Mostly Harmless…
I went to Rome to watch the rugby last weekend. There’s only so much one can see in two days, especially working around the rugby, but we got quite a bit of sight-seeing in.
My brother and I at the Trevi Fountain.
Entrance to the Pantheon.
There are 2 Popes per square kilometre in the Vatican City.
I’d like to go back to see the Colosseum and take a proper look around the Vatican. That might have to wait for a while though.
Osaka is only about half an hour from Kyoto by train, so we decided to spend today there and visit Osaka Castle. It was first built in the late 1500’s, and even though it has been rebuilt and restored a number of times since then (The castle itself is actually built of concrete!) , it’s still one of the most impressive buildings I’ve ever seen!
I went for a walk around Kyoto today and visited Nijo Castle and Kinkaku-ji (The Golden Pavilion). I took some pictures.
I’m lucky enough that I’ve never been subjected to the UK rail network for more than a couple of hours, but still, I try to avoid it where possible!
The Japanese rail network is totally different! It’s spotlessly clean (even the Tokyo underground!) and runs to the minute. If the timetable gives a 14:03 departure, the train is leaving the station at 14:03:01.
Today I travelled to Kyoto on the Hikari high-speed train. The interior was set out more like an aircraft cabin than a train car, with everyone given an assigned seat in forward-facing rows. One very cool thing about that: The seats all face forward. What happens at the end of the line? Does the entire train turn around? Do the passengers just have to travel backwards instead? No. A team of cleaners rushes on board between services, and as part of their duty, spins each row of seats through 180-degrees! It’s brilliant!
Akihabara is Tokyo’s “Electric Town”, and as a self-confessed electronics geek, this is somewhere I wanted to spend a good bit of time.
Akihabara is the sort of place that could easily take up an entire day. I wandered around the 9-story Yodobashi Camera store for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, but wanted to check out the rest of the area and see the place light up once the sun had gone down.
I found Akihabara a little difficult to get around, but mostly due to Tokyo stations having similar but slightly different names! The station to aim for is JR Akihabara, rather than the Hibya line Akihabara subway station. If you have plenty of time to explore the area it might not matter, but the JR station exits directly into the “Electric Town”, simplifying things a bit.
Once in Akihabara things are a little easier. The best thing to do in my opinion is just to walk around the side streets. Those who are interested in Anime and the like will probably find something of interest, but for me the best part was the variety of electronic component stalls. Until now I was completely unaware of the vast number of different brands of copper wire, insulation and solder, but Maplin will never seem quite the same again.
Today we went to Miraikan (Japan’s National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation) and were just in time to see ASIMO come out of his* cupboard and run around for a bit!
ASIMO was only out for about 15 minutes, but he was pretty impressive. He did a bit of running in a straight line and managed to kick a football across the stage to one of the museum staff. He didn’t attempt any stairs though!
*ASIMO is so awesome that I often think of it as a tiny person in a suit. A kind of Turing test I suppose.
One of the reasons I wanted to do an advanced diving course at Magnetic Island was that it includes a day-trip to the site of the wreck of the SS Yongala, supposedly one of the best dive sites in the world.
Unfortunately I couldn’t do the course due to (relatively) poor weather, but yesterday (my last full day in Australia) I was able to go out on the day trip with Adrenalin Dive, based in Townsville.
I had two ~30-minute dives with a maximum depth of 23 metres (The deepest I’d been previously was 12 metres!). The marine life at the wreck was incredible! There’s a huge variety of fish, including a couple of giant Groupers and the odd Reef Shark but the highlight for me had to be the Hawksbill Turtles that lived in and around the wreck.
Although the visibility was less than 10 metres (I’m told 20+ metres is normal), these were undoubtedly the best dives I’ve done, and a great way to end my time in Australia.
I’m currently sitting in the airport at Cairns waiting on my flight to Tokyo. I’ve still got about an hour before boarding, but that’s alright, there’s free wireless here!
It’s a little strange to be leaving the country I’ve been travelling through for the last 7 months or so. It seems I’ve been here long enough that other travellers look at me and think I must have some idea what I’m doing with this travel lark! I ended up helping a couple of people plan trips down the East coast to Melbourne while I was sitting on Magnetic Island! I don’t mind it all. I asked the same questions 6-months ago. It’s just a little strange being “that guy” now!
Anyway. Today I’m travelling from a country I know quite a bit about, to one that I’m relatively clueless about. I can’t wait to see it though! Lots of raw fish and robots everywhere! Awesome! That, and I’m meeting my parents and brother there. That should be good too!
During the Second World War, Townsville was an important base for supply ships and troops. In order to defend it from the Japanese fleet, two huge gun emplacements were created on Magnetic Island along with the command and signals buildings needed to support them.
I didn’t have time to see them the last time I was on Magnetic Island, but time isn’t really an issue now, so I walked up there this afternoon and got some great views of both the bay and the interior of the island!
I’ve been in Sydney since returning from New Zealand. To be honest, apart from catching up with some of the people I met in New Zealand, I haven’t been doing very much and it feels like I’m just killing time before my flight to Tokyo.
I think I’ve done everything I’d planned on doing in Australia, and seeing as I’m departing from Cairns and have to travel up the coast again anyway, I’ve decided to go back to Magnetic Island for a while.
I’m hoping to do an Advanced Open Water diving course while I’m there, but even if it doesn’t go ahead, I think I’d prefer to kill time on a small island than in Australia’s biggest city!
