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 :)