roganjosh

I took the night bus from Tokyo to Osaka a couple of days ago, and now I`ve moved on to Kyoto. Findings so far:

Tokyo Tsujiki Fish Market
For the best sashimi stay in a club till 5am and then go straight to the fish market to drunkenly eat octopus and tuna in a small shack/restaurant down a side street. With any luck a kindly old japanese lady will roll you some sushi rolls while you`re tucking in.

Tokyo-Osaka night bus
You might think that staying out all night the night before a long bus journey is a good way to make sure you`ll sleep on the bus, but no matter how much sleep you get you`re still going to be knackered when you arrive.

Kobe
Heading to Kobe I got given some sweets by another old japanese lady for shuffling along so she had enough room to sit down on the train. Kobe itself has a cable car running up to the hills on the north of the city, which makes it pretty cool in my book.

Kyoto
Great city, great hostel, nice bars. Lots and lots of shrines. I haven`t been to the monkey park yet, but I swear I will

Nara
Big park full of deer. Standard practice seems to be to buy some food for the deer, hold it out to them in your hand, and then scream and run away when the deer approach you. For an advanced move try running away so slowly that the deer feel obliged to chase after you.

Mos Burger
Simply the finest burgers in the world. The first one I had seemed to have some kind of lasagna type sauce on it and was delicious. Next time I tried the teriaki one, which was perhaps better. I know that coming to Japan and eating in burger restaurants is a bit dumb, but they`re mighty fine burgers, and I`m having plenty of noodles, grilled chicken and the like to make up for it.

Green tea ice-cream
delicious.

Ants
vicious bitey things, that seem to own every park in Japan. I would happily worship our new overlords if they`d just stop biting my ankles.

Castles, Shrines, Buildings etc.
There are lots of them.

So after months of talking about heading off round the world I’m finally underway. Tokyo didn’t look much when i saw it from the train after an 11 hour flight from heathrow, and I’ve been caught out in rain storms twice now, but even so it’s a brillant city. I’ve spent most of my time doing fairly normal touristy things, like visiting akihabara (where all the electronics shops are), going up tall buildings, walking around imperial palace gardens and that kind of thing, but to add to the sense of adventure I’m catching the overnight bus to Osaka tomorrow!

Finding accomodation for Friday was getting a bit tricky, and I wanted to see a bit more of the country, so this looked like a great way to kill two birds with one stone. I’m not sure I’ll feel the same way when I arrive in osaka at 7am after being on a bus all night, but we’ll just have to see. After Osaka I’ll be spending a couple of days in kyoto, where hopefully there are lots of nice temples and shrines I can have a go at drawing.

So if anyone has any recommendations about things to do in Osaka, Kyoto or indeed Tokyo (which I’m coming back to for the last couple of days) then let me know in the comments.

hello to anyone who was expecting to see my old roganjosh.co.uk site, isn’t this all shiny and new! I suppose I should fix all the broken links I’ve left behind me at some point…

I got some hostel practise in this weekend by visiting Berlin, and had a great time. It’s a strange city to get a handle on because there just doesn’t seem to be any center to it, which is understandable given its history. Got taken to some great bars by my mate Jake, and I’d recommend the Elvis burger at White Trash to anyone who knows a good heart surgeon.

Well, I’m booked up to go round the world now! On May 22nd I’ll be jetting off to Tokyo, and then Singapore, Bangkok, Perth, Sydney, Auckland, Fiji, LA and Vegas before making my way home in time to start my philosophy degree - Can’t say I’m missing work too much at the moment!

Oh, and I’ve been painting too, so there’s even a new picture in the gallery!