The Monday before Australia day we took a trip into Melbourne for the afternoon (while Amy & Ben went to work). After wandering through St Kilda, savouring falafel for lunch on the beach and very successful shoe shopping we caught a tram into the city. A spot of sight seeing then we met the workers and headed out of town, to the sticks, to stay with friends of Ben. After a funfilled night of Fish n chips, local beer sampling and 'Hey Gary' at the local cou...

Wombats, Waves, Wallabies and Wine all at Wilsons Prom There is a place called Wilsons Prom in Victoria that is the southern most tip of Australia that Amy and Ben have visited and have told us about. Ben managed to find out that Ben's family had a camping spot that wasn't being used so we packed up the camping stuff in to the 4x4 and went down for the night. We stocked up on snacks for the journey consisting of chewy snakes, DCs and crisps followed by 4 Toaste...

We were very excited to arrive in Oz after quite a long flight over from Tokyo. Amy and Ben picked us up and we headed back to their place which is great and no sooner had we chucked our bags in our room, were we sitting in the garden with a cold beer in hand! We weren't too tired as the time difference from Japan is only 2 hours so we went over to Ben's parents for our first Aussie BBQ - no shrimps but some great grub and more beers. All Ben's family were so w...

Japan Things we will remember…….. Very polite and helpful people Amazingly clean streets despite there being almost no bins Ancient and modern together both in and out of the cities A brilliant and very efficient transport system - the bullet trains make Japan so accessible The "lost in translation" signs - hilarious! Vending machines - everywhere for everything Very few people other than Japanese people in Japan - unlike the UK They a...

So we got back to Tokyo and had an afternoon, an evening and a morning to fill. The main thing we wanted to do was to go and have a decent Japanese meal - whilst trying to avoid more noodles and rice! We made a decision to follow a recommendation we had been given and to head to Ginza in the evening to Andy's Izakaya. Before this we wanted to build up a bit of an appetite so we went to Ueno Park for more walking. This whole trip has been non-stop and I re...