge of Australia.

Along the way I've realized literally what floats my boat. I knew it before but now even more. I love diving, mind you when I say love..I like doing it in warm climates. Anyway not to wear a wetsuit is fine by me. 1 because they're unattaractive a 2 because they feel like I've stuffed a marshmallow (myself) in a money box. Saying that I've also mentally planned my next trip.. To come back! Well west coast..

All my mates Who are over the 30 mark all reel about western OZ, and all the younger ones reel about the east... Therefore I think it would only be fair to visit the west! I want to rent a camper van and go glamping and diving! That would be the final box ticked on my bucket list... Diving with a whale shark!!!!

Well the last 2 days have showed us a bit of sun. I've driven a total of 4509 km, in my trusty Hyundai i20. I going to miss Dyh as I Diana, that's the name I gave her (See number plate). By the time I give her back she will of dyhd. She's travelled the longest way anyone has travelled with me and she's been perfect. Together we've driven through piping hot sun reminding me to park in the shade, tropical rain, hurricane winds and we've given lifts to many young boys..tee hee.

I'm happy and both sad to be leaving Australia and have had a fantastic time, I've met so many cool people and I've caught up with the very cool people I already know. I've spent a very lazy last week chilling as I'll be on my way to a very busy Tokyo. Also a considerably a lot colder Tokyo.

I also think I need a cat.

 

I've stayed with quite a few mates with pets.. Luna the cat needed to be stolen.

And by the way I know there's a few spelling mistakes, but yes I can't spell and the auto correct on my ipad get a little bit energetic.

Soooo no doubt I'll be blogging on my 8 hour flight to Tokyo... Sayonara..xx

Goodbye Australia and thank you..

It's been bladdddddy great!

 

 

Salt water crocs.

During my stay in the port, I did an aboriginal tour of the Mossman gorge listened to a guy with OCD about talk about tropical fruit and took a tour on the Daintree river to view the local salt water crocs.

The first bit was interesting for about half an hour, the aboriginal talks and history of the local aboriginal tribes in the area...Then for some reason we went to a local restaurant where a guy with single minded passion for fruit (like what I did there), talked to us for about 20 minutes about tropical fruit. Not tropical fruit endemic to the area, just your normal run of the mill, pineapples, oranges, star fruit.... Do I need to go on?

Yep, he was big and I didn't wanna get that near...

Anyway after that we sailed the Daintree River home to some quite large salt water crocs and some lovely cute kingfishers! These crocs we saw further up the river, but Tara and I took a cruise from the marina and saw some huge crocs less than 200 meters from the town .... Worrisome.

 

This guy stepped out of the little bush hole like he was entering the stage..

Perfectly camouflaged can you see him?

 

Momma croc

 

Port douglas, and Jurassic park

Port Douglas is a lovely small marina town, located around a small shopping street surrounded by marinas. As I was 2 days from Tara being back I decided to check out Cape Tribulation....on a very moody rainy day I thought I'd drove onto the set of Jurassic park.

I'm sure I would appreciated it more if it wasn't raining... But I took the ferry over the daintree river and entered the moody daintree rain forest home to the Cassowary. If you don't know what one is... Well...

The cassowaries are ratites, very large flightless birds, in the genus Casuarius native to the tropical forests of New Guinea, nearby islands, and northeastern Australia. There are three extant species recognized today. The most common of these, the Southern Cassowary, is the third tallest and second heaviest living bird, smaller only than the ostrich and emu.

Cassowaries feed mainly on fruit, although all species are truly omnivorous and will take a range of other plant food including shoots, grass seeds, and fungi in addition to invertebrates and small vertebrates. Cassowaries are very shy, but when provoked, they are capable of inflicting serious or even fatal injuries to dogs and people.

In other words they are prehistoric emus with an attitude. Luckily I didn't see any as not only did I think I was on the set of Jurassic park, I was also in Daytona racing...sticking to the inside lines of a windy empty roads in the rain brought me much joy.... I did however manage to see some at the local wildlife habitat.. And prehistoric they are!

I can only imagine that on a sunny day Cape Trib is beautiful....but these are the photos I did take...

 

 

Self service service self serving....

There's one thing that I've noticed in Australia. In fact way back when, when I arrived Jess and I were discussing the level of service in Australia.

Like Britain most places you order and pay at the bar, receive a number and wait for your food. I've also realized nobody tips. I put this down, to the way most cafe bars are run. Was there no tipping first and they decided to add no service to the service or did they get lazy therefore nobody gave any tips. Surely there's a gap in the market for table service at cafe bars?

This morning after arriving in Port Douglas I sat down in the probably popular cafe bar to have my much loved poached eggs on toast with a coffee the size of a swimming pool.

You order your food and your coffee, only then you are confronted on where to sit. I was lucky I found a 4 seater table just for me. Other people weren't so lucky.

So what do you do as a singleton? leave your unprotected bag at a table to mark your territory and order, or order first and hope no one has piked the table you had your eye on? Surely table service would solve this?

Well anyway, my years of a waitress told me there was enough staff on to do table service, but nobody seems to want to do it....

So I order, I take my own knife and fork, my own glass and table water and my bag and I search for a table...

 

Bye bye Cairns..

I spent my last night in Cairns at the green ant, and I met up with the lovely David who I met on the Solway Lass.

I'm on my way to Port Douglas where I'll stay in a hostel for 2 nights, then I'll be staying with Tara another Zermatter aquaintence...

 

Mike ball expeditions

After sharing a great last dive, with my dive buddy two small white tip reef sharks, a smallish green turtle and a big eagle ray my work here was done. I've seen a manta and the eagle ray was a first, swimming effortlessly right past me and melody and jetting of into the murky depths of the happy ending reef. Yes it's called "happy end".. In case you don't know what one looks like... Here he is, a happy chappy covered in spots!

 

The trip ended at the happy end with a roo BBQ and one very happy customer...

Guests... Team Taiwan, Ryan and Antony the yanks, Melody dive buddy, Nathan and Brodie the Brisbane Nitrox divers, ze Germans, the swedes (he just happened to be an ENT doctor very hand for dive trips!) and Flo the frenchy.

The Crew..Brendon the skipper, Brad the first mate, Levi the Chef, brendon the engineer, rich the tour director, Cleo and Todd the dive instructors, Ricardo the host and Lydia, jake and Tom as the volleys

 

This why I booked this trip. 2nd night dive

This was the highlight of my trip, my first solo night dive (with buddy, no dive master)10 minutes previous to the dive the dive master told us in the dive brief that a family of green turtles ranging from kids, to mommy daddy and grandma grandma were spotted 4 weeks earlier. Within one minute of the dive we came across grandma over 100 years old and measuring just over meter in length... I wasn't aware at the time that this wasn't the biggest one. I can only imagine the bubbles on the surface popped out sounding something like this "oh my f*****klsdvlksdjfnvldvksjdcbksdckdkm look at the size **********"

Cruising at 28m along the bottom of the reef pinnacle.

frantically tapping my dive buddy on the shoulder to try indicate the enormous turtle that lodged himself on the reef wall, shaking her head she refused and was signaling me to look in the other direction..2 fingers to the eyes and pointing in the other direction told me there was something worth a look....I couldn't see what she was pointing too and she couldn't see what I was pointing to.

I grabbed her and pushed her in front of me.

He was, ( I use he loosely ) over 150cm in length and according to the dive master way over 120 years old. I don't think I'll ever see anything that big in my life again. A wave of proudness washed over me that despite aboriginal way of life and trawler fishing nets, this turtle has managed to live this long, and is still living quite happily at Steve's Brommie on the Great Barrier Reef...

NOW LOOK AT THIS!!!! My dive buddy signaled.....

There having a snooze in a cave.. Was till now the biggest shark I've dived with. Just under a 2 meters a snoozing Grey Reef Shark.. Bingo! Night dive win!

I got out of the water, reeling, and sure that the next night dive I wanna do would be with a group of 20. Safety in numbers ;)

 

The morning after I took this from the boat, one of the babies cam to say goodbye..

And so did Mr sea snake..

 

Fish scale glitter... 1st night dive.

Continuing my dive trip extravaganza, without doing my advanced license I was able to do 2 night dives.. Yip...eee?

My initial reaction was somewhat mixed. Dark, in the deep.. And a meter vision with a torch to flash in the mouth of an hungry hammerhead...Once in I began to realize that a whole new set of critters come out at night..

The dive brief told us not to shine the torch for too long on an unsuspecting reef minnow, as the bigger reef fishes like snapper and wrasse's and not forgetting the sharks have educated themselves on divers shining torches on there next dinner without the hassle of searching for them in the dark themselves.

There I was signaling to my dive buddy how the beautiful coral pollups are in the night, and accidentally high lighting an unsuspecting damsel. Now I know why they are called damsel, beady eyeing me for a millisecond I could almost read his tiny fish brain thoughts... "oh no you didnttttttttttt ahhhhhgghhhhhhhhhhhhhh" faster than bolt out of the blocks a school of barracuda space invadered him and I was left in a shower of fish scale glitter. Damsel was in distress.

R.I.P Blue damsel.

 

12 dives, the Great Barrier Reef, monster turtle and sharks..

Once aboard and equipment sorted out, I buddy'd up with Melody from Canada and we were ready for the first dive.

Now I know your expecting loads of under water pictures, I don't have any. My "underwater" camera refused to work... Boo BUT.... Brodie a fellow diver has promised to send me his..yey!

The Barrier reef has always been one of 2 top slots on my bucket list... The other one is diving with a whale shark!!!! As soon as we were in the water we were quickly surrounded by the most beautiful sights the world has to offer... The color diversity of the coral and the fish was mind blowing..

The first dive site was the cod hole. Home to some the biggest Potato Cods in the world... And man they were big! These aren't the official photos.. But just so you get the idea...

There was also a handful of sharks. The white tip, grey, wobbegong and silver tips are all native to the Great Barrier Reef. Literally every dive we did we were in with sharks. The wobbegong was really hard to see he was usually hiding in caves and being incredibly good at camouflaging himself.. The white tip were quite small and generally snacking on little fish.

 

 

 

12 dives, the Great Barrier Reef, monster turtle and sharks..

Mike ball expeditions. Expensive. But well worth it.

After not diving for over 2 years I was ready.

First we flew over the reef to lizard island.. Yes flew, in a tiny jet.

We passed over the reef that we would eventually be diving, and what a wonder the Great Barrier Reef is.

 

 

After a hours flight we landed on lizard island. Paradise. we were awaited by the crew and welcomed aboard the tender which would take us to "spoil sport" a dive only catamaran.