Our Worldwide Travels

Photos - Kyoto

2015-07-31T03:06:00.000-07:00

Deer selfies

Deer kisses

Bowing! ... Although it looks like he's just looking at the floor

Buddha in the world's largest wooden structure

Jack's new pals

5 storey pagoda

Beautiful bamboo forest

The golden pavilion

Bowing deer

2015-07-31T02:45:00.000-07:00

Kyoto, Japan

Kyoto is

Japan

’s ex-capital. Unlike Tokyo, the city isn’t a modern, technological extravaganza. It’s has more of a traditional feel and has retained or resorted many of its iconic temples and shrines. The most impressive of these was the Golden Pavilion temple, set among an immaculate garden and lake, the gleaming temple was one of – if not the most – impressive temple we’ve seen on our travels… and we’ve seen a lot of temples.

We also took a trip to the bamboo forest which looked like a scene from “crouching tiger, hidden dragon.”

One of our favourite days took place just outside Kyoto in a place called Nara – the ex-ex-capital of

Japan

. This place was amazing. Filled with incredible shrines and home to the worlds largest wooden structure – containing a 14 meter tall Bronze Buddha – we were immediately impressed. On top of this, the experience was made even better by the fact that 1500 deer live in this city. The deer – all wild – wonder freely around, sleeping by shrines, playing in parks and slumping on pavements like cute tramps. We – Kerry - was desperate to feed the deer and quickly purchased food for them. The deer here have been trained, or learned, to bow to tourists before receiving food. It’s an interesting experience to have a deer walk up to you, take a bow, and wait for its reward. Of course, if you don’t immediately comply then they resort to gently ramming you with their antlers, biting your clothes and searching your pockets – or, in Kerry’s case, up her skirt.

Photos - Kawaguchiko & Mt Fuji

2015-07-31T02:44:00.000-07:00

Gorgeous views of Fuji over Lake Kawaguchiko

The hike begins!

Above the clouds!

Then out of nowhere a mini blizzard appears

Freezing and soaked with the sunset approaching, we decide to make our way back

Mount Fuji

2015-07-31T02:21:00.000-07:00

Kawaguchiko, Japan

Kawaguchiko is a gorgeous little town a few miles away from Mount Fuji. The scenery is beautiful and there are nature protection areas everywhere. We cycled for a good 10 miles around a peaceful lake, taking in stunning views of the picturesque countryside. We decided that the following day we would take a bus half way up Mount Fuji and climb the rest of the way up to the peak … well … we kind of underestimated just how challenging it would be. We did our research beforehand, learning that the temperature can change the further up the mountain you go and that the climb can take anywhere between 3 and 7 hours depending on how fit you are. We spoke to a guy in our hostel who had recently done the climb himself. It took him 2 and a half hours and he only wore shorts and a t-shirt until he reached the peak where he put on a little jacket. With this in mind, we packed our jumpers and gloves. We started the day in 40 degree heat but after a 4 hour climb, with at least another 3km to go, the temperature dropped to a little above freezing and we almost froze to death in a mini blizzard and had to head back. It was an experience though and we managed to climb high enough to see the clouds below.

Photos - Tokyo

2015-07-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

Plenty of Anime

The sex shop with everythinggg

The 'scramble crossing' before ...

... and after

Apparently this is an issue!

Tokyo streets at night

Welcome to Wonderland

2015-07-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

Tokyo, Japan

From the instant we stepped off the plane we loved Japan. After 4 months of travelling through south east Asia we can admit that a few home sicknesses had begun to take their toll. But somehow, Japan wiped them all away. And now, at the time of writing, just a few days from getting on the plane home, it turns out that we aren’t ready to leave at all.

Tokyo was instantly welcoming; our first experience was the toilet. The heated seat, gentle music and ridiculous number of buttons made us feel like we’d stepped into the future. Even the most public of toilets are spotless, and come with a set of controls.

Our next experience with Japanwas with its people. The jumbled messy crowds of China had disappeared and instead we were met with orderly queues and people who went out of their way to make sure we were going the right way. Everyone we have met so far in Japan has been incredibly welcoming, friendly and helpful. Even if they can’t speak a word of English!

The streets here are infallible. Everywhere you look, someone is cleaning, sweeping or polishing. They are spotless, even cleaner than Singapore! I couldn’t find a single cigarette butt on the floor.

As a city, Tokyowas as modern and dazzling as we pictured. There are districts that teem with flashing lights, arcades, casinos and anime shops. It’s fascinating to look at a buildings floor guide and see just how much it contains.

There’s some weird sh*t here too… Really weird. We found French maid cafes where the girls – obviously dressed as French maids – call you master and ask you to clap and perform mini dances with them when they bring you a drink. It’s a slightly disturbing mix of erotic and childish. The popularity of anime is also incredible, characters (often highly sexualised) fill the streets, you find it everywhere; billboards, video games, cereal packaging, childs toys.. You name it.

After seeing this, we passed a sex shop and decided that we just had to go in. The first three floors were host to a mind (and other things) blowing array of toys and devices. Or, how about some used female underwear to sniff? The top floors were for men only. I found myself among the most detailed sex dolls that I’ve seen – errrm.. imagined!

Even the generic supermarkets often sell fascinating extras. Fancy a samurai sword? No problem, just head into the nearest equivalent of Tesco. Whilst you’re in there you could grab some kinky fancy dress outfits, a few throwing stars or maybe some anime porn?

The food here is also amazing; the supermarkets are giant and contain bakeries, delicatessens and other sections. Everything is so fresh and tasty. You can grab a coffee or tea off the shelf and it’s inexplicably constantly hot, no need to heat it up. Japanis insane and awesome. We love it! Now, time to buy some more used underwear.

Photos - Beijing

2015-07-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

Our fancy bullet train

Sharing BBQ street food with a friend we met in Xian

The Summer Palace

A perfect trip to the Great Wall

The entrance to the Forbidden City

The Great Wall of China

2015-07-24T07:33:00.000-07:00

Beijing, China

After being told there were no beds available on the 20 hour train journey, we opted to pay a little extra and travel via bullet train to Beijing. The 5 hour journey was smooth and we were soon at our horrible hostel in Beijing. The location was brilliant, however, everything else was not. The toilets were gross, we had rock solid beds, the internet was awful and the staff were miserable. To top it off, the activities listed on their website - games room, bar, pool table, etc – didn’t actually exist. BUT there is a positive, connected to the hostel was a little tour desk. We were keen to see the Great Wall but had heard horrible stories about the wall being so busy you could barely move and would have to walk one way with the flow of the crowd, following a tour guide. This tour desk offered a trip to the ‘non-touristy’ section of the wall where you were free to explore the wall yourself … the trip was amazing!! The sky was perfect, the views were breathtaking, and we weren’t expecting it to be as empty as it was! Sometimes we had whole sections of the wall to ourselves. We did a 3 hour trek up Mutianyu section of the wall and saw some of the most incredible scenery.

Photos - Shanghai

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"No stepping" hehehe

The beautiful Yuyuan Gardens

The modern part of the city

Prepared for the cyclone!

A city of old and new

2015-07-24T07:20:00.000-07:00

Shanghai, China

Shanghai was a mixing pot: modern and traditional, eastern and western, tasteful and tacky… it has it all. But it all seems to work so well together, you can walk from the French concession – an area filled with bakeries, small cafes and quaint souvenir shops and within minutes find yourself in an ancient Chinese garden, or face to face with the stone banks of The Bund, or staring up at the towering, futuristic landscape of the riverfront skyline. It’s an awesome mix that provides something for everybody. We spent our days exploring the city, visiting the different districts and taking in the sights.

The journey to Shanghaiwas also… interesting. We shared our second hard sleeper train with a family consisting of; one woman who insisted on picking her veruca on the bed, two very polite and well mannered girls, and finally, two young children, both boys, who spent most of the journey being as loud as it’s physically and vocally possible to be. They climbed all over our beds, using them as climbing frames whilst screaming and shouting. One found a really fun game which involved flinging his yo-yo into the metal handrail of my bed, trying to make it clang as loud as he could. Another flew his spaceship around Kerry’s head – this spaceship was great too, it had a button on it that made it make laser beam noises, which of course had to pressed continuously for hours on end.

Then they found a new game.

It involved creeping up to my bunk, and stroking my leg hair. At first, it was so unusual and just plain weird that Kerry and I found it hilarious. Unfortunately, this might have encouraged them to try it a few more times throughout the journey.

Photos - Xian

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Riding round the city wall

So many warriors

The fanciest candyfloss I've ever had

Fascinating markets and the Terracotta Army

2015-07-17T05:58:00.000-07:00

Xian, China

Xian was a fascinating city with part of it surrounded by a huge city wall. You can rent bicycles and ride along the top. We got some great views of the city and managed to ride the 8 mile parameter in time to return our bike despite being stopped on multiple occasions by locals wanting pictures with us. We’ve got a taste of what fame might feel like whilst travelling China, children gawp – and sometimes even cry at the sight of me. People take sneaky but blatantly obvious pictures of us, and sometimes we are stopped to pose with entire families.

Another highlight of Xian was the Muslim quarter, an area filled with street vendors and ram packed with consumers. Noodles, dumplings, barbequed meat, chicken feet, pig snouts, trotters, fried squid, potatoes and countless things I don’t know the name for fill every inch of the place. The stall that caught Kerry’s eye the most was a candyfloss stall, but not just ordinary candyfloss. It was multi-coloured candyfloss spun with talent into incredible shapes before your eyes.
The main reason for our visit to Xian was, of course, to visit the famous archaeological site of the Terracotta Soldiers. The site is incredible. The skill of the archaeologists who have recovered the site is amazing. Thousands of life-size figures stood before us.

On our last night in Xian, we had a BBQ dinner – Chinese style – on the rooftop of our hostel that looks out over the wall towards the neon city skyline. It was a great way to finish our time here.

Photos - Chengdu

2015-07-17T05:50:00.000-07:00

Munching

Chilling

Playing

Look at that face!

Friends, this is a 6 day old panda!

Cuteness overload

Panda bears

2015-07-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

Chengdu, China

We arrived in Chengduvia our first sleeper train. We booked ourselves into a four birth cabin and were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in a modern, comfortable, air conditioned room. We passed the 27 hour journey watching films and eventually sleeping soundly in the beds - probably our best journey so far.

The main object of Chengduwas always the pandas. Kerry was giddy with excitement from the moment we arrived, in-fact, she was giddy with excitement months before we even started our trip.

We arrived at the breeding and research centre as early as possible after being warned of large crowds, and before long we were face to furry face with our first panda. Yeah, they’re pretty damn cute. The research and breeding centre’s primary goal is to take care of these endangered animals and provide a safe and life-like environment for them. As a result, the enclosures were really large and impressive and not just a cage for tourists to gawp through, it was great to see the care and the attention given to the animals. The baby pandas were little-girl-shriek-worthy and had hordes of people cooing and awing. The only downside was that Kerry, who was more than willing to spend the £200 it costs to hold a panda, wasn’t able to due to a past incident in which the pandas got ill from the experience.

We also got to try our first hot pot – a traditional Chinese meal of various foods cooked in a boiling spicy pot in the middle of the table. We struggled massively with translating what we wanted but a lady nearby who spoke some English was nice enough to help out. The first few bites and tastes were delicious, but after most of our taste buds had been stripped from our tongue, we soon found ourselves feeling more pain than enjoyment and were barely able to get through the rest of the incredibly spicy dish.

Ordering food in general has remained a task in China, on numerous occasions we’ve found ourselves leaving restaurants with empty stomachs due to our inability to communicate, and the owners not wishing to get it wrong. We’ve tried great food through trail and error but we guiltily hit McDonalds a few days running too.

Photos - Yangshuo

2015-07-17T05:44:00.000-07:00

The town

Our lovely bamboo raft 'driver'

Our stylish ride, ha!

Bamboo rafting

2015-07-17T05:20:00.000-07:00

Guilin and Yangshuo, China

We experienced our first high-speed train journey from Nanningto Guilin which was very smooth. A lovely Chinese couple sitting next to us offered Jack and I some of their food. We accepted, feeling it would be rude to say no, and how bad could it be? … Chicken feet! Toe nails and all … After Jack pulled out his, I thanked them and said I’d share Jack’s but they kindly insisted I had my own. Great. We sat there looking at them for a while wondering which part to eat. Jack ended up putting the whole thing in his mouth and chewed around the bone. I nibbled the skin off the toe and decided that was enough for me and put the rest in a sick-bag that was conveniently placed in the pocket in front of me.

We stayed in Guilinfor a couple of nights to break up our journey to Yangshuo. Yangshuo was a quirky little town situated between beautiful mountainous countryside. In between the cute little gift shops, bakeries and restaurants were multiple pole dancing clubs which looked very out of place.

We did a bamboo raft trip down the Yulong river which was really relaxing. Especially after getting lost and being 2 hours late for the trip due to our non-existent Chinese language skills. The locals were friendly and tried to help us out, but we had no idea what they were telling us and they didn’t speak a word of English. We eventually found our way back to where our bamboo raft guide was waiting for us. After a peaceful float down the river, we cycled (by tandem bike), through beautiful countryside, back to the Yangshuo town.

Photos - Nanning

2015-07-17T05:19:00.000-07:00

First taste of Chinese street food

Hello China

2015-07-17T05:16:00.000-07:00

Nanning, China

We couldn’t believe that we were coming to our second to last destination as we crossed the border into China. We would have stopped and reflected on this fact even more had we not managed to lose our group. It’s amazing how all the English signs and speakers we’d been seeing over the past few months vanished the second we left Vietnam. We were the only Western people on the bus and were soon left behind as the others meandered through security with ease whilst we blundered painfully through each step, eventually emerging alone outside the checkpoint with no idea where to go. Just as stress levels were about to peak, we were saved by a Vietnamese boy who came over to help the hopeless, stupid white people.

We soon forgot about the ordeal as we took in the view on the way to Nanning, but things didn’t get any easier once we stepped off the bus.

We, being the organised people that we are… - Sorry, Kerry, being the organised person that she is, had our hostel name written down in Mandarin on her phone. So, we thought we would have little difficulty in getting a taxi to the hostel. We flagged one down and showed him the address. He shook his head, and drove off.

Strange.

We stopped another and tried again… same result.

Very strange.

We tried again, and again.

That’s when we started to panic. There was no way we could get our bearings either, the signs and symbols meant absolutely nothing to us, we didn’t know what street we were on, we actually started to wonder if we were even in the right city at all… what kind of taxi driver doesn’t know the city they drive in. To make things worse, there really wasn’t anybody around who could speak any English whatsoever, so the taxi drivers couldn’t even begin to explain why they wouldn’t take us.

Just as it was getting dark and we were deciding which bin to spend the night in, we tried one last time. Once again, the driver shook his head. I tried asking him why, asking him which way we should go and, in my desperation, asking if we were in Nanningat all.

He didn’t understand a word.

He was, however, a very nice man. Either out of sympathy, or perhaps pure frustration at our lack of understanding, he told us to get in. By this point we didn’t really care where we were going or how much it would cost, we just wanted somewhere to stay.

5 minutes later, we pulled up right outside our hostel with just 2km and about a pound to pay on the meter. To say we were relieved would be understatement. We thanked him to the point of harassment and finally arrived at the hostel: English speaking staff, maps, help desks and a bar… everything we needed.

We were told by the staff at check in, that taxi drivers won’t take clients if the fare isn’t good enough, the fact that we were just 2km from the hostel meant the ride wasn’t worth it for the drivers, the fact that they couldn’t speak English meant that they couldn’t explain why they were leaving us on the pavement.

Well, now we know.

Besides the hassle of getting here, we’re already enjoying China. Although stressful at times, the lack of English and illegible writing actually makes travelling here quite exciting, we don’t know what we’re eating, where we’re going or what we’re buying, but it’s all part of the experience. As a result, we’ve had some incredible street food and seen ridiculously big markets selling things I don’t even know the English name for. Let’s just hope we manage to get our flight out of here when the time comes.

Photos - Halong Bay

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Our mini cruise

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Hanoi and Halong Bay, Vietnam

The busy city of Hanoi wasn’t our favourite place in Vietnam. The friendliness of the locals seemed to completely disappear and everyone seemed to be after our money. One lady hung her basket of fruit on my shoulder and asked for a picture which I’d obviously have to pay for. Another guy ran after Jack pointing at his shoe, he bent down and whipped out a bottle of glue, insisting that Jack needed his shoes repairing. I don’t know whether we were just unluckily picking places to eat but hardly any of the waiters/waitresses smiled and they barely said a word to us. However, having said all this, we only really stayed in Hanoi as it’s the gateway to Halong Bay – which totally made up for it! We spent 2 days on a lovely little cruise ship surrounded by gorgeous scenery. We were taken to one area to kayak between the stunning mountains that protruded from the water. We saw beautiful jellyfish that swam alongside our kayak (good job we didn’t fall in) and visited the biggest cave in Halong Bay(which was pretty damn big). The following day we chilled out on the deck of the boat before having a Vietnamese cooking demonstration.

Photos - Hue

2015-07-17T04:56:00.000-07:00

With service like this you'd think we'd be spending more than £3 a night!

The Imperial Citadel

A stop for photos on our 100 mile road trip

100 mile road trip

2015-07-17T04:48:00.000-07:00

Hue, Vietnam

Hue is a small city along the east coast of Vietnam. We stayed in a hotel with the most generous and caring staff you can imagine, every time we returned after a day out, they would sit us down, bring us cold towels, drinks, fruit and local food to try, they would ask us about our day, help us choose where to eat and where to go. We felt like we were staying in luxury! Not bad for just £3 each a night.

We visited the imperial citadel and, once again, rented a moped to explore the area. We ended up riding over 100 miles across some of the most incredible scenery we have seen this trip. We rode through tiny towns where the locals waved or gawped as we went past, we went though mountains, over lakes and along remote coastlines, eventually stopped at a place called elephant springs - a little haven used by the locals to swim and relax. We rode back against the backdrop of an awesome sunset and dodged our way through the limitless hazards back to our hotel, where the owners, once again, cooled us down with towels and drinks, happy to see that we’d made it back alive – or that we’d bought the bike back in one piece.

Photos - Hoi An

2015-07-17T04:47:00.000-07:00

More beautiful beaches

One of Jack's interesting sunbathing positions

Buffalo are friendly

Goodbye to this lovely couple!

Gorgeous sunsets

Quirky little town

2015-07-17T04:37:00.000-07:00

Hoi An,

Vietnam

Hoi An was one of our favourite places in

Vietnam

. A cute little ancient town, lit up by lanterns at night, only a few kilometres from a stunning, white sandy beach. We stayed in a homestay run by a lovely Vietnamese family who couldn’t be more friendly. We had our own private section of the beach with sun loungers where we could order food and drink. The town itself was beautiful; very quirky, lots of little shops and cafes alongside the river.

We said our final goodbyes to Laura and Graham as they made their way up North, ready to catch their flight back home after being away for a full year!

Photos - Nha Trang

2015-06-15T06:53:00.000-07:00