Welcome to Korea!

Moving right along I embarked on the next "leg" of my journey by hopping a ferry from Fukuoka in Japan to Busan in South Korea (which I will refer to as Korea). I have never had any real interest in visiting Korea, but given it was just across the "ditch" and I do have a great friend who live's here it seemed appropriate to go. I hadn't done any research, my arrival point was the most convenient given my location in Japan and the advice I received from my friend Jin, so an overnight bus ride fr...

Travelling is not all glamorous hotels, sandy beaches, exotic night life and cultural revelations, the more mundane daily tasks like, well, survival, also have to be tended to...with this in mind I headed off to my local supermarket to get my breakfast supplies, banana`s and yoghurt, cereal is not common and is restricted to things like froot loops and equally sugary variants, and at the asking price they are not an option, at all. So I headed into the arcade, mindful of the ubiquitous bicycles.. ...

Travelling is not all glamorous hotels, sandy beaches, exotic night life and cultural revelations, the more mundane daily tasks like, well, survival, also have to be tended to...with this in mind I headed off to my local supermarket to get my breakfast supplies, banana`s and yoghurt, cereal is not common and is restricted to things like froot loops and equally sugary variants, and at the asking price they are not an option, at all. So I headed into the arcade, mindful of the ubiquitous bicycles.. ...

An enduring aspect of Japanese culture is Sumo, a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler (rikishi) attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring (dohyo) or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally. My only experience was the rare glimpse we get on Australian TV, enough to create considerable interest when the prospect of attending a Grand Sumo tournament presented i...

Before arriving in Japan I had heard about the Gion-matsuri, a month long festival, one of Japan`s three most important apparently, held in the city of Kyoto, and I was reliably informed that one of it`s highlights is "yamaboko jyunko", parade of halberds, on the morning of the 17th. It was common knowledge in my Osakan hotel and a number of guests were planning to attend so when these Chinese boy`s (from Malaysia) that I had previously met told me they were going it seemed a good fit, they were o...

Greetings, I`ve decided this practise of riding bicycles on the footpath is allowed, no, tolerated, because of the unfailing politeness of the inhabitants of this city. That is those inhabitants not threatening the live`s of humble Osakan pedestrians by weaving in and out along crowded footpaths! I am reliably informed that the practise itself is outlawed but it seems so ingrained and so prolific that the police appear to have little or no chance to prevent it. What`s required is a push fr...

Greetings, so I arrived in Osaka, my first mission was to get a sim card, luckily, enough English was spoken to inform me that I couldn`t buy one but could indeed rent one, 105 yen per day, 40,000 yen deposit, and a written warning that if I inadvertently logged in to their internet it would cost me a fortune, I believe them! I caught the train to the city, then a subway to Dobutsuen-Mae, a seedy part of Osaka with cheap hotels, perfect! I have a private room with a single bed, a desk the size of...

Greetings, well Melbourne's winter is here, seems a perfect time to go somewhere else! And why not Japan, I have been to many places but had never considered the Land of the Rising Sun, until, that is, I met a Brazilian girl of Japanese heritage a few years ago, she queried, given my professed love of Asia, why it was not on my list of places to see? I didn't really have an answer, she continued that given that I enjoyed diversity above most other things, Japan seemed a natural fit, being "one ...

Lovelorn with Lucy



I don't recall exactly why, but I was sitting at home one evening last year when the comedian Judith Lucy came to mind. I have always enjoyed her work and often thought that she had great potential as a partner as she has that most desirable quality, the ability to make one laugh. That thought grew a little while viewing her tv show "Judith Lucy's Spiritual Journey" on the ABC, it may have been presented as an exploration of spirituality but seriously,...