Ho's, horse drawn carriages, milling around the streets and some more English style buildings here and there. Victoria also had Canada's first Chinatown which was only actually one block but still quite nice to see. I saw a nice park, Beacon Hill and Craigdarroch castle was a nice looking castle but there wasn't too much to see in Victoria beyond a day trip. On Vancouver island I stayed with the Bland's in Lantzville a village that basically merged with Nanaimo,...

My first stop on the Northwest Coast of North America was Seattle, Washington. Several global companies were founded here including: Starbucks, Costco, Boeing and in a nearby city, Microsoft was founded. The first thing that made an impression on me flying in was the amount of large, green trees I could see surrounding the city in the suburbs with the dark blue of the Puget Sound contrasting with it. Downtown Seattle reminded me slightly of Sydney with the Space ...

The final place I was staying in Japan was Mine, a tiny town on the outskirts of Yamaguchi. Here I was staying with the Collins' in a converted cow-shed in rural Japan. This was quite a change from the hustle and bustle of all of the big cities I had been to before this, I could see stars in the night sky again! The crop most often seen growing in Japan is still rice and there were a few paddy fields around this area with clever drainage systems.  The variety o...

My last journey in Japan was to the island of Kyushu, visiting Fukuoka, Huis Ten Bosch and Nagasaki. Kyushu is Japan's third largest island and is closer to Korea than it is to Tokyo, which allows for strong trade links to the Asian mainland. On our way to Kyushu we took a scenic route along the coast of Japan and stopped at a picturesque lighthouse, the jagged coastline reminded me of the West coast of New Zealand and was very stunning especially with the sun se...

The main reason people travel to Hiroshima, in the West of Japan is to go to the Memorial Peace Museum and Peace Park to read about the world's first atomic bomb used on a population. It turned out that the city had a really nice atmosphere and several other things to see but this was first on my itinerary. The Peace Park was a very well laid out with a fountain pointing to the atom bomb dome, a building preserved with its damage from the bomb and the Memorial P...