Well I`ve been in Japan for 2 weeks tomorrow so a big Konnichewaaaaaaaaa( said with multiple bows) to everyone!!!

After my "holiday" on Je-jedu i caught the night ferry back to the mainland and the second largest city in South Korea called Busan. Being a budget traveller i opted for the cheapest class which agin meant a space on a carpeted floor shared with upto 214 others. I managed to find enough space to lie flat and to be honest reckon i slept for a good 8-9 hours of the 11 hour journey, who needs a bed?

I spent 5 days in Busan which is a nice city and was helped by having one of the best hostels i`ve stayed in, basically someone rented a flat out to 10 people and i lived there with a lounge and kitchen for 5 days which was nice. Went to the UN cemetery which commerates all the people from UN forces that died in the korean war, whcih was a beautiful and peaceful place much like the ones you find in Northern France and Belgium and found a possible relative again in JA Seaman, maybe one of the clan, who knows? Busan also had some of the best beaches in korea so spent some time there with my 500,000 friends(no exageration!!) and Koreans don`t do beaches like the rest of the world, to them if you are at the beach you need at least a rubber ring and preferrably a boat, then you got these lifeguards that stop you going more than waist deep, so it all adds up to a very crowded atmosphere, i got quite a few oars wacked around me head and had to fend off the rubber ring brigades. Also lots of hills around Busan so managed to get away from the city and go up into the mountains which was nice and got some good if somewhat hazy views across the city and the port. On me last night i went to see K league football with an american guy (he only asked me 2 dumb questions - What is the 18 yard line for? and why is there no penalty shoot out? but he was alrite so i`ll let him off. Busan I`park (not sure what the I stands for drew 1-1 withSuwon Bluewings which are themost successful soccer team of all time tho they are not doing so well this year. Both teams had there token journeyman Brazilians and eastern europeans tho it was a good game with a good atmosphere.

Then it was another overnight ferry to Japan and the city of Fukuoka, again second class. However this involved a room of 14 passengers with a fold up 1 inch mattress and i again slept like a baby. Ferry company operated a bit of a con tho, the sailing only took around 8 hours from 10pm til 6am but you had to board at 6.30pm and leave at 7.30am so you bought dinner and breakfast on the boat, a genius scheme not sure it would work in Europe tho. I actually bought my dinner from a vending machine, fried chicken and chips which was very nice tho think only getting 3 chips was a bit stingey!! So onto Japanese immigration. I was one of the first of the boat and somehow managed to be the last to set foot on Japanese soil. I guess spending 6 weeks in a country with no telephone and no address asks a few questions but i`m sure many others do it. I had to empty my backpack contents, show my plane ticket from Tokyo to London and answer the stupid questions - Why they bother to ask if i have any Cannabis on me i don`t know - as if anyone is ever gonna say yes I have an ounce in my back pocket, want some mister customs official?

Anyway first stop in Japan was Fukuoka. First thing i noticed about Japan was how beautiful the trees are, they all look like big Bonsai trees and there is not an ugly tree anyway to be seen. The city had some impressive old sights like this temple which featured the largest wooden Buddha in Japan, and i`ve seen alot of Buddhas in various forms on this trip and that was one of the most impressive, and some newer sights like Robosquare which featured an array of pointless robots that could help with household chores or you could stroke like a dog. Having read all the guides on the internet on how to do Japan on the cheap and having met some Swedish gys who recommended it i decided to spend my first night in Japan in a Manag Kissa to see if it was a viable accomodation option. Basically they are Japanese comic book libraries that with technology have turned inmto internet cafes as well. Most are open 24hours a day and you get a little booth with TV, internet, free soft drinks and access to the vast array of comic books. Well i got a couple of hours of sleep at around two thirds the cost of a youth hostel so it turned out to be a viable option.

Next stop was an island called Miyajima of the coast of Hiroshima. i spent 2 nights camping here as it was so nice. Was only 2 other campers and had a beach which only had to shrae with about 10 people as well as this beautiful park with a 500+m mountain with good views. the island is also home to the most famous shrine in japan. pretty cool this shrine that is in the sea in high tide and on the beach at low tide and all painted bright Orange. Did see 2 snakes on this island tho on consecutive days which i didn`t expect Africa and India yes but Japan not so much. Other cool animals to note were the millions of Bambi like deers everywhere on the island and the strange nocturnal animals(i only saw them at night anyway) that looked like a cross between a badger and a fox.

Well back on the mainland and the city of Hiroshima which just the name is a bit unnerving. A great museum about the Atomic bomb and a few exhibits and memorials around the blast site including this factory that was 170 metres from the epicentre of the bomb and half fell down, but half is left standing as a reminder. The museum gives lots of personal accounts about how civilians suffered the effects of the A-Bomb, pretty graphic and very moving. The whole place made me go cold and shiver even tho it was in the thirties outside. Japan are very apologetic about the war tho and describe it as Misguided national policy and go into detail about how the world must strive for world peace now, they certainly have no illustions about their part in the war, which is good to see and makes it easier for future relations i guess. Anyway went to see the Hiroshima carps baseball team which was a far more Fun outing. Nothing happenned for the first hour and then the home team got 4 home runs in about 20 minutes and the crowd erupted, somehow i was the only one in the stadium without a pink balloon, which was a fun sight. Baseball is a pretty dull sport but somehow Asians manage to have a sing and a dance about it and turn it into a very entertaining evening.

I then had a day on the train getting to osaka but broke it up by visting Himeji castle which is suposedly the best castle in japan that isn`t a reconstruction (most were bombed in the war and subsequently rebuilt). Was certainly different to how we build castles in the west, not sure wood is a good defence material!! Also stopped of at a the longest suspension bridge in the world (confirmed by Wikipedia) which was pretty long. Arrived in Osaka in mid afternoon and turned up in a city of a few million at the tourist office asking where the campsite was, man looked at me like i was a wierdo!! Anyway armed with my internet research, i found it after walking past the docks over a bridge the size of the Dartford bridge, past a Sludge processor and a garbage incinerator and to a campsite. Man tried to charge me about 20 quid a night which i bartered down to around 5 quid a night (i have a sneaking suspicion that the nice Japanese guy who i had been talking too earlier supplemented my fee tho).

Stayed 3 nights Camping in Osaka which is a pretty nice city, lots of big buildings and neon lights, don`t quitethink Japanese cities are as visally attractive as Chinese cities tho which has surprised me alot. Went up a tall building for good city views and went to the worlds largest Aquarium (Wikipedia suggests this but neither confirms or denys it as a matter of fact) and what the big sign outside the front said was the biggest Ferris wheel the world(according to wikipedia it hasn`t been since 1997 and i`d actually seen a bigger one a few days earlier in Fukuoka) felt a bit cheated by that one!! Also went to Osaka castle which despite being a reconstruction i thought was as good as the one at Himeji.

After Osaka is was to where the guidebook says is the cultural heart of Japan in Nara and Kyoto. I found a campsite about half way in between the 2 and went to Nara for 2 days and to Kyoto for 3 days. I think i preferd Nara which was much smaller than kyoto and had less temples but was much more attractive. Went to many, many, many temples and shrines in these two places, basically all the free ones plus the ones the gudebook specifically recommended. Not really much to say in a blog but there were some good temples and some not so good temples, a shame they had to build a huge city around them and Kyoto is pretty ugly really when its meant to be one of them must see places on earth. Religion baffles me as well, how people do these rituals and wear silly clothes for what i don`t know, has provided some good tourist sigths around the globe tho. One of the best things i did in kyoto was go to the internatinal Manga museum where i read a comic book called Gigantor for an hour or two. The campsite was pretty scary tho, my torch fell out me pocket somewhere in Kyoto so had to walk back in the dark each night through a pitch black forest whcih was well scary, not helped by the fact i saw another snake about 10 cm from my feet on the first night, and they are much scarier in the dark!!

Well got up early this morning to get the train to Nagoya, not really a recommended place in any of the guideboooks but it was convieniently in between Kyoto and my next port of call Takayama so i thought i`d come here plus its the city where Gary Linekar played and Arsene Wenger managed and my internet research had found there was a game on today, i wanted to see J league football so i thought this was the best place to do it. It just so happens that Nagoya has turned out to be my favourite place in Japan, lots of cool skyscrapers and a generally attractive city with a castle probably betterthan the other 2 i have seen. Think it helps that there was huge festival gong on today as well. I got of the train and everyone was walking around in wierd costumes like i`d been transported into a Flash Gordon film and i was treated to many dance parades and a carnival going on around the streets. Have just been to the football as well and seen Nagoya Grampus eight win one nil so that was good, another great atmosphere and the grampus ultras as they dubbed themselves were in fine voice. Was kinda surreal listening to the away fans numbering a thousand or so belting out their signature tune "Take my hand, take my whole heart too, and i can`t help falling in love with you, etc!!"

Anyway is just gone midnight and i gotta get a train at 6 in the moring so gonna get a couple of hours rest in my third Manga Kissa

Over and out, Roger Roger