Macau

My experience of Macau Has been saved by a single dumpling joint - we had a steemed carrot dumpling with shrimp - very nice, and orange - I'd love the post a picture of it but my 4gig card seems to have lost the image... and this place charges extra if you want to use a USB port. It's been raining for the last 3 days and I'm yet to eat any pork buns. Walking around the streets here is alot like parts of Ecuador - crazy trafic and about 20cm of footpath, dirty and almost everything has a security cage around it - which always makes me uneasy about carrying 5 grand worth of camera equipment around.

Off to Lantau tomorrow (hopefully) it's the 10th anniversary of the handover to China and while that means good photo opps - it also means accomodation could be an issue...

Hong Kong

NEVER eat the seafood dish on a plane... I should have known better.

The view of the city as you fly in at night is spectacular, Hong Kong is a beautiful City from the sky (so far it's proved sticky and very busy on the ground)

Last shots from Japan

We leave Japan tomorrow - the best thing about flying out of Tokyo is that I`ll no longer be in Tokyo - this place needs some serious concentration to get around and I find about 5 hours to be the most I can handle in one hit. We went camera shopping today and I found one of the lenses I was seeking, but at $1100 it`s abit much (tell him he`s dreaming).

Japan has been great and I don`t really feel like we missed out on much, I don`t know if i`d come back - alot of the places look the same and it`s not until you get up north abit that the people get genuinly friendly (the school girls dresses also get shorter the further north you go... interesting... maybe we shoud have gone to Saporro)

Here are the last photos from Japan - the Sushi place was the best we`ve eaten at so far and the best beer on Tap is Kirin Draft - it took abit of testing but I think it`s better than Saporro and Asahi. More from Hongkong soon

Some Photos at Last

But no time to type - others are waiting for the computer - enjoy ;)

Back in Sendai

Well there were lots of deer but not as many Monkeys as we`d hoped - I think they knew we were coming and went to the other side of the Island. We saw one group of them yesterday afternoon but I wanted to get some good shots while the sun was out... so this morning we hiked all the way up the mountain, across half the island and back down, 4 hours in total, and not a single monkey, just a snake some frogs and a few deer. Kinkasan is a nice place, not much there at all, a shrine, a montain, and a few tourist shops, two places to stay, we chose the cheaper one and were the only people staying there.

After dinner we got talking to the people who run the place, they gave us a Sake cup with the name of the Island in Kanji written in it. They had a friend over who seemed to find us amusing and he soon jumped on his bike and came back with a gift - a pair of deer antlers, we managed to decline those on the basis that customs would probably take them... we also can`t carry them around. We also ended up with a fan and the cover to a 2006 calender??? I had way too much sake...

We also had sea urchin for dinner - after a while Nancy started to notice that it`s spines were still moving - whats it called when you get even more put off AFTER you`ve tried something thats really gross? The area was once a major whaling town and the guy who ran the place is also a fisherman. They still hunt whale but are limited to 60 a year.

Back To Tokyo tomorrow and hopefully to an internet cafe that lets you use USB devices... I`ve already shot about 30gig worth of photos - thats about 2500 shots.

Sendai

Well sorry for the delay, I managed to break the internet in Tokyo (all i did was unplug the printer...) we still haven`t found an internet machine with a USB port - most of them are coin operated things - I@m at the train station in Sendai at the moment and we`re heading to an Island named Kinkasan - lots of Monkey s and dear

Takayama to TOKYO!!!

After a nice quiet day in Takayama we are now in Tokyo - which has quite possibly the most complicated train system i`ve encountered - they have english where they feel like it and there are about 3 different rail companys with their own multitude of lines - the lights are good but over all it`s not quite what I`d pictured... yet... so until I get a picture that says Tokyo, no photo for now - we did have some nice sushi :)

Hiroshima

Our last day in Hiroshima was a nice quite one after all the walking, we went to Miyajima to see the floating shrine gate, although it was low tide and they don`t seem to build things with photographers in mind - the sun is NEVER where it would look great. The Deer on the island are hilarious, as you get off the ferry they all attack you for food, one of them took a bite out of the pamphlet about not feeding the Deer. It was the first quiet place we`ve been so far in Japan, a pleasant change.



Yesterday`s trip to the A-Bomb dome and peace memorial museum was good - terrible event and the photos are very powerfull - the strongest part of the exhibit is the watch that has stopped at 8:15, on display by it`s self in a small cabinet, very moving. We passed a large group school children singing at the memorial to the girl who tried to fold 1000 paper crane in order to beat leukemia (she died after 6 hundred and something).



I also got a new lens - SMC M 200mm F4 - cost 9000yen - about $100 and it saw alot of use today :) - off to Hemiji castle tomorrow then to Takayama.

Okonomiaki in Okonomi

We caught the bullet train to Hiroshima today - very fast... and shiny. Hiroshima is so far not as interesting as Kyoto, but we have only been here a few hours. Not a very nice day today, it,s raining at the moment, although that won,t stop me taking photos of the dome tonight, we,ll be doing the rest of the peace park and museum tomorrow and then heading to the island with the floating shrine gate. We had a look in an electronics store as well - some things are the same price as Sydney and others are $200-$300 cheaper.



The Okonimyaki was alright - I think Komachi is better, but there are LOTS of these places around and i,m sure i,ll be having more of it.

Geisha Hunting + Inari

We went to the shine at Inari today - the one you see with all the big red gates - thousands of them, it was good until we realised that we were only about half way, so we gave up and went searching for sushi. Inari in Inari and it was the best Inari... nothing like the original



We also went to Gion - a popular spot to hunt Geisha, and we had a very successful trip. We also found our first real sushi train - they,re not everywhere like i previously thought - I only spotted this one out of the corner of my eye through a small window - it was great, and every plate was 137yen, about $1.40!!!!! yummmm.

First Day

We arrived at Kansai international airport last night and found our way to the hotel - my first bento box was from a small convenience store in the hotel... surprisingly good with a 500ml beer at about 10:30pm.



The flight was painful as usual but no screaming kids this time... Wild Hogs, the Holiday and Blood Diamond - only just worth the $10 for the little video player... no mario alas...

Our first day in Japan found us in Kyoto, the Ryokan was easy to find and the trains easy to work out, might have to catch a bus tomorrow - that could be another story. We visited the Imperial Palace and a few small shrines in the area but didn`t get to the Castle in time - so thats tomorrow.

In the Bag

Camera Gear - probably weighing more than my clothes this is what i'm taking to shoot with - probably too much, and certainly too heavy, mostly Pentax gear and I might be posting some of it back if it doesn't see much use.

In the Kit is a Pentax K10D Digital SLR, a Super A (as a film back up), sigma 10-20mm, Pentax 21mm f3.2, 28mm f2.8, 43mm f1.9, 100mm f2.8 and 70-210 f4. Compact cameras are a Panasonic LX2 and an Olympus XA2 as a film backup. Every time I think i'm carrying too much stuff I think about the shots i'd miss without each lens. Most of the time I expect to be using mainly two lenses - say the 21 and 43, or the 28 and 100, or even the 21 and 70-210 - depends on where I am and what shots I hope to get. I could have just taken a superzoom but decided that the images I get from this set up will not only be better quality but it will make me think about the shot rather than just start snapping. Most of the time I expect to be shooting with the 28mm - it has served me well on previous trips, but I do like the 21mm... all of this is stuffed into a Lowepro slingshot 200 AW, so we'll see how it goes - I think the first thing to go might be the 70-210 if it gets too heavy (and I come across a 50-200 in japan somewhere) I was going to leave the 10-20 behind as well but you just can't beat that ultra wide angle and I know I'd regret it as soon as we get off the plane.. . which leaves at 11:30 am tomorrow... guess I'd better get back to packing.

Our last trip

Our big trip last year was to South America. Peru and Ecuador. The main purpose of the trip was the Galapagos Islands. The pictures can now be seen at:

http://www.simonanders.com/Galapagos

Enjoy :)