Favourite Attraction(s) A: Warner Brothers Studio Tour. Underground Naples. GRIMMWELT. Universal Studios Hollywood. B: Warner Brothers Studio Tour and Pompeii. F: Universal Studios. The Gunpowder Plot. Warner Brothers Studio Tour. J: The Gunpowder Plot. Warner Brothers Studio Tour. Universal Studios. Least Favourite Attraction A: Cat cafe ($142.77 for
Best Toilets Japan in general (heated seats/ toilet slippers/ amusing signs/ lots of interesting buttons to explore). And the fantastic public toilets outside Vanha Kauppahalli in Helsinki. Worst Toilets England (so often hard to find/ poorly maintained/ filthy). And the stomach-turning state of the toilet in a restaurant we ate
Cleanest Streets Japan. Dirtiest Streets Rome. Favourite Park Villa Borghese in Rome. Best Snow Ishiuchi, Japan. Nicest Weather France and Italy in October and November. Most Inconvenient Rain Florence. Favourite Snow-Related Memory A: Driving around Ishiuchi. B: Clearing a metre of snow off the car in Japan. F: Skiing. J:
Best Train System Italy for overland travel (Japan’s Shinkansen were also good but more expensive). Singapore for underground travel. Worst Bus System ROME. Favourite Non-Train/Bus Mode of Transport A: Biking in France. B: Trams in Helsinki. F: Car. J: Plane. Favourite Public Transport Moment A: Reading Harry Potter
Favourite Accommodation The house outside Edgeworthstown, Ireland, from where we saw the Northern Lights. The apartments in Sarlat-la-Canéda (France) and Helsa (Germany) with gorgeous views. And the house in Wavre, near Brussels, that was part of an old farm complex and had lots of space. Best Located Accommodation Our hostel
Here are some awards for noteworthy moments, memories and learnings from our trip. This is the Food category; there are more categories to come! Favourite Meal A: Char siu wonton noodle in Singapore. Sweet and sour fish from a hawker centre in Singapore. Indian takeaway in Worthing, UK. Reindeer meat
Here are the final few haikus! Day 148 • 30 Jan • Ishiuchi Thrice down the mountain Is enough for this boarder. I prefer onsen. Day 149 • 31 Jan • Ishiuchi The world is a cake. It is all smoothed over with Thick white marzipan. Day 150 • 1 Feb • Ishiuchi When I think
And after one day less than five months away, we landed back in Brisbane bright and early on Monday morning (30 degrees after last seeing 6 degrees in Narita was a bit of a shock)! Not being people to slack off, we had our container with boxes waiting for us
...because we're heading home (via the Wild West). On Sunday morning we packed up all of our worldly possessions (one bag and many books more than we started with) to head back to Tokyo for our flight home. After breakfast and an important meeting with the local fauna,
On Saturday, the boys and I headed back to the snow by ourselves. If anything, the conditions were even better than on Thursday. We'd had at least a metre of fresh snow overnight (as evidenced by the pile-of-snow-on-top-of-the-car-metre). After a warm-up run down from the gondola, we headed
On Friday, our day off from skiing, we headed to Kiyotsu Gorge. We saw lots of gorgeous thick snow on the way. Apparently this is one of the snowiest places in the world! 0:00 /0:20 1× At Kiyotsu Gorge, there's a 750m-long pedestrian tunnel called the
After visiting the snow monkeys, we drove on to head to the snow proper, and our final stop for the whole trip (not counting the drive back to Tokyo and flight home to come). On our way to Ishiuchi, we stopped for a lovely lunch in a random snowy town