We had some great weather in Sydney, which made it pretty much a perfect long weekend. With 3 days to explore we hit the streets, starting at the harbour bridge and the opera house at sunset. Next day we drifted around Darling harbour, sauntered around the shops and even breezed through the Bday bash of Buddha himself, all under beautiful bright blue skies. Next day we walked around Bondi beach for some relaxation (cos life just gets SO stressful sometimes), watched the surfers, and took a stroll along the coast. We even moseyed around Manly and swam in the sea.

It's easy to see why so many people go to live in Sydney, it is so chilled out but has enough going on to keep you content day and night. We managed to time our visit with the comedy festival so we checked out Dead Cat Bounce, a musical comedy group from Ireland. It was alright but not the best thing we've seen, still it was good to be out and about enjoying the town like a local.

Next on the destination list was Japan. We arrived bright and early Monday morning in Tokyo, just in time to hit central Tokyo station at rush hour! A vast contrast to the laid back life of NZ and Aus. After a few baffling tours of the rabbit warren like station we found somewhere to store our bags for a few days while we headed North.

We had a Japan Rail pass for the week, which is a great value way to use their premier class trains. Our first stop was Nikko, a small town with lots of Buddhist temples on a hill and a World Heritage site. It was really pleasant, and we stayed in a traditional ryokan on tatami mats and futons. Feeling almost Japanese already we packed in a day of sightseeing, along with hundreds of Japanese school kids. Next stop was a marathon day of 8 trains (and no, we didn't even get lost) to get to Tsuruoka, via Matsushima. The latter was a nice coastal town with lots of mini-islands and more temples. One of which only opens one out of every thirty-three years! We finally got to Tsuruoka and rested up for the night ready to take of the mountains of Dewa-san.

Unfortunately, due to bad weather only 1 of the 3 sacred mountains were open, Haguro-san. On the plus side though we had the place to ourselves, so we hiked up. It was only 3000 or so steps to the top through awesome old forest and past historic pagodas and working monasteries. At the top we visited the main temples and got to sit in humble position on our knees (ouch…) and witness a Buddhist ceremony and blessing.

Back on the trains we headed to Niigata, two hours from Tokyo. Not expecting much and just a stop before Tokyo we were pleasantly surprised. It was a pleasant city, all business and shopping, but a cool vibe to it. We stumbled into a packed restaurant with no English menu and a 100% non-English speaking staff. Fortunately, some young (slightly tipsy) Japanese locals came to our rescue and then joined us for the evening. They ordered for us, greatly to their entertainment, as they picked us some crazy dishes including raw octopus and crab, very unusual "meat" dishes and the jaw of a cow. Not very fussy and happy to try anything, we were happy to be their little experiment, most of what we ate was tasty but we probably found our limit sucking from the dripping claws of raw crab. We shared several bottles of sake and had a fun night.

So off to Tokyo we went, having managed to get a bargain on a hotel from expedia we were very happy. In a great location we were able to easily explore the main sites. As it was Friday night we went to meet Mariko, our old work friend from London, for after work dinner and drinks. It was great to see her and we had an awesome time catching up. Bright and early the next day we all went to Tsukiji fish market for the world's most fresh sushi breakfast and a look around. The market is mental and we were almost run over by lawless fishermen and shoppers with somewhere urgent to get to at every turn. The sushi was delicious though and we loved it, even the sea urchin went down OK after some early doubts. Full of fish we headed to the metropolitan building to check out the city views from above. Next we went to harakuja and checked out the young Japanese shopping culture and the fashion conscious youth. We also saw the biggest central Tokyo temple where a few couples were getting married that day. We saw them parade through the temple, it was a very public place to marry, but they seemed to like the paparazzi attention they received.

That evening we went for some more drinks and delicious food. Mariko did a great job showing us around and we had a very cool time. In the morning Rich headed off early to get some sumo wrestling tickets and then we headed to the imperial palace for a look around. It was really nice but not too much to see as it was basically flattened in the war and is now mainly a garden. We then met Mariko at the sumo and spent the afternoon cheering along with the locals. We are converted, it was really exciting! The wrestlers spend a long time getting ready and ceremoniously warding off evil spirits from the ring, showing off and stretching, then when both are ready they smash together and wrestle for between 2 and 20 odd seconds - not long but the hit they take at the beginning looks massive, the crowd roars throughout and there are loads of bouts. We even ate some Chanco, sumo food, in the canteen.

From Tokyo we headed to Kyoto for more temples and an old capital city that more or less survived the war time battering of other Japanese cities. There are some exceptionally pretty places and temples, and lots of narrow, old streets to walk around. We saw geisha in the streets, walked through beautiful gardens and enjoyed the nightlife. It was Michelle's birthday about this time, and as a present Rich got her a cooking class. It was what she had wanted and she enjoyed learning to make sushi and other delicious treats. Rich also got to enjoy it as he spent the afternoon "resting" on the tatami mats in Naoko's house and then eating the food Michelle had lovingly supplied!

In nearby Nara we got harassed by sacred deer as we fed them, visited more huge temples and soaked up both the atmosphere and the rain. Finally in Japan we hit Osaka, but there was little to see except one temple. Worse still EVERYONE seems to chain smoke, it was disgusting - the worst hotel we have ever stayed in. But we had to be here to catch our boat to China, so, despite very nearly missing it due to a cab driver's incompetence (even though he tried really hard for us in the end) we boarded the two day ferry to get to China.