Big city, bright lights

Tokyo :: Japan

Spend, Spend, SPEND!.

Places: Tokyo, Nikko & Kamakura

Coolest thing I did: For about 30 mins I was the coolest white bloke in Tokyo. Then more white people showed up and I was no longer.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The three wise monkeys live in Japan.

So I'm back from the country to the big city. On the Shink
I spent far more time looking out the window that on the trips down and
I found out a couple of things. One is that from Kobe to Tokyo (and I
imagine even further north) there is no end to the urbanization as it
goes from skyscrapers to suburbs to heavy industry and back again
several times. It's staggering to think just how many people they've
fit on this island. I also saw Mount Fuji and at this time of year it's
probably as close as I'm going to get as they tend to discourage people
from climbing it when it's covered in snow and avalanche prone.
Spoilsports. Now all my pictures (taken from a train moving at about
200kph) are all blurry and have telephone poles in the foreground.

I chose to return to Tokyo for the weekend instead of going south some
more because despite all the party work our group did last time around
I felt there was more to be found. And was there ever. I'm staying in a
hostel in Asakusa
(because they are all there, because it's cheap and dodgy) so if you
want to hit the better places to go out the only option is to stay out
all night and wait for the subway to re-open at 6am. My first night I
headed out alone to Shibuya in armed with nothing but one address (from the Time Out webpage
) of a bar and some high hopes. Thank God it all worked out. After
trying a few bars around ｔｈａｔ seemed to be filled mostly with salary
men I wandered through darkened alley ways until I found the place. It
was an unnamed bar, all painted red with chandeliers on the ceilings and
most importantly, no other white people. Up until this point I'd either
been in seedy bars with all Japanese people or places haunted by Westerners
so for the half hour I sat there with some very cool looking Japanese
people I ｈａｄ no hope of communicating with I felt very hip indeed.

As
it turns out this place appears to have recently crossed over into
ex-pat land from being mostly Japanese and it wasn't long before the
other Westerners started showing up. They were a quite good mix of
Antipodeans and Europeans and the Japanese English speakers who started
showing up seemed to be happy to mix with us. I ended up with a handful
of Japanese kids, a French girl, some bloke from Brisbane and his
Japanese wife and a Dutch girl in some nightclub halfway between Shibuya and Roppongi until about 9am. Great night out but I ended up being woken up by some friendly old ladies on Asakusa because I'd obviously been snoring on the train.

Saturday
was a bit different. I met some Canadians in the hostel who took me out
when they went to meet up with a Japanese DJ who they'd befriended
earlier in the week. Like South Africans, most Japanese seem to think
they areDJs. He told us to come out to Ikebukuro to a party he was playing at and while we were waiting for him outside Ikebukuro
station to pick us up we decided to make good use of a giant Kiwi we'd
brought with us. If you think I get stared at in Japan being just over
6ft tall, you want to see the stir someone who is 6'10" causes. People
were coming up to be photographed with him, and one bloke even put his
girlfriend on his shoulders and they were still shorter than him. It
was seeing the reactions on the kids faces when they first spotted him
that was the best.

The party turned out to be in a tiny club on the 6th
floor of some back alley building and we were a little concerned that
our party (which had added a couple of random Japanese people by this
time) doubled the crowd. However, everyone was very nice, even if they
spoke about 3 words of English between them, and as the night went on
it got much closer to packed. Great night out but the back to back all nighters took their toll (I'm 30 now, after all) and it was a very long ride home at 7am.

I spent the first couple of days back in Tokyo mostly retracing my steps
through the shopping districts to join the super-consumerism that makes
Japan famous. Many acrobatic feats of design have been achieved by the
retailers of Japan and some of the shops are just cool to go and look
at, no matter what the sell. I did, however, seem to have a hangover
induced
lowering of sales resistance and ended up with far too many new
T-shirts. For those who have time you want to take a look at the shops
aroundAoyama and just gawk at all the glass and chrome, even if you don't buy anything.

In my geekier days I used to read far my sci-fi than I do now and a reoccurring theme in the 80s was this idea that in the near future the urban dwellers would all live in arcologies, giant buildings that contained work, home and play all under one roof.
Trust the Japanese to have started building them. The development of Roppongi
Hills is residential-entertainment-retail extravaganza that just has to
be seen to be believed. I've since been told there is a newer
development in Shiodome that puts RH to shame so I guess people do
really want to live, work and shop in the same place. I wonder if this
will catch on in the West at all.

I have also spent some time doing some more cultured day trips from Tokyo to balance out all the Blade Runner city scapes I'm seeing all day and night otherwise. The town of Nikko
has some temples and shrines in it so I set out to see it and despite
some screwing up of trains (the further off the beaten track you go the
less English there is) I managed to get out there in time to see the
main temples. The highlight is the one with the original carvings of
the three wise monkeys (hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil) on
it. I was kind of glad it turned out to be a half day as Nikko was way
up in the hills and it was snowing when I got off the train. I wasn't
at all prepared for that so I was bloody freezing by the time I got out
of there.

Today was spent going the other direction, to Kamakura to see　a giant bronze Buddha.
That was pretty cool. I also saw lots more shrines and temples, but to
be honest they are starting to kind of just merge into one temple in my
mind now. They were still very nice temples and shrines. I especially
liked the one with all the Shinto demons and rulers of hell in it. I
guess in all religions, like all good stories the baddies get the best lines.

Back in Tokyo for the last stretch now, as I'm flying back to London on Friday.

Auschwitz II

Hiroshima :: Japan

A bit of a downer, really.

Places: Hiroshima

Coolest thing I did: Saw the trees that not only survived the bomb but are still growing.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The Hiroshima baseball team is called....the Carp. Seriously. Go Carp!

History is a funny thing. It's hard to know where the truth lies when things are told from people's imperfect memories, and it gets even worse when governments and their money get involved with preserving it. While I know both the Japanese and Germans have been very, very apologetic over their actions during the Second World War (and the Allies less so) it's hard to be objective when walking around the monuments and museums of Hiroshima (all which inevitably have the word Peace in their title somewhere).

The narrative in the Peace Memorial Museum tells the story of a city that built itself up as a military power during Japan's rise as a world power during the first half of the 20th century to a point where during the final stages of WWII it was the southern command of the Japanese army and the point where the defence of Japanese soil would probably be directed from. The war was pretty much lost at this point but (if we are to believe the story we're told by the Allied Powers) Japan was ready to fight to the last man to repel invasion. The bits I found most enlightening were the things you didn't expect to be shown.

Extracts from the diaries and letters from such luminaries as Einstein, Roosevelt, Truman and Oppenheimer tell the story of the Manhattan project and the lead up to the creation of the atomic bomb. We find out the Americans deliberately wanted to see the effects of a nuclear weapon on a functioning population and did not want to give any advantage to the Germans, who they suspected were far advanced in building their own atomic weapons. As a result as early as 1943 it was decided that mainland Japan would be the target of the first atomic weapon and as bombing raids started on Japan itself there would be none to take place over possible atomic bomb targets. The Americans specifically wanted to use this weapon at least once, both to dispassionately observe its effects and to warn all future foes (which would eventually mean their allies, the USSR) of the power they held.

In the end, geography and good weather conspired to pick Hiroshima. The target was a bridge which happens to be two bridges meeting in a T shape (easy to sight visually for the bombardier) and to prove this was a scientific endeavour, two other planes launched recording equipment to collect data. While it's unfair to make comparisons to the Nazis experiments on Jews it does seem to stem from the same mentality.

The impact point (hypercentre) is marked with a small granite memorial you could almost trip over so as to not take away from the A-bomb dome a hundred metres away. A Czech designed government building on the river front survived the blast with it's stone walls and the framework of it's dome intact. This has been kept in the same condition as it was after the blast, as a reminder of what took place. Of all the memorials it's the least contrived and I hope the one that survives all the rest.

As the single biggest geopolitical event since the invention of gunpowder it's hard to predict what would have happened had the Americans warned the Japanese of the existence of atomic weapons, or had they demonstrated the power to them. In the scale of human life lost in WWII 150,000 is a rounding error, but it was the impact of killing them in this way that may have ended the war when it did. It seems the US were indeed hell bent on using it. Would the Japanese have actually fought to the last man, thus extending the numbers of Allied casualties? Would the Soviets have paid as much attention and kept pushing on with conventional warfare in Europe if they suspected the US unwilling to use such a terrible weapon on actual people? Would there have been the relative calm of the Cold War or would we have had another World War by now? No one would disagree that the horror that Hiroshima and Nagasaki endured should never be repeated, but can we be so sure the alternatives would have been no worse?

Nothing in my travels has made me think about what evil people are capable of like this has except for the memorial at Auschwitz. It seems that World War II was indeed humanities Whoa, Whoa, WHOA! moment when we realised that we were plumbing the depths of what humanity could do. While the second half of the 20th century was not all sunshine and lollypops compared with much of the rest of human history it's been relatively peaceful. The biggest problem is we now have so many nuclear weapons we could destory the planet many times over. I don't think that's a problem beyond solving, but places like this need to exist to remind us why we need to solve it.

Shrine me

Hiroshima :: Japan

Being a super tourist in the future.

Places: Kyoto, Nara, Himeji & Hiroshima.

Coolest thing I did: Breathed incense smoke and drank water to make me somehow holy.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Japanese people don't seem to mix wasabi in their soy with sushi.

While Kyoto is a modern, happening town with all the mod cons you'd expect from a big Japanese city you really only go there to see old stuff. It's bloody well full of old stuff. There's shines for the Shintos, temples for the Buddhists and even a castle if that floats your boat.　The fact that UNESCO have gone mad over classifying everything in sight tells you it should be good stuff. Of the many temples I saw I rate the one covered in gold leaf (the Kinkakuji Temple) and the one with a view over the city (the Kiyomizudera Temple) the best to look at. I also rated walking along the rather grandiosely named Path of Philosophy (even though it was named Path of Philosophy (even though it was, in reality a footpath next to a canal) to the Ginkakuji Temple (which is also called the Silver Pavilion despite them never raising the capital to actually cover it in silver).

While I thought the Temples and Shrines were very nice to look at, I also enjoyed the rituals. For free you can wave incense smoke over you for some reason, and catch water as it dribbles off a roof and drink it. I have no idea why but everyone else was doing it so I did too. The other rituals seemed to involve buying things (bits of paper with stuff written on it, bits of wood with stuff written on it) and trying them to walls/trees/clothes lines. I'm sure the Catholic church would be jealous that some people can get away with selling redemption for cold hard cash without causing a major schism in their church.

My trip into Japanese nightlife was severely curtailed by my reckless need to arrive in a new town on a Saturday afternoon having not booked anything. The only hostel I could get into was well located for the tourist stuff but was like a barracks for tourist stuff but was like a barracks for it's rigidity. At 10.30pm sharp the doors closed and at 6.40am sharp a siren sounded and everyone had to get out of bed. This meant while I went out for dinner every night and sampled a few random bars, I was usually doing my Cinderella act right as things were picking up. Still, after the previous two weeks a few days off wasn't the worst thing that could have happened.

On a totally unrelated note I'd like to nominate the sushi train concept as possibly the best lone eating experience possible. Sit down and the waiter does nothing else except bring your beer. You pick plates of food off the conveyor belt going around in front of you and you're charged by the plate at the end (including a yellow plate for each beer). The chefs work right in front of you so you know it's fresh and they just make whatever they feel like. I tried to not just stick with the white boy stuff of salmon on rice and I tried all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff. Still not sure what the bright blue fish was though...

I broke up my stay in Kyoto with a day trip to Nara to see, yep, more shrines and temples. They have this big park where the deer are so populous that they just pretty much ignore cars/buses/people and go about doing as they please. There was an option to buy deer biscuits to feed them but after watching a group of deer chasing some Japanese schoolgirl around after she ran out of them I thought it wise to pass.

The highlight of Nara is the Todai-ji Temple which has a massive bronze Buddha and a couple of smaller gold Buddhas in it. I like it when people make really big sculptures of stuff like that. There were also these huge statues of pig headed guardians that are supposed to scare of thieves. Those were also rather impressive.

While Temples, Shrines and giant statues are all very impressive I found I quite like Japanese gardens. Of these, the best are the Zen gardens, which are kind of like gardens on the cheap. You have sand, rocks and a bonsai or two and then you rake patterns in the sand. It'ｓ a very pleasing aesthetic and all very Zen. Man. I also learned that the minimalist aesthetic of Zen came about because the Japanese were a really poor country so couldn't afford all the trappings of other religions and philosophies. Rather simple explanation, and very cool if it's true. Some yank grad student told me that so it might be rubbish.

Post-Kyoto I caught the Shink (yeah, I'm calling it that now) to Hiroshima with a quick stop over in Himeji for the day. Himeji is a tourist spot because it has something for the boys and something for the girls. Next door to each other is Japan's only surviving castle that hasn't been totally reconstructed out of concrete and a huge Japanese garden next door. The castle is well worth the visit, very imposingly martial. My favourite bit was the annex built for one of the Princesses that went to live there. She married the Diyamo of the castle and they apparently had a really nice marriage, until a rival came along and took the castle and killed her husband. She then married the new Diyamo and just got on with it. Resilient lass.

So I got into Hiroshima this afternoon but I've done nothing but look for an ATM that will take my card. Here's a lesson kids: pretty much no banks in Japan will give you money, except for the post office. I now remember reading the post office is Japan's biggest bank, but I didn't realise until I'd walked Hiroshima end to end that they are also the only ones that take foreign ATM cards. Trick for young players.

The future is full of tiny little people

Kyoto :: Japan

And things come in vending machines.

Places: Furano, Tomamu, Kamui, Asahikawa, Tokyo & Kyoto.

Coolest thing I did: Sat nude in a hot bath in the snow.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The list is endless...

There was once a bloke called William Gibson who used to write science fiction novels but now writes novels set in the present that relate almost as closely to technology as his old ones did.　His first great claim to fame is to have invented the term "cyberspace" about 15 years before the general population had ever heard of the internet. His other great claim to fame is to have told us that Japan is the future. This may not seem like much of an observation now but it was a big deal in 1980.

If Japan is still the future then the future is filled with tiny little people who are very nice. People like me may have some problems in the future as I may have some problems in the future as I'm pretty much covered in bruises, bumps and scratches from running into things because everything is too small for me to use. This seems to cause the Japanese no end of amusement.

My trip here so far has consisted of three very different parts, two involving big groups of people and one not. The first part was snowboarding in the very northern island of Hokkaido. Unlike the rest of Japan, Hokkaido is quite cold and doesn't have a whole lot of people in it. It also has some moderately high mountains on it, which means you can ski on it too. All credit to my mate Law for organising 20 odd people to come away together and have a ball. We were based in the town of Furano which is nestled at the base of two ski fields with some fairly long runs that were just about perfect for someone of my ability. Add to that some fresh snow early on in the week and that there were no queues for anything, even on the weekend and you have a recipes for some very enjoyable boarding. We also sampled a bigger field called Tomamu, which was better for the elite but a bit of a pain for us amatures, and a smaller one at Kamui. Kamui was wrecked for us by blinding snow above the treeline and pelting rain below it. This was a pity as it seemed rather nice.

The nights consisted of freaking out the proprietors of restaurants by showing up in a massive group in the off season and eating all their food. We saw some very good just in time inventory control, mostly involving getting your dad or brother to come by with more beer or wine. The drinking was a bit harder, as most of the bars were empty but with persistence it was possible to sniff something out. I found by sticking my head in the door and covering my obvious counting of the patrons with a "good evening, how are you doing?" worked. We had some top nights, including Law's birthday karaoke extravaganza, which according to witnesses can only be described as feral. Our rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody may have contributed to that.

Not all the days out involved snow. We did an afternoon to an Onsen (hot bath to you lot) up in the mountains that was all outdoors and all naked. The segregation of the sexes probably helped more people participate and I'm finding I'm getting a bit adicted to just sitting in pools of hot water. This was probably the best one we did as it was in a natural setting at there was massive chunks of snow falling the whole time. It does wonders for the aches and pains of snowboarding too.

We did another day trip to Asahikawa and it's nearby zoo. While I wouldn't be a zoo person I did think the spectacle of them having Emperor Penguins walking past the crowd was pretty cool, as was the tank that let you see polar bears both above and below the water. I did think that keeping African animals like Rhinos and Lions in the snow seemed a bit wrong. The town of Asahikawa was memorable mostly for lots of Japanese girls giggling at us doing pretty much anything (eating with chopsticks, drinking beer, walking...). We also happened into a Panchinco parlor, which is something that has to be heard to believe. It's basically slot machines that take ball bearings as money. When you finish you swap your winnings for prizes, which you then take around the corner to a "pawn shop" to exchange for cash money. The sound of torrents of ball bearings running through hundreds of these machines at once it deafening and something to behold.

I kind of liked all the time we spent on the bus in Hokkaido (and there there was a lot of it) if for nothing else than watching snow covered fields with mountainous backdrops pass by. It's barren but beautiful country.

After a day of travel we made it into Tokyo, city of the future. Having only spent a couple of days there I only have a quick impression of it all but looking out over it from the heights of the Metro Offices it feels a bit shapeless with these wide streets and buildings stretching shapeless with these wide streets and buildings stretching out until they hit the bottom of Mount Fuji. Down on street level you can walk for ages and find nothing but the chance for consumption, and that's what people in the future do best. I spent a day walking from our hotel in Shinjuku to Harajuku, through Aoyama and down to Shibuya seeing nothing but food, advertising and retail. For a country that's been in the economic doldrums for the last 1 been in the economic doldrums for the last 15 years they sure do like to spend.

From street level you are amazed at just how clean and ordered everything is. Yellow lines to divide the footpath, no rubbish anywhere and a subway system that tells you when the train is coming down to the second (I know the Tube does that in London too, but the difference is in Tokyo the estimates are invariably right). What strikes you is despite being the home of automation Japan is a very labour intensive country. All this stuff works so well because they employ so many people to do jobs no one would bother with in the West. When you see a guy in a uniform and white gloves whose only job is to make sure the road is clear when the bus comes around the corner every 15 mins you know that bus isn't going to get held up.

I left my 20s　somewhere in Roppongi. This was careless of me, I know. After a nice group BBQ for dinner the group tied balloons to me and we headed for Roppongi, a red light district that makes Vegas look like Disneyland. The bars we mostly full of white guys in suits and we mostly full of white guys in suits and Brazilian prostitutes so we kind of stood out a bit. It was a huge night and probably not a bad way to see in my 30s. Needless to say the balloons didn't survive the night.

The group departed Japan for their various countries and jobs yesterday so I got on the super fast Shinkanzen train (Bullet train to the peons) to Kyoto. It says something about current politics when all I knew about the place was there was a treaty on carbon emissions signed here. I'll save the tales of looking at shrines and temples until next time, as I've been shrines and temples until next time, as I've been typing on this stupid kanji keyboard for far too long. The place I'm doing this is called a Manga cafe and it's basically a place where nerds hide. My booth has a PC with the internet and games, a playstation 2 and a plasma TV in it. Should I tire of playing games I can read backwards comic books in Japanese (many with covers that would make Larry Flint blush). Should I need more energy I can order food, and should I start to stink I can shower. How long do people spend down here?

More soon. Konichiwa bitches.

Non Touristique

Dublin :: Ireland

In search of those elusive French bastards.

Places: Paris and Reims.

Coolest thing I did: Saw lots of Champagne in chalk caves.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Oscar Wilde died of Acute Menegitis.

After my last mid-winter visit to France about 5 years ago I promised that my next trip would come at a time more congenial to sitting around in cafes and making things like parks generally more visitable. However, when Mark, Dee and I were trying to work where to go away for our last family gathering in Europe together none of the usual Ryanair stag-do venues were really appealing. Without a general idea of what we wanted to do (except for one request to go to the Champagne region) we booked ourselves in for a cheap flight and split hotel room and were away.

With one of the wildest spates of winter weather on record hitting Europe on the same day as we were to depart we spent most of a Thursday night at a pub in the airport in Dublin waiting for our plane to come and get us from Paris. This turned out to be not too bad a night out and probably helped calm the nerves a bit when it came time to fly into what should have been a pretty choppy flight. By the time we got into the hotel at around 1am we all pretty much had moved from drunk into hangover and a night out was off the cards. Mark and I did discover that food wasn't too hard to come by, wolfing down something called a King Sandwich each before bed.

While the hotel itself had some issues with hot water the location between Place Republique and Rue Oberkampf was pretty much unbeatable for everything we wanted to do. With a fresh morning to work with it was a brisk walk to Gare L'est just up the road and onto a train bound for Reims. The goal was home of Verve Clicquot but Reims itself turned out to be a nice old town as well. There's a staggeringly large Cathedral there, which I've since found out is pretty famous which we took a look at, even though we weren't supposed to be too touristy on this trip. I know I've seen about a million churches, but the scale of this one is just something to behold.

Our tour of Verve started a little late, but I don't think Mark would have held out through the whole thing. A rather serious bunch of people were standing around being told of the history of numbers of bottles shipped to St Petersburg in the time of Catherine the Great when we walked in. By the time the map of the Champagne region was lighting up to tell us where they got most of their Pinot Noir from I could see lots of eyes glazing over. It wasn't until they took us down into the ground that the whole thing became worth it.

Verve own 24km of caves that have been tunneled out of the soft chalk that lies under the entire region and apparently these have the perfect conditions to store industrial scale quantities of sparkling wine in all states of completion. Apparently some of these caves go back as far as the Romans and each House has it's own set down there somewhere to do all the blending and aging that goes into making every rapper and teen heiresses favorite tipple. You walk past pallets of unlabeled bottles in each cave and when each individual cave is numbered in the hundreds (we started the tour at cave 251) you get some idea of how big an operation it is. We were shown a video (projected onto one of the walls, making an interesting impromptu cinema) of the 10 people whose job it is to taste every single batch to work out what gets blended together to make the finished product. The staff seem pretty loyal, if you stay longer than 10 years you get a cave named after you and there were a lot of plaques commemorating past employees. I guess I'd be a far more loyal employee if that was my job too.

After the standard tasting in the gift shop (ah, winery tours...) we decided we'd take our time getting back to the station and visit a few more places for some tastings, but when some young Americans coming out of the Tattinger House told us we'd have to do the cave tour again we decided against it. We were, however, aghast when the same young Americans told us they'd done the tour but not bothered with the tasting. I still don't get it.

We started off in one of those smoke filled tabac/cafe things for a beer but pretty soon descended into the madness of going into bars and buying champagne from the bottle. At an average of about a bottle every 20 odd minutes between three the result was rather predictable. Apparently tourists are out of season at the moment, as we got some rather funny looks from all the French speakers in the bars, but we didn't care too much. It was much better than being at work on a Friday afternoon.

The train back to Paris was sometime around commuter o'clock so we seemed to stand out a bit by being the only ones drinking champagne out of the bottle and who had obviously been through several previous bottles. I attempted to teach Dee and Mark how to play the card game Arsehole properly, but at that stage I was pretty much having to make the rules up as I went along. It showed.

Here's a tip, don't just go into a Parisian restaurant at random and order stuff off the menu at random. While my pre-chewed looking omelette did taste alright, Mark somehow ended up with a liver sitting in a plate of brown gravy. He seemed to take it rather well.

After the day we'd already had we decided it was better to just go directly out, so we set off in the direction of Rue Oberkampf, which I'd been informed was a good place to go out. With much wandering it became clear navigation had gone out the window. We wandered towards the bottom of Canal St Martin and it was only once we were heckled by bunches of dudes sitting in the middle of the park and witnessed someone kicking the utter crap out of a bus stop that we realised we might have gone the wrong way. Thank God there is a map about every 5 metres in Paris so we could have a few more attempts at getting to the right place.

After this Friday night on the Oberkampf I can endorse Paris as a primo nightlife destination, but not a cheap one. At somewhere in the order of 6.50 EUR for a half pint of beer it was never going to be a cheap night out, but man, was it a good one. We went to a handful of bars at different points down the street and any one of them would have sufficed for a night out. Despite what you keep hearing about the rudeness of the French everyone was beyond friendly. The bars are also the kinds of places you long for in Dublin and could never exist anymore in Sydney, usually intimate in size and experimental in decor and music choice. Table service is the norm and you actually feel rather cool just for being in them. After a while you also start forgetting you couldn't see the roof through the smoke and you're passively putting away about a million cigarettes a night. Someone told us they were cutting out indoor smoking in 2007 but I'd daresay it's going to have a much harder time getting through France than it has elsewhere. Smoking just seems to be something they do. All of them.

Once Dee had enough (this can be forgiven with the day we'd already had) somewhere in the order of 1am Mark and I found ourselves holding court at a long table in the heart of the Oberkampf. In the preceding 4 hours we befriended Frenchmen (and Frenchwomen), Moroccan drug dealers and Ivory Coastian bouncers. Very good atmosphere and a cracking night out. So good, in fact that despite being about 2 mins walk from our hotel we managed to almost get into an altercation in a taxi queue outside the Pere Lachaise cemetery, which was so obviously in the opposite direction in hindsight that it's hard to figure out how we got there on foot. Bien!

So while Mark suffered through a whole day of the sweats and KFC, Dee and I went back to Pere Lachaise (well, first time for her...) to go look at where they stuck Jim Morrison. Jimmy's grave is yet another example of the Mona Lisa Syndrome (ie. everyone standing around saying "I thought it would be bigger...") but it's still cool enough to go and see. I've seen pictures of the graffiti from the olden days when it was on every American's must do list and even though it's now less impressive, it's still probably a good thing they cleaned it up. I thought the final resting place of Oscar Wilde, which has been marked by the kisses of many lips, was much better to look at.

That was one of two seriously touristy things we did. The other involved dragging out very hung over selves up all those stairs leading to the top of Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur sitting on top of it. Sitting up there at night was possibly one of the best things I did the first time in Paris and it was just as good during the day. I think Dee was impressed too. We then spent the afternoon nominally walking towards Notre Dame, but really just meandering around the winding streets. We probably would have made it all the way to the river if the heavens hadn't opened and we didn't need to go and rescue Mark from his three piece feed.

Having heard Canal St Martin was the new Oberkampf, and in light of what it looked like the night before we decided to have a bit of a look around during the daylight hours. What we did see was something like a refugee camp, with rows and rows of tents lining each side of the canal. I'm not sure if it was a policies statement or proper homelessness. After a bit more lazing around a smart looking cafe up there we decided that we'd go back to Oberkampf for round two.

Our second night involved less lunacy that the first, but it was still a hell of a night out. We went to three bars, again, none of which you would expect to find in Dublin. The first was a cozy affair with lots of people around 10 years our junior sitting around what had to be the worlds lowest tables drinking cocktails, smoking their little hearts out, and occasionally yelling at a game of yhatzee that was spiraling dangerously towards rowdiness. It does seem that the French think nothing weird of card games and the like being played in ultra cool bars on a Saturday night. The second place we went, a sort of bar/art sales room with painted skateboard decks on the wall for sale, we were sitting across from another bunch playing cards. Try that in Bungalow 8.

The last place we went was probably the most eventful. We saw a bloke that looked like Ryan Girdler (formerly of the Penrith Rugby League team) probably knew nothing of this 'Rugby League' of which we spoke. There were two girls dancing on the bar whom we later found out were Americans. We should have figured this out by the stripper moves they were putting in, or probably more likely when one of them reached up, stumbled and pulled a fair part of the air conditioner out of the roof. I'm sure the bar tender would have cared had he not been so obviously on something that he couldn't focus on you to get the money once he'd reached down to get your beers and looked back up, despite you being a) right in front of him and b) exactly where you were when he looked down 15 seconds previously. Said American girl also made quite a river of vomit in the toilets (which seemed to be unisex in every bar and restaurant in Paris) according to Mark, who also got to see the spectacle of the French people all going nuts at her.

All in all, a great three day weekend away, and very little serious tourism done. For all the attention going to the ultra cheap destinations that were once on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, some of the old gems like Paris and Berlin are getting forgotten. It's a pity, as these places are famous for a reason.

The Feej

Sydney :: Australia

Yasawa what?

Places: Nadi, Waya, Tavewa & Nanuya Balavu.

Coolest thing I did: Sank kava with the boys at night.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Fiji fits Freddie Mercury’s criteria for a real country as it has both a beer and an airline.

While visiting all the people back in Sydney has been good for me, I decided I needed a holiday away from my holiday. So I went to Fiji. As you do.

I flew into the “city” of Nadi but resolved to spend very little time in it. As this was one of the least planned trips I’ve ever taken I decided pretty much overnight to get on the Yasawa Flyer (the big yellow boat as they call it) and take a trip through the Yasawa chain of islands, which stretch out off the west coast of Viti Levu, the main island. I’d read quickly that this was more in the back packer style of travel, as opposed to the much closer Mamanuca chain. The Mamanuca chain has some of the world’s best reef breaks for surfing and some of the countries’ best dive spots, but I didn’t like the idea of being trapped on these resort islands with a crowd only interested in booze and sunburn. I could have gone to Bali. Or Dublin.

The Yasawa Flyer is a top idea. Not only does it wind its way to pretty much every non-luxury resort in the whole chain of islands, but it also is the only thing in the Yasawas that maintains anything resembling punctuality. When you are on an island and the only way you are aware of time is by the sounding of the drum/horn/conch shell for meals then this is the kind of thing that stops entire days passing by without you noticing. It’s also a very good way to get a look at the islands as you pass so you can see if it’s the kind of thing you were after.

My first stay was at a tiny resort called Sunset, which had one of the more enviable locations I stayed in. It is situated right on the beach between Waya Island and it’s baby sister Waya Lailai. The beach includes a strip of sand that allows walking between the two islands at low tide but completely disappears during high tide. There is a village over the water on Waya Lailai and one over the hills on Waya, meaning there seems to be constant traffic of Fijians wandering through the resort with little distinction between who works there and who is being friendly. It’s quite a good atmosphere.

I spent lots of time there laying in a hammock and watching it all go by. This is a valid past time in most of Fiji and very rewarding. You get an idea of what people do all day. The lack of organisation (and all day electricity) seemed to annoy some of those passing through but it was exactly what I was looking for. After the mad week of boozing it up in Sydney it was nice to have some quieter nights and lazier days.

My two big activities were hiking up the mountain and snorkelling. Waya has the only real mountain in the Yasawas so when they told me that one of the blokes from the village would take us up to the top I jumped at the chance. I was the only one so me and my mate Artu went around to the far village in his dingy, picked up his machete and proceeded to hike the hour and a half to the summit. Along the way you see all the hill side agriculture that provides most of the food for these people (and us resort stayers) and build up quite a sweat. I guess walking up a hill in the tropics is bound to leave you looking like you swam up the mountain. The view from the top is nothing short of spectacular, with a clear view all the way to Viti Levu and the far end of the Yasawas. You can even see the outer edge of the reef and the waves breaking over the famous surf spots like Cloudbreak and Restaurants.

On the way back down Artu climbed up some trees and got us coconuts, which he then proceeded to tap and poke holes in so we could drink the juice with bamboo straws. I expected something like the coconut milk you buy in cans, but it turns out the juice is clear and rather sweet. While we were sitting under a tree having a rest one of his mates stopped by from digging up yams and they sat there having a bit of a yarn. This seems to be how work is done in Fiji, constantly punctuated by the need to have a bit of a yap about things. It’s not too much different from us I guess.

As it was a quiet night that night the younger blokes from the village had me down to the beach where they were drinking kava. Kava is kind of like a crushed root that is scrubbed through a sock into water and comes up with something that looks and tastes like muddy water. It’s drinkable if you don’t think too much about it. It’s also supposed to be mildly narcotic but the only effect I felt on the first night was a bit of a calmness and some difficulty sleeping.

When you go to the hotels or resorts you’ll probably get roped into one of these formal kava ceremonies where everyone has their place and there’s heaps of clapping and what not. These blokes just drink it because it’s the only thing the chief will allow them to drink. Booze is strictly forbidden in the villages, which also may explain why many of the problems with drink that have burdened other indigenous cultures have not manifested in the villages of Fiji. As people do, however, if the boys can have kava, then that’s what they’ll have. There must be some need to all gather around and have something to do while they whinge about their women and the chief. I guess some things transcend all national boundaries. I started to see it something like the coca leaves in the Andes, it’s proven itself to not be a problem for such a long time than to ban it now would be pointless.

The snorkelling in all the three islands I stayed in Fiji was some of the best I’ve ever done, and thankfully it got progressively better each island I tried it on. The water is like glass and the thing that struck me the most is the sheer variety of fish that will come out to play. Every bit of land, including the reefs is owned by someone and most of the villages have not sold the fishing rights to anyone, which is a good as declaring it a national park. One of the Dutch guys on Waya went night snorkelling with the locals at night and they allowed him to pick up lobsters right off the reef and cook them. There’s no real danger of over fishing when so few people are doing it. It also means they can make a living without needing to resort to government hand outs and the like. I’ve always been a bit sceptical about land rights at home, but having seen how well it appears to work in Fiji I think I’m coming around.

The second island I stayed on was Tavewa, which is one of the last places there are resorts in the Yasawas, even though it’s only about half way along the chain. The resort was set on a point covered in palm trees and the reef came right up to the shoreline meaning you could take your fins and mask right out of the bure (hut thing) where you were staying and in 10 metres or so you were right on the reef.

Tavewa is right over a very narrow channel from the Blue Lagoon of the movie fame and for the same view as I got you could bay $1500USD a night at the ultra posh resorts over the water. Of course, there you would have had flushing toilets and constant electricity, but you’re in Fiji, why would you want all that? The food was a notch above the stuff on the last island, and with the combination of protein and carbs so prevalent I found myself with no end of energy. I climbed up the hills in the interior of the island before lunch and then went snorkelling or swimming at the beach in the afternoon. Pretty blissful stuff.

The strangest thing, however, was the streams of pumice in the water. Apparently there had been an underwater volcano erupt the week before somewhere between Fiji and the Solomons, part of the same activity that caused the recent earthquake in Hawaii. This had dumped tons of pumice (which floats) into the water and the beaches were covered with it every morning in Tavewa. At first it’s a bit of a novelty, but then you see the workers at the resort having to rake it all up every morning and you think they probably don’t see it that way. It’s also a bit annoying when it keeps knocking into you while you’re snorkelling, but it also has caused these very warm currents, meaning you can feel extreme changes in temperature as you swim along and even see shimmering in the water at the inflection points.

Sleeping was a bit hard during the night for a combination of reasons. The local blokes were working behind the resort, clearing some land most days and at night I’d be only my way back to the bure and they’d invite me to more kava in the bush where they were working. I found that after a few days on the stuff it does start to numb the lips and tongue as advertised but also sleeping gets harder and harder. Add to that the geckos chirp loudly most nights and the sun is up before 5am and it makes sleeping in hard. Still, with no end of hammocks to make up for it during the hot hours of the mid day then it’s not that big a problem.

My last stop was on Nanuya Balavu, which is home to the Manta Ray Island resort, thus called because the channel between Nanuya Balavu and neighbouring Drawaqa island is the most likely spot in the Yasawas you’re going to see the rays swimming. It’s a good system really. You hire your snorkelling gear for the whole time you’re there and when someone spots them in the water you hear a drum beating and everyone goes in for a look. The snorkelling off the beach there was the best I saw anywhere regardless of the rays, but they made it even more special. The giant coral bommies give way to a sandy channel and even though I only saw one (and only at a distance) it was amazing.

Manta Ray is one of the newer breeds of backpacker joints. It seems that over the last 5 years the market has grown up a bit and be it in Munich or Fiji, posher kinds of backpacker accommodation is springing up to meet the demand. With it’s eco toilets, smaller dorms, new bar and restaurant and on site dive shop it’s obviously able to cater for those who want a bit of comfort with their adventure. I’m glad I didn’t stay in these kinds of places all the time, as the Fijians become more like resort staff, but it was a nice change right at the end.

It did appear to attract the gap year poms who I’d expected to see a bit more of along the way. Fiji is the first really foreign destination on the round-the-world-starting-America ticket and man, do you get some freshies. It did my ego a lot of good to tell of the travels of my 20s and I think I even gave some good advice on what to do when they all got to Sydney. Of course, they will all most likely stay in Kings Cross, go to Bondi and end up in Scruffy Murphies anyway, but it’s nice to think one or two of them will try something different.

The ride back to Nadi happened to coincide with the only day of poor weather on the trip, meaning the catamaran was getting up on one foil in some of the open water. There were lots of pale looking white people and lots of nonchalant looking Fijians. I even saw one woman carry two cups of uncovered tea without spilling a drop.

All in all, Fiji was well worth taking the week out for. I saw such a small part of the country, I reckon you could go for a month without doing too badly. I may try that sometime in the future.

Hunting for Hairy Cows

Dublin :: Ireland

On being drunker than an entire wedding party of Scots and Irish.

Places: Dundee, Castlehaven, Aberdeen, Inverness, Fort William, Glasgow, Stirling & Edinburgh.

Coolest thing I did: Saw a couple of good mates tie the knot.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: It's a sad indictment on your country when you have to go to Scotland for better weather..

My first time off since I started working (a whole month ago as some people seem intent on reminding me) saw myself, Mark and Dee off to Dundee in Scotland to see our mates Ellen and Graeme get married. It was a weekend that would have been dominated by football and drinking for most of Europe, with the World Cup final 4 being a wholly Euro affair but we decided to slot a wedding in there somewhere. I have been to Edinburgh a few times before, and even went in a hire car as far north as mid-Loch Ness way back on my first out of city trip when I lived in London, but most of Scotland was a complete unknown quantity to me. It seems like we went out of our way to remedy this over four days, even if it was a pretty superficial look at most places.

We prepared for the wedding, as one would expect, sitting in the sun at the Dundee arts centre, which has an excellent view over the inlet. This also involved reaquainting ourselves with the local lager, Tennents, which I'd previously written off due to it's link to the Tramp fuel that is Tennents Super but which turns out isn't that bad a drop. After a very quick change for me and Mark into our suits and back down the road to the pub we met up with Dee at about quarter to four and our festive state pretty much set the tone for the night. The hotel where the wedding was set was a posh looking affair and despite most of the crowd being either under 10 or over 60 we managed to sniff out the other friends of the bride and groom and take up the back row for the wedding itself.

It was the kind of wedding I could relate to, very short ceremony with all the right elements followed by light drinking and heavy eating. The ceremony was a civil affair, held in a room at the hotel to the accompaniment of flutes. I had my photo taken with the bemused flute players, but I think they humored me because I was either a very excitable looking person or visibly drunk. I'd like to think the former was true but it was probably the latter. We mingled with the family a bit before dinner and managed to find out about everyone who has a cousin, child, sibling etc in Australia. In a room full of Scots and Irish that is quite a sizable number. You get used to answering questions like “How far is Young from Sydney?” with a straight face. The dinner and speeches went all well and the dancing afterwards should have been enough to finish anyone off for the night. We, instead decided to go into town at about 1am to the student nightclub that is Fat Sams. We may have been looking a bit disheveled at this point, but we were allowed entry. I think this may have been due to the fact everyone else was dressed as students typically are and we look like we'd been drinking for about 12 hours at a wedding. I amused myself by telling everyone that I was there to ensure the media didn't take any pictures of Dee, who is a star in Home and Away but I don't think it went all that well due to my swaying and drinking on the job.

Mark had his weekends mixed up so had to wake up bright and early the next day to get to somewhere in Northern England to catch flight back to Dublin in time to make his flight to Japan for a two week holiday. I can only imagine what hell that was as I stumbled out of bed closer to lunch time and was in no fit state to drive the hire car. Dee would have been a better choice, but as she lost her wallet with the license in it about a month ago could not legally do so. Instead we ate burgers and slept in the park like common tramps until I was sober enough to drive.

The first touristy bit came just before Aberdeen, in a place called Castlehaven. It's famous for having a nice harbor and a castle nearby built into a rock outcropping facing towards Europe. We had to go there to meet Martin, Dee's former landlord and our host for the evening so we decided to stop moping around and walk the 2 and a half miles to the castle and back. It was lots of uphill, clinging to picturesque cliffs and walking through fields of some planted grain, but I think the exercise and sea air did us both good. Add to the fact the almost perfect weather held out for another day and it was a downright pleasant way to spent the afternoon. We were obviously in backpacker mindsets because we entertained a whole bunch of Chinese tourists by climbing up the hill to the castle and then refusing quite loudly to pay the 4 pounds entry fee. We felt so good when we got back to the harbor we even contemplated sitting on the seawall outside all the pubs in the sun and having a beer, but sanity or sickness prevailed.

Martin did well in getting us to forget that we were stupidly hung over from the night before and got us drinking again almost as soon as we set down in his rather central Aberdeen flat. We went on a varied crawl though pubs that used to be churches, pubs that are often restaurants, vodka bars and student clubs at got to see a fairly big slice of nightlife. We also had dodgey chicken burgers on the way home and Whetherspoons all day breakfast the following morning so I'd say it was a full Scottish experience. We did take a half hearted walk around the grey granite town itself, but after years of wandering Europe it wasn't that much different to anything else I'd seen before. The people definetly make places like this, rather than the buildings. It's a nice enough town though but I'd hate to see the effects all those grey buildings have on people's mood in the height of winter.

We took a cursory drive to Inverness, not stopping but just passing through the cities many shopping centres and then down the length of Loch Ness. It's a pretty drive, but the weather finally broke along the way and the far side was hard to see due to the fog and overhanging cloud. My good mood also broke a bit due to the rest of the tourist traffic driving, well, like tourists. It took hours to pass about 70 miles of winding roads and I am now inclined to believe Dee's claim she gets carsick easily as she wasn't' looking so healthy by the end of all that either. It may have also been two days of steady drinking.

We spent the night in a B&B in Fort William, which is at the foot of Ben Nevis, Scotland's tallest peak and well situated overlooking a Loch (the name of which I'd have to look up). Due to the hostels being booked solid one of them recommended this place as having a twin room and being cheap. To call the woman who owned eccentric would have done her no justice. While Dee had a shower I sat down with the owner and had a cup of tea and decided she was harmlessly dotty. She's been planning a round the world trip for the better part of a decade but is either rather forgetful or not very good at planning. I explained how round the world tickets worked at it was like entirely new information. Explaining that Dee and I were not a couple was also hard work and I think Dee came down early to try and rescue me once she overheard that. We couldn't get out quick enough to see the football final and give her some time to be dotty on her own.

When we got back (a mere 3 pints of Guinness was all I had that night, which was a relief) there was an Aussie couple trapped in the kitchen eating their pizza with her and we decided to have a chat to them about life. They had obviously just started their traveling ways, telling us about how they were going to get away from London every weekend with the cheap flights and how they were going to save up their money for travel instead of going out drinking all the time. I remember when I told myself those lies too. They were keen for any travel tips, but I learned long ago that the best way to decide what to go and see is to just find one thing you're interested in and go and see that well. That will teach you some history or about what you do and don't like to do as activities while you're away and those preferences themselves will give you ideas about what to do next. When I first landed in London I didn't even know Big Ben was famous for being attached to the Houses of Parliament and now I could quite safely think of enough things I'd like to still see and do in Europe to fill in the rest of a lifetime.

The last day was a long one, mostly because we had to be out of the B&B at 9 so the owner could go to church. We drove down to Glasgow as it was one of the few places Dee has never been and parked the car and wandered around. The downtown has obviously seen some hard times but looks to be rejuvenating itself through retail (much like Dublin) and the building of new bridges and projects. We went and took a photo of the armadillo like Exhibition Centre and walked back along the river under all the new construction sites. In the beauty stakes I have to say that Edinburgh won out long ago, but I get the feeling Glasgow wouldn't be a bad place to spend a few more days (and most importantly nights) at some stage.

On the way back we stopped off in Stirling to see the rather impressive William Wallace monument, which is a castle like Victorian structure perched on the top of a rise overlooking the town itself. It's been there for about 150 years but obviously owes Mel Gibson a great debt of gratitude for making it a must see for the thousands of tour buses that ply the Scottish roads every year. There is even a much beheaded statue of William Wallace as played by Mel to let the tourists know they've come to the right place. It's only the locals that seem miffed that these tourists might go away thinking Will did actually look like Mel so a favorite past time has been sneaking up in the dead of night and chopping the head off the statue. As a result it looks lots less like Mr Gibson than I'm reliably told it once did.

When the World Cup final went to extra time our flight was miraculously delayed, as was every other flight going out of Edinburgh that night. We all huddled around the few TVs in the airport to watch a nail biter of a game. I will say this for Zidane, if you're going to end an illustrious football career with a foul you may as well do it by head butting someone in the chest, just to make sure. When the penalties ended there was a mad rush for the gates only to find that most of the planes were empty anyway. Seem everyone had the same idea.

Just for the record, we didn't see one hairy cow all weekend.

A bit of Vapuu

Dublin :: Ireland

How the Finns get down.

Places: Helsinki & Tallinn

Coolest thing I did: What goes on in Estonia stays in Estonia.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The Finnish word for milk is "Maito".

In a place as extreme as the Nordic north of Europe summer can't seem to come around quick enough, and moving from the eternal nights of mid-winter to the white nights of summer is probably one of the best reasons you could have a 3 day party. So myself and Mark found ourselves in Finland to celebrate what they call Vapuu, or the May Day weekend. It was interesting going back to Helsinki, as it is returning anywhere, just to see how much you can remember and what's changed since. Last time I was there was during the lead up to the mid-summer and much of the city was empty. This time it was the exact opposite.

Things were made much easier by having someone to stay with who could introduce us to what it is we were supposed to be doing. On one of the afternoons there is a ceremony when a white sailors cap is placed on a statue of a woman in the middle of Helsinki. Everyone was pretty much wearing the same caps. From what I could gather, the placing of the hat on the statue made people very happy and want to drink lots of champagne. I'm all for that. The story behind the hats isn't exactly clear to me, but it has something to do with finishing some kind of schooling, I think University, but so many people were wearing them it was hard to work out if this was a country of very well educated people or perhaps I got it wrong and the hats were for graduating primary school. The recent University graduates also wear overalls like a formula one team would wear, made in different colours depending on which faculty you were from. I pity the dudes who had to wear hot pink.

It has to be said, the nightlife in Helsinki is good fun, but it isn't exactly what you'd go so far as to call wild. We went to a few bars, which were all very cool inside (or Irish themed, for some inexplicable reason), and with a very laid back atmosphere, but not too much in the way of the joy or merriment you would expect from people who had just come out of months of complete darkness. We also went to a house party of people we were at least 3 degrees of separation from and that seemed rather tame, even if everyone was pretty well drunk by the time we got there. It's all very polite. Again, very welcoming, and good fun, but a bit reserved.

The Monday is reserved for a picnic in one of the big parks. We went to one where the people must easily have numbered in the thousands. Lots of people bring blankets and tents (which I kind of expected), but some go so far as to bring their couches, armchairs and even beds. It was a carnival atmosphere, but one tempered by good old fashioned common sense. Even when there were streakers, they seemed to get polite applause more than jeering and screaming. I suppose it's got something to do with that famous North European comfort with ones body that us Anglo Saxon descendants missed out on somehow. The group who invited us to their picnic were very welcoming, but we shouldn't have slept in as long as we did and were very behind. We also discovered that drinking yogurt and vodka actually makes for a pretty nice drink.

We had a night over at the father of our host's place for a traditional hot rock sauna, which was quite enjoyable. I don't know who was the first person to decide that making yourself extremely hot, then rapidly cold (in this case, a shower followed by beer was the method) was a good idea, but they were onto something. After four straight days of abusing myself with alcohol and lack of sleep, it went a long way towards fixing me up. The hospitality we faced in Finland was second to none I've experienced.

So we got the quick boat to Tallinn to see how another part of the world had changed since last we visited it. I last went to Estonia about 3 years ago, and Mark's last trip would have been closer to six year ago.

Two things strike you as being different this time. One is that the impact of the rapidly growing economy are visible everywhere. Last time I was there, about half the buildings in the old town were still run down and the new town had a very Soviet grey feel to it still. Every usable building now seems to have been done up, and the nightlife is starting to spill out of the stone walls into the rest of the city. Shopping malls and high rise is going up in the distant skyline and there is a feeling of energy about the place.

The other thing is that the people seem dead sick of their country being invaded every weekend by stag parties from the UK. We were taken aback at just how unfriendly many people were the second it became clear we spoke English. That definitely wasn't what I recall from last time. I guess that's the flip side of having cheap flights, people get sick of having drunken Pommy fools show up vomiting on things, getting into fights and groping women. We tried to go back to Hollywood, a night club people with Estonians that I went to last time, but the crowd was very hard to break into.

The best finds were the places that aren't obviously trying to cater to the Ryanair crowd. We found not one, but two places that did Arabic style Hookah pipes, so it became almost a ritual to sit around every afternoon and go through a copious quantity of apple tobacco. Both these places were quite well laid out, but the one in the new town could have been anywhere in Scandinavia with it's decor, DJ and gorgeous waitresses. We found more of the same in some other bars, and it shows that the pseudo-German beer halls and Irish pubs can co-exist with something a bit trendier.

Our trips out to some other clubs outside the walls were also more fruitful. One that seemed to cater to an older, mostly Finnish and Estonian crowd turned out to be an excellent laugh, despite our misgivings at the music at first. We also went back to the club frequented by the Russian speaking Estonians that I visited last time and that also seemed to have more going for it that good old Hollywood. We also learned the plight of the Russian speakers first hand, with girls saying things like “the Estonian speakers look down on us because our Estonian is so poor”, followed up without irony with “serving girl! Where are my Russian meatballs!”.

It's lucky we didn't want to go looking at churches and castles again, because most of the days were spent asleep, which is a good idea when you're getting back at around 7am every morning.

Its interesting to see places you only vaguely remember visiting last time and how the memories come rushing back as you walk around them. I had a mental picture of both Helsinki and Tallinn that was surprisingly actuate in some places, but terribly wrong in others. I'm interested to see how some of the other places, especially the ones I liked most, like Berlin, have been warped in my memory.

Closed?!?!?!

Dublin :: Ireland

On a long weekend?

Places: Belfast, Giant's Causeway & Derry

Coolest thing I did: A big long walk from a rope bridge to loads of octagonal rock things.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: The IRA have better PR than the UVF.

There's no visible difference when you cross from the Republic of Ireland to it's troubled step-child to the north. I don't know why I expected something like the war zones of Israel or Bosnia, but I guess those were different scale wars. The same green rolling hills lead into the outskirts of Belfast as those that lead into Dublin, only all the petrol prices are in Pound Sterling rather than in Euros. Central Belfast is alive with the same sense of optimism and reconstruction that the southern capital is and despite softer, possibly more English sounding accents, the people seem to be just as friendly to strangers.

It was only by accidentally taking the hire car into north western Belfast that the scars of the recent conflict can be seen. In the poorer areas the police still cruise the streets in boxy, armored Land Rovers and there are lots of buildings that look more like blast shelters than houses. The murals in the Catholic areas are starting to turn their attention to freedom struggles (or terrorist acts, take your pick) in the wider world, but the old militant signs are still there. You'd almost expect there to be problems if it wasn't for the omnipresent black cabs taking tourists around to gawk at one of Europe's most recent conflict zones. At least no one seems to mind.

The countryside outside Belfast is a beautiful and green as anything in the south. The first full day was an outdoor hike from a randomly placed rope bridge to nowhere to the Giant's Causeway. It took us somewhere in the order of 5 hours of pretty hefty walking to get between the two but you do go over some widely windswept bays, overbearing stone cliffs and endless rural scenes of sheep farming. The rope bridge itself is on a dramatic causeway, connecting the mainland to a small island out in the sea. Small being the operative word, as all there really is to do there is turn around and go back over the bridge. I'm usually pretty bad with that kind of thing, but I managed to look down the entire way to the jagged rocks and sliver of water below without freaking out. I was kind of proud of that.

The Giant's Causeway looks like nothing special from a distance, but the closer you get and the more detail you can make out, the more amazing it seems. A small strip of stone stretching out into the Atlantic is revealed to be made out of what must be hundreds of polygonal rocks, all at slightly different heights, reminding me of those computer-generated fractal pictures where the smaller details mirror the larger overall pattern as you zoom in. At least, that's what I got out of it. The kids seemed to think it was cool to be able to jump from stone to stone in what looks like some infinite game of hopscotch.

The home country of Northern Ireland isn't very big. After the big walk we were in Derry before the sun even went down. In the shape of things to come, we went out with the idea of seeing some of the world famous nightlife, but found the cool pub the hostel owner recommended was shutting at midnight and no one else was going to be open any later. The place was chock full of the signs and flags of every revolutionary movement except (pointedly) their own. Rather confusingly, there was a Eureka Southern Cross right next to the Palestinian flag (“free Ballarat”?). They seem to take Easter fairly seriously, but that shouldn't have come as a surprise in a country where choosing a sect of Christianity was a definition of which side of an armed conflict you're on. When you've seen people persecuted, bombed and knee-capped because of which sect they happen to live with, then you're going to have more respect for your religion than the Godless secularists in the rest of the Western world.

Looking at those famous murals around the site of Bloody Sunday and their mirror on the Protestant side of town, you get the feeling that the public relations arm of the Republican movement is far superior to the Unionists. The highly artistic visions of slain Republicans and the heavy handed tactics of the British military make you want to side more with that side of town when they are compared to the militaristic and nationalist murals on the other side. The Unionists still seem to think striking fear into the heart of your enemies with pictures of masked gunmen and a victorious King Billy (William of Orange) and the words “Never Surrender” are the way to win hearts and minds.

The drive back to Belfast, via Armagh to see the site of St Patrick's original church in Ireland was also quicker than you would have expected. We walked the streets of a rather quiet Easter Sunday Belfast, looking at old buildings but not being able to go into many of them. I did like their own leaning tower, a clock tower in memorial for Albert, Queen Victoria's husband. The slightly droopy tower no doubt gave the wags a thousand excuses to poke fun at the man's virility, probably incorporating Queen Vic's famous line of “we are not amused”. It has to be said that going to Belfast during Easter was kind of like being in Jordan during Ramadan, you probably aren't getting the full experience. I'd been told that the nightlife in Belfast was just as good as Dublin's, but when the pubs all close at 10pm, you're going to be left a little disappointed. I think a return, just to go to Belfast for the nightlife is in order at some time during the future.

I think my favorite thing in Belfast wasn't actually in Belfast. In the morning before having to drop the car off we drove up to Stormont to see the parliament and the castle. I think it's pretty cool that you're allowed to use the parkland around the place, even though it probably was a sign of something to be destroyed during the Troubles. When you can walk right up to the Parliament building, but the US embassy looks like a fortress you can see which country is opening up and which one is closing down. It's a pity you can't even see the castle because of the fences though. I'm not sure what the use it for now, but it's most definitely off limits to the public.

I wasn't quite sure what I expected Northern Ireland to look like. I guess there was never a war there in the conventional sense, like there was in the former Yugoslav countries so the effects aren't easy to see in buildings without windows and pock-marked with the results of small arms fire. The fact that the neighborhoods are becoming more, not less segregated doesn't bode well for the future. I read that people are happier with the so-called Peace Walls separating the different sects, keeping the violent elements apart. The experience of Berlin after the wall came down or of Cypress when the travel restrictions between the two halves were removed should show that the mixing of the two halves will make violent conflict harder to carry out with public support. While the moderates are out of power I can't see the power sharing government being able to do anything, but I'd expect the future of Northern Ireland to end up separate from either London or Dublin. Unification with either will only push the extremists from the other side back into armed conflict. Surely those looking at the Celtic Tiger to the south can't help but notice prosperity will only come with stability. An independent Northern Ireland isn't what either side wants, which is why it might be the perfect solution. Let demographics take it's course and allow the next generation decide what to do with the place. That's got to be better than living under the shadow of the gun.

Once again

Dublin :: Ireland

A tale of two cities.

Places: Dublin & London

Coolest thing I did: Some of Michelangelo's raw work.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: Dublin was founded by Vikings.

It has to be said that between the two most familiar cities I've visited over the last fortnight, one has undergone dramatic change and the other seems much as it was before. After the buzz and excitement of New York I was ready to feel that same energy applied to London, a city I've known better than all others over the last half a decade or so. What I wasn't prepared for was the dramatic shift in fortunes of Ireland's diminutive capital, Dublin.

Despite the fact the airport is still under construction, as it was when I first visited Ireland in mid 2000, and the roads are struggling even worse to deal with the increase of traffic of all kinds, there has been a notable change in the composition of the city. The boutiques on Grafton Street have spilled over into the neighboring alleys and side streets, and while Chinese may have been considered exotic a few years ago, you now have an interesting mix of foreign cuisines and trendy new bars (or renovated pubs) inter sped with the ancient boozers that I recall. This change, I admit, was well under way with the infusion of IT capital when I was last here in 2003, but it is far more noticeable now than it was back then. Then other big change has been to the make up of the people. You did meet people of non Anglo-Celtic backgrounds before, but now the streets either side of the Liffey are starting to look like the United Nations. I think I've heard the term cosmopolitan bandied about more than once, meaning the locals are starting to notice the change too.

St Patrick's Day, the day after I arrived, went much as expected. Our original plan to start at 7.30 at an early opening pub was thwarted by the Guardia, who seemed to think last year's chaos with underage drinking was somehow fueled by letting young kids get booze early, so we spent some time wandering Dublin looking for open pubs or hotels that would serve us, and in the end we went back to Mark's in a taxi, stopping at every off license on the way until we found one selling beer. Thankfully, we found one and managed to being at 9, slightly behind schedule.

It has to be said I can't imagine it would have made much difference down the stretch. We went back out quite happy at midday, making our way slowly into town, won some money on the horses, lost that same money on some horses, saw about 10 mins of the parade on TV and then it starts to get quite hazy. By the time the smoke had cleared, 17 hours had elapsed and epic damage had been done to our heads, wallets and probably livers.

I was informed that I should take the opportunity to see the Irish play the English at absolutely anything possible, and the last game of the Six Nations Rugby happened to be on the day after St Pats. I can now assure you that it quickly becomes chaos if the Irish win said contents with the English. Again, more damage to myself ensured, and the rest of the weekend was understandably quieter. I went on Monday to get my legal alien card thing, which now has a picture of me in a beard on it. That's going to be a pain every time I go through customs, I can feel it.

London, well, was much like it was when I left it. I think that has a lot to do with spending pretty much all of my time there with the same people I knew when I lived there, but there is nothing so good as catching up with old friends. I'd describe the place as a few more bars, a few less pubs and one great big glass gherkin different to last time I was there. Still, it's a city that I have such fond memories of, and it only took a short time of walking the streets around Westminster to realise I do miss it. I'm kind of glad I did leave to go and try other things, as I don't know if it's a place I could live again any time soon, but I could definitely visit it over and over again. I miss that stark contrast of the ancient with the modern, something you don't get on the same scale anywhere else in the world. I think it's one of the few great cities that looks like it's actually been lived in for the last 2000 years. Sure Rome is older, but it looks like they gave up doing anything to it for centuries at a time.

I took a side trip out to Cambridge, which appears to be lots like Oxford, only less so. I can't believe the cheeky buggers make you pay to go into the most interesting colleges, so despite having a good look at lots of old stuff, I was a little disappointed in it. Still, I loved all those little niches on every building with the statue of a saint, bishop or chancellor in them. I don't know if I'm seeing more of those kinds of things now I know what to look for, but I'm appreciating the old stuff far more than I would have in all those months of traveling around Europe. I guess when you've not seen anything man made older than the1700s then you forget about how much beauty that old church money created. I'm sure the people toiling the fields to pay for it didn't think so, but we get to still see the results.

By quite a fluke I read one morning about the collection of Michaelangelo drawings on display at the British Museum, so I made a special effort to go out and see them on my last day. It's all the raw sketches he did for practically every major project he completed, from David to the Sistine Chapel, mostly sketches of the male models that would have later been warped into biblical type people for the finished product. Despite having to go elbow to elbow with the grey haired brigade that had come out in force to see them, it was well worth it. Despite the being an understatement, man, could that guy draw. I also was glad to get an excuse to go and take another look at the building itself. I've always loved that dome over the central courtyard and only recently learned that it was the work of Norman Foster, the same guy that did the new Swiss Re Gherkin and the Reichstag remix in Berlin.

So I'm back in Dublin, already having moved into my new room and having mournfully removed the beard I spent so many weeks faithfully refusing to shave off. I know it's only been about 7 weeks, but I'm constantly being startled when I catch my own reflection in anything. It looks so different and I guess I'd become accustomed to the new look. Still, eating is now far less time consuming. This will probably be it for a while, the trips are over for the short term and I have to look for a (horrors!) job next week. I've been glad I took this break between countries again though, I'd forgotten how much I like seeing the world for weeks on end, rather than days. You feel like you're accomplishing so much more when you can take your time.

SoCal

Los Angeles :: USA

All good things must come to an end.

Places: Santa Barbara & Los Angeles.

Coolest thing I did: Saw the Walt Disney concert all. It's tops.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: There are oilfields right in the middle of LA.

There is a definite border between the two halves of California, as things change quite dramatically once you arrive in the lower Sans or Santas (as all towns seem to be named here). Dramatic, sweeping coastlines and cliffs are replaced by miles and miles of mountains fringed by beaches. Santa Barbara was a very nice place to stay for a couple of nights, as it seems to be a Spanish themed gated community crossed with a University town. As I mentioned last time, the weather while I was there was dramatic, but not very well suited to the beach. I did get some very spectacular photos, but my decision to ditch the car for a day and walk up to the mission that was the start of the town was not well thought out. Right about the time I was an hour out of town in the hills the heavens opened and didn't stop. The mission was a very tranquil place, and well worth visiting, but doing it whilst drenched didn't make the experience exactly what I was after. Still, like I said, it was worth the visit, but I can imagine it's even better with the sun filtering through the palms into the courtyard, rather than big fat drops of rain.

The nightlife in Santa Barbara on Saturday night, even when spring break is on for the local Uni is something to behold. There are a whole load of bars down the main street that are evenly divided between the underage drinking crowd and the aging retiree crowd and to tell the truth, I didn't quite feel at home in either. Still, it's a great Saturday out. I managed to see a complete showing of Top Gun, cage dancers in their underwear, a live blues band and the comedian Bill Maher. The last one has to be taken with a grain of salt, unless you hate Bush with a cult-like devotion. Some of what he said was funny, but most of it was plain stupid. Those were the bits the crowd cheered the most. It has to be said I don't think there are a whole lot of Republicans in coastal California.

I was prepared to hate Los Angeles. Everyone told me it was crap and I'd want to leave the second I got there. I was called mad for wanting to keep the hire car I drove down from San Francisco and use it for transport. I'm always glad when a place bucks the trend for me. I have to say I dig LA.

I think I was helped by my accidental start. I drove in through Malibu on Highway 1 and decided to take a look at the Getty Centre, as I'd heard it's a architectural gem, and would be worth seeing, even if it wasn't full of art. Thanks to the fact I entered the car park and couldn't turn around again, I ended up giving them $7 to park so thought I may as well visit. I'm very glad I did. It's not so much one building as several, perched on a cliff top looking over the city. I couldn't help but think of it as a modern version of the Alhambra in Granada, only full of Monets instead of angry Muslim warriors. The five buildings ring a set of fountains and gardens, and that was the first time I started to appreciate the scale of the place. You look down on what seems like endless flat buildings, only broken up by the few high rise buildings of downtown and the hilltop oilfields on the other side of the city. I since learned that I was only looking at about a 1/3 of the city at that point, as South Central and Long Beach lie beyond those oilfields and behind me was the San Fernando Valley, which stretches out quite some way again. Thats the trouble with building a city in a place that frequently knocks tall buildings over with earthquakes, you need top build out instead of up. It's like the anti-Manhattan.

I ended up staying down on Venice Beach, and that too was a good move. With the sun out I was ready to see a beach again (it's been more than a year since I saw my last one) and the vibe of the place during the daylight hours is revitalising. So lots of very weird people hang out there, but they are entertaining and harmless. It's also a fair bit less gentrified than Santa Monica, just down the road, making it a whole lot cheaper too. The hostel is in the dead centre (Venice Cotel for those keeping score at home) and had a very nice cafe just down the road which made me breakfast burritos on some very hung over mornings. It was a young crowd, so I ended up going out most nights and suffering for it in the mornings. Again, watching backpackers out on their first trips makes you remember why you do this in the first place, with all their energy.

My favorite bits were probably just driving around the city and checking out all the different bits. Without a car you'd be spending hours on the bus just to get between bits (it's a good 40 mins drive from Venice to the downtown without traffic) and there's nothing like a white guy cruising around Los Angeles in a Saturn Ion listening to Dr Dre. The white people just stared and the black people laughed at me. It's tops. I liked the tattoo-parlour in a juice stand grunginess of Melrose a whole lot better than Hollywood, though I did think the Mann's Chinese Theater deserves it's fame. That building is very cool, but it probably looks like it was made in Disneyland by actual Chinese people.

I've decided the Gerhy designed Walt Disney concert hall now pips the Reichstag in Berlin as my favorite building in the world. It's a silver rose bud, and in the Los Angeles sun it is a myriad of reflections and magnifications of light. I can't describe how cool an idea it is to use all that sun to such effect, and there are very few other places in the world you could have pulled that off. Compared to the tourist trap that is the Adobe house just down the road (LA's oldest Spanish house) it also has a practical use, which makes it even better in my book. Pity I don't like opera.

I thought that the rich parts of town were way too sterile. The sheer lifelessness of Rodeo Drive makes me wonder why the hell anyone would shop there, let alone pay the world's highest prices for things. I'm told it's for the anonymity that comes with paying way too much for stuff, but with tourists being the only other people there besides celebrities I wonder if that's entirely true. I did, however, dig the art deco grandeur of the Beverly Hills town hall and police stations. It's a pity they don't make them like that anymore. The statues out the front of the town hall are also very cool.

Most movie stars homes are just big houses, so seeing them didn't do too much for me. The exception was the late John Candy's mushroom house. Take one look at the magic toadstool chimneys and tell me he wasn't on some serious stuff.

I think LA was probably a pretty good place to end my American trip. This place is probably a better epitome of how the US works than anywhere else I visited. New York has the hard reality of cash ruling everything, and Wall Street's dominance of the American way. For most people, that's how life works, banks, money, working many hours and seeing other people get rich. Los Angeles is the flip side of this, the fact that there is one way to buck the system and that's celebrity. Forget Vegas, that's the big jackpot here. Every now and then, some commoner finds out they can sing, act, dribble a basketball or just look plain hot and find themselves elevated to the new American aristocracy. For the average person, that's what they aspire to, and that's what LA represents. While it has it's angry, ugly side just over the hill in South Central, it provides middle America with it's hopes and dreams. It may be a surer way to comfort to go to Uni and earn a degree and work hard, but everyone, deep down, wants to be a star. It's the release valve on the American Way, and why people seem happy with their lot here.

So that's it, I'm off to Dublin. I've enjoyed America, and it's shattered some of my preconceptions about the place, but I'm so glad this is not my country. It's such an extreme place, a land of big ideas without the tempering force of common sense most of the time. It's easy to admire, but probably best done from afar. I know I'll be back here one day.

NoCal

Santa Barbara :: USA

Going back to Cali...

Places: San Francisco, Santa Cruz, San Luis Obispo, Big Sur & Santa Barbara.

Coolest thing I did: Big Sur. I can't describe it, it has to be seen.

Coolest thing I didn´t know: California is just chock full of farms. I pictured all palm trees and beaches.

It appears that my last trip to the San Francisco Bay area that I'd been uncannily lucky with the weather. It turns out it's usually a whole lot colder than the temperature I'd just left in Las Vegas, but also that it varies quite a lot depending on where in the city or bay you happen to be standing at any given moment. The hills all through the city cause micro climates, meaning it can be 10 degrees colder just by going down into a valley or up a hill. Unfortunately, it turned out to be pretty uniformly rainy for my whole time staying in the city.

The hostel is just off Union Square, giving me the central tourist friendly location I never had last time I visited for work, but it also meant there were lots of pan handlers and crack heads congregating around outside. Not a big issue, but coming back at night never felt quite safe. Lets just say it adds some colour to your day when bearded drunks scream obscenities at you as you leave for the morning. Still, can't possibly complain about the location. As close to the middle of everything as you can get.

It was a trip of visits this time. Cisco had very recently moved Dave from his home in Amsterdam to somewhere in Silicon Valley and he already had his first two visitors on the same day as I arrived. It was good to see him again after about 3 years and he spent the rest of the weekend playing tour guide with his car. We went out for a good Italian in North Beach on Saturday night (though we sat in the basement and it was lucky we didn't get to eat in the meat smoking room like some people had to) and then he took us out to the Napa Valley on Sunday to do some wine tasting.

I'm assured that the scenery is spectacular in Napa, but I can't say either way. It rained so constantly that we really couldn't see much but the vague outline of some mountains on either side of the vineyards, but I can imagine it would be quite a scene. Still, we did get stuck into some pretty good wine and I learned that there is a grape called Zinfandel, and that it's a red. I also learned that Australians pioneered sparkling red wine, and they had a copy cat at one of the places that was 60% Pinot Noir and 40% of the aforementioned Zinfandel. Man, that stuff is fun in a bottle. Its like Champagne, only redder, but with similar light headed joy.

So I had Monday to pretty much be a tourist around the city, which was something I had to pack into half a day last time I was in San Francisco. I took a bus up to Haight-Ashbury to see what's become of the hippies. Just to give you a taste, the corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets has a Gap on it. It's still a pretty cool place in town to hang about in but the counter culture revolution collided with market reality quite some time ago so you are reduced to buying tie dyed T-shirts or bongs if you want to relieve the old spirit of the place. I did, however, have a vegetarian meal even though I wasn't forced to. It must be the vibe.

I then went down to the Castro to see how the gay people live. Much like Sydney, there are lots of clothes shops and eateries that are far superior to most other spots in the city. Them poofs have taste, if nothing else. Having got a brief respite from the rain I crossed over into the Mission district to see some nastier looking new eateries (gentrification appears to be a couple of years behind) and lots of book shops. I also had a burrito thats as good as any I've ever had. I'd forgotten about that from last time.

The thing I did see this time in the Mission that I missed last time was the actual mission. Californian towns all tended to be built up around a Catholic Mission so there is always a monestary/hacienda looking building with terracotta roof tiles and great big bells in arches in every town. It reminds you that despite the modern Americans complaints that there are too many Latin immigrants in their country, the Spanish speakers have been in the area a whole lot longer than the English speakers.

I went over to Oakland to meet up with Colin, an old work mate from Sun in Sydney, and it was good to see him, even if it didn't look like he'd slept in about 3 days. The birth of your second child will do that. I also saw Rob and Patrick, who gave me my first job at Sun all those years ago, down in Santa Clara at a place that graded their chicken wings from mild to thermonuclear. I hadn't seen any of these guys in about 5 years, and it made the detour back to San Francisco even more worth it. I'm throughly impressed with the place once again. That mix of nature and urban lifestyle right in the middle of an earthquake zone has to be unique in the world.

I picked up my hire care and drove south, following highway 1 into the literary heartland of the US. John Steinbeck, Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac all loom large over northern California, which I have to say is not what I expected. A coastline hugged by mountains, the space in between inhabited by rows and rows of farmland and the cliffs breaking out into beaches every now and then. North of Santa Cruz I was making my way through redwood forests and rolling hills. I spent the first night at the surf mecca of Santa Cruz, but unfortunately, the weather had cut the tops off the waves so they looked a lot more like speed humps. Even in those conditions there seemed to be about a thousand people out competing for the waves. I'd hate to see what it gets like when the surf is really good. Still, it was a nice little town, with a long beach to walk along and cliffs overlooking it. Sitting on the cliff tops and watching the sun set over the surfers in the water below was a mellowing feeling, vindicating my decision to continue slowly down the coast instead of flying.

The stretch between Santa Cruz and Morro Bay lives up to it's reputation as one of the most worthwhile in the entire US. The highway is a grey ribbon stitched in and out of looming great cliffs and every time you round the next bend its yet another spectacular photo opportunity. From Monterey you follow 17 mile road through golf courses looking over rocky islands and trees that are so gnarled you'd compare them to wafts of smoke if they weren't so still. Seals roll around on the beaches and sea birds sit on the rocks in their thousands, resulting in the black weed on the base of the rocks giving way to snow caps of bird poo. Even if you know what it is, it still makes a stunning visual effect against the sheer blue sky.

The area around Big Sur is the stuff of legends. This is where the road barely clings for dear life to the sides of green hills, broken up by the occasional granite bridge that makes driving there possible without backtracking kilometres inland. I don't know how comfortable I am when the bridges are described as “historic” though, it makes them sounds like they were once safe, but now, who knows. I'm not sure what it's like in summer, but I had whole stretches of this beautiful highway to myself for lots of the trip, which is good when you're scared to go more than 30 or 40 miles and hour around most of the hairpins. It took far longer than I though it would, meaning I did miss out on seeing the Hearst Castle, which is something I would have liked to do had they not made it so hard ($20 and a 1.45 hour tour is required, meaning you really need half a day). It does look like an actual castle, perched up on a hilltop over the peasants living down in San Simeon. I think the days are gone when second generation media barons can get away with lording it over the poor like that, I can't imagine what would have happened had a Murdoch or Packer decided to do the same thing in Sydney these days, probably be frowned upon.

I've noted that hostels in Northern California seem to be run by the refugees of the Berkley hard left. Unless you are ready for talks of organic farmers markets, why Bush is evil and how to make your own clothing out of hemp then this may not be the scene for you. The one I spent the night in at San Lous Obispo was the epitome of it. Any attempt at a rational conversation very quickly veered into evils perpetrated on the world by the Bush-Cheney junta. It's ok if you're willing to listen to the other side of the argument, but the cult like mentality is a bit too much. Still, it was fun night in S.L.O so the streets were blocked off and I got to eat BBQ chicken kebabs on the street, which was tops. I also re-affirmed that Fat Tire is the best mass produced micro brew (a common occurrence here) available. I'd been struggling with the American beer until California, where they appear to just make lots of micro brew, turning it into a contradiction in terms, but making good beer available in pubs that don't brew their own.

So I've arrived in Southern California, having dodged a hefty storm and looked at loads of beaches and ended up in Santa Barbara. It seems like a nice kind of spot, I'm even considering staying a second day if the rain clears up overnight.