Wow. Whales swimming below and above us, giant flower buffalo marching slowly across the walls, interactive trampolines where you create new planets with every jump. TeamLab Borderless was the best – what? Art gallery? Museum? Playground? – thing we’ve ever visited. A huge...
Because we have been having such a hard, difficult, ascetic kinda life, it was time for a bit of decadence in the last weeks before facing home. A ryokan – old school traditional Japanese inn – offering kaiseki – haut cuisine – dinners and breakfast, and with our...
Kawaii – cuteness – is a religion here. The rest of the world frowns on cartoons, sniffs at toys, and sneers at all things doey-eyed and fluffy. But in Japan, the cuteness levels accepted at a corporate level would make a European shudder. Cities have mascots of adorable...
Time to change. Total change. A Buddhist temple stay with daily 5.30 prayer service should do it. That’s 5.30 am. With vegan-only food – for us dedicated carnivores. And, of course, no other vices such as alcohol or smoking. Some of the temples even had explicit rules about no...
Osaka was plastered with giant posters of pretty boys. Androgynous teenagers with pouting lips and expensive choppy hair, all looking like rather attractive lesbians at a glance. At first, we thought it was a boy band. Maybe several boy bands. Maybe hundreds of boy bands? But no, it seems...
When Japan decides to pay attention to something, it does it with an obsessive attention to detail that is – frankly – terrifying. Sushi is something that a European would reckon they knew how to do after maybe a few hours training. Rice, raw fish, maybe a bit of seaweed and...
We’d thought Japan would be good. We were wrong: it’s fabulous. China was still very fresh in our memory when we boarded the Japanese ferry in Busan – and realised that suddenly, everything was starting to work better than we’d ever imagined. Trivial things like the ferry boarding...
Silence. Even on the plane from Beijing to Seoul, the volume had already dropped several decibels. No-one playing their phone at top volume or yelling at each other. And by the time we were on public transport, the difference was tangible. On a full bus, which in China would be deafening...
Decadence! – I’d have said twenty years ago when I was interrailing. On the train from Xi’an to Beijing, we had a whole bedroom for just the two of us! Our own private bathroom! Wardrobe, table, armchair… opulent luxury. We’ll be damned for sure. But even...
WeChat, not WhatsApp WhatsApp is blocked in China, so everyone uses WeChat instead. If you book small-medium size hotels, they’ll probably ask for your WeChat. It’s also handy if you hire a driver, because you can easily communicate even if they don’t speak your language...
So, Xi’an. Just a couple hours flight from Shangri-la, but worlds apart. And, thankfully, normal altitude. I hadn’t realised, but it was the end of the Silk Road, with lots of Middle Eastern influence over the last millennium – so it has a huge Muslim quarter, with mosques and...
What a road trip! As if destination: Shangri-La wasn’t enough, our route took us through Tiger Leaping Gorge and through the mountain roads where tour buses don’t venture. The road was narrow and strewn with lumps of rock that had fallen from the sheer cliffs above, with a worrying lack...
Chinese place names are magic. Everywhere else in the world, place names are prosaic descriptions – black pool, slough – or refer to some dull person: Snowdon, Brighton – with occasional ventures into the ridiculous: Pratt’s Bottom, Giggleswick. In China, however...
China got off to a rocky start. 5am start, with 3h sleep, slow taxi to the border, slow (but happily painless) bordercrossing, and got to the Zhuhai train station on mainland China with an hour to spare for the 7am train to Yangshuo. Time for breakfast. But also time for some interesting...
Hotpot sounds so innocent, doesn’t it? The name summons up warming winter foods at home, preferably when it’s freezing and raining outside. Turns out it’s a bit different here. A dozen of Vanessa’s Hong Kong former colleagues wanted to meet up with us for the...
Macau is delightful! We hadn’t expected to particularly like it – colleagues who had visited had winced slightly when mentioned: it’s famous as the Vegas of China, full of giant tacky trashy casinos. Turns out it’s also got lots of Portuguese charm – and the...
Bukit Lawang was a tiny remote village in the arse end of the jungle getting slowly approached by palm oil plantations till just a few years ago. But local and international effort kicked in to preserve the area for orang utans, tourist interest brought money flowing in, and it’s...
Yogyakarta and temples You wouldn’t really call either of us spiritual, I guess, unless you’re referring to whiskey. However, I have finally found a temple where I can truly worship. Bukit Rhema I mean, never mind the glories of ancient Borobodur and Prambanan, world renowned as they are...
What is it about Gili Air? There are no cars, no scooters, no motor noise other than occasional boats – just the jingling of horse bells from the carts. Yes, horse carts are in actual use, not just for tourists. Otherwise, bike or shanks pony on sand roads. Tough biking. It’s...
Some 20 years ago, I’d been through quite the year. I’d split up with my boyfriend of seven years, come out of the closet, started and broken up with first girlfriend, changed house 5 times (sometimes planned; sometimes – less so. It was a complicated year). Finally, it was 2001...
Brisbane could probably take the tagline of ‘The Surprisingly Nice City’. We hadn’t expected much – but it surpassed, nicely. Lots of – yes, nice – things – free ferries taking you on the scenic loop up and down the riverside; an enviable boardwalk on the north...
Noosa Heads might just have won on account of not being Uluru. But I reckon it’d have won anyway, in small town terms. It’s a lovely little place – turns out it’s one of the most upmarket, posh seaside towns on east coast Oz (which, bear in mind, covers 2500 km...
Part of traveling is trying exotic new foods. So I’m pleased to report that pot noodles have improved immensely since my student days in the 90s. As have other little things like, you know, the web, mobile phones, computers etc. But really, they all pale beside the technological...
So if you come here, give yourself more than two weeks or you’ll wind up kicking yourself at the end, feeling you barely scraped the surface. But even that surface makes an amazing bloody trip. Everywhere you go is gobsmackingly beautiful landscapes, from hostile volcanic alien...
This was just beautiful. We caught it soon after dawn, before most people had arrived, and dug into the sand to form a beautifully warm pool, perfect while it was still cool outside. One side had cold water leaching up from the sand; the other side had water that felt near boiling to our...
Rotorua was as gorgeous as it was nauseating too: the rotten egg smell had us both retching slightly. The Wai-o-tapu geothermal area was all boiling kerosene pits, crystallised sulphur vents, and fluorescent yellow waters – but even the free public park was unearthly: dozens of...
So, for a complete change of pace: New Zealand. We’re both madly in love with it so far. Bearable temperatures, and OMGz jaw droppingly beautiful landscapes, and even more OMGz things to do. Queenstown Queenstown first. It’s not gone changing much in the 20ish years since I was last there...
We’d both done Sydney Pride, Vanessa in 2000 and me in 2002, and a hella party it was, too. But Melbourne wins, at this slightly more advanced stage. You can actually see what’s happening, for one. In Sydney, people pick their spots at dawn and plonk down – sofas in the front, milk...
A few things I’m noticing about Melbourne: Coffee. Everywhere. Even regular McDonalds here has baristas and proper machines, apparently. (Fun fact: the McCafe was invented in Melbourne.)Plus: a truly intimidating quantity and quality of bars and restaurants. My kinda place. The...
The clouds I’d brought Sydney weren’t very good and evaporated today. I’ll bring some proper ones from Ireland next time; a nice thick layer of misery, with fog falling through rain. And I’d be welcomed as a national hero – it topped 40 degrees in the centre...
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