As you can see in my first flight itinerary I was not scheduled to go to Singapore or Bali. So the story goes back a few weeks when my mother was in desperate need of a holiday and as two of her daughters were already in The East, the family had already travelled in Thailand, Japan and China and Australia and New Zealand were too cold; I suggested Indonesia with mom to quickly respond I have ALWAYS wanted to go to Bali. And I have been wanted to go to Indonesia...

Since leaving for China Soran and I haven't had much time together so visited an onsen in Hakone which is famous for the natural hot springs. It's way up in the mountains where you can see volcanic steam arising from the rocks, rugged mountains and beautiful lakes. The scenery was breathtaking. We had a lovely room of tatami matts and sliding doors and spent the whole time in these large public hot baths and rented a private bath in the night time. It's a ve...

After quite a party the night before Soran and I ended up rushing to get out the door. As we sat down in the car ready to go it soon dawned on us with our hangovers that we had to make our way across Brisbane city in rush hour traffic and drive 150km to the Gold Coast airport when we both didn't have the foggiest idea how to do either of those let alone one. And we had all but one hour to do this in. By some miracle we arrived on time after rushing to fill up t...

Although Sarah's been to Japan before, being the same neck of the woods she decided to fly back with me so we could travel around together for a week. We arrived in Tokyo Saturday night and had a surprise welcome from Soran at the airport who said earlier he would be waiting for us at home. It felt great to be back in Japan and sat around the little coffee table in the living room drinking and laughing with the parents. Sarah got along really well with them and...

What I first noticed about Beijing obviously was the amazing airport, which was one of the best I have seen. The arrivals terminal was spotless and gleaming. And then I remembered the 2008 Olympics and realised that as soon as I got to the city it would probably be another story and it was. It's dirty, dusty with stray animals looking for scraps, frantic street vendors, babies peeing on the floor (they don't have diapers here just a hole in the crotch of babies...