Breakfast in Tokyo, Lunch in Cape Town & Dinner in Medellín

I spent my extra day in Tokyo figuring out where I was going next after walking around my hostels area some more and having an early lunch of sushi.  The bluefin tuna was mmmmmm. The weather forecast was not working for going to Mt Fuji so I decided to skip that and head to Nikko instead.  

After that was sorted out and I got a bed in Nikko reserved it was down to the “Onsen” (Japanese hot bath) for a soak.  Dinner was up next, Udon noodles and prawn tempura with some cold sake tonight, delicious.  I went back to the Shibuya area after that, there’s even more people there in the evening, and wandered around some of the tech stores, entertainment stores etc.  Then I stumbled upon an English Pub, decided it was a good time to have a pint and had a guinness (something I’m going to do in every country to compare them all!).  The pub was nice, looked English, and had an English pub menu…  While I was there I saw someone at the table over from me eating the Fish n Chips, with chopsticks.  My mind went into spasms, despite being completely used to seeing and using chopsticks to eat, there was just something very strange about watching someone eat fish and chips with them!

Right now I’m drinking green tea at an internet cafe at the train station waiting for the rail office to open so I can get my rail pass and go to Nikko. 

I got here Saturday night, it’s now Tuesday.  That’s 2 1/2 days, and I just extended my stay here by a day since it is cloudy/wet today so going to Mt Fuji is kinda pointless with no visibility… 

Tokyo is huge, it has several sections that if you didn’t know anything you would be forgiven for thinking that they alone were a major city.  The amount of people walking around Shinjuku and Shibuya is insane!  I have never seen that many people in one place.  Unsurprisingly it’s hi-tech here, pretty much everything.  Every person has a phone and is using it almost constantly, 90% of the phones look almost identical and different from ones in the US or Europe.  The only technology devices that people are walking around with that I recognize the product are iPods and iPhones. 

The people here are very friendly.  Despite my speaking no Japanese whatsoever, I haven’t had a problem doing anything yet.  I have been approached on numerous occasions (usually when I’m looking at a map or have my guidebook out) by people asking me in english if I need any help, and these aren’t tourist officials, these are just people off the street!  

I think I have managed to cover most of the main areas and quite a few of the attractions but honestly I think you could be occupied here for a long time just going to sushi restaurants.  I could anyway.  The cheapest way to eat sushi is at the places that have a conveyer belt going around the sushi bar, the plates are colour coded telling you how much each one costs and you just grab whatever you want as many times as you want.  You can also order it by the piece, for better fish, higher quality etc.  I’ve tried quite a few different things so far (for those wondering NO Live Octopus) and nothing has been bad.

As I posted before, there’s people biking and walking everywhere & the metro is busy seemingly at all hours, yet also the most civilized that I can recall.  I have not seen much car traffic in comparison to any other city I’ve been to.  They have these guys in blue uniforms that are everywhere making sure bikes are properly parked and keeping some order but mostly I don’t see them doing a whole lot, nothing needs to be done.  

I’m in Tokyo now sitting at my hostel.  Finally.  
My 10 hour flight was 2 hours late leaving San Francisco, though it made up an hour of that en route.  I was impressed with JAL though(minus the delay), excellent service, far better than any of the US airlines, despite the flight being that long their programming selection was so extensive and it gives you complete control over it that I was never bored.  It was also by far the quietist flight I have ever taken, maybe a new model of the 777-300, it seemed pretty new?
Then came the gauntlet of different trains and the maze through side streets to find the hostel which I did with no problems, but all of that added up and I didn’t check in until 9:00 PM.  

First thoughts are very good on Tokyo, at least the part I’ve seen.  It’s busy, but strangely quieter than I expected.  People are riding bikes EVERYWHERE, motorcycles too and even walking.  Funny, I haven’t seen hardly any fat people yet, coincidence?  I can’t wait to explore the city, but for now I’m really tired since I’ve had something like 4 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, so I am off to bed. 

Continuing South in California, we stopped at Ft Bragg and I spent the afternoon climbing on the rocks checking out all the great tidal pools.  Despite it being closer to high tide than low tide I still managed to find some crabs, starfish and other unknown sea creatures.  Perfect sunny day and loads of fun, I forgot how much I enjoy that stuff.

Yosemite Park. 

First day we drove in the South entrance of the park and hiked around an old grove of sequoia trees, which are even bigger than the redwoods.  There’s not that many left in this particular forest but that just makes them stand out more on the trail.  

Second day, Half Dome.  Half Dome is one of the granite peaks in the Yosemite valley, 8800 feet above sea level.  We decided to hike it.  It’s 15 miles round trip, with 4800ft of elevation gain.  The hiking guide describes it as “extremely strenuous” and it doesn’t lie.  Mainly it’s steep, with a small level part in the middle, but as you go on it gets steeper and there is less oxygen in the air.  Then, when you get  above the tree-line it gets even steeper, basically a staircase winding back and forth up the granite face.  When you can’t breath anymore you come to a minor summit (where the weenies stop) and are faced with an almost vertical ascent up the final rock face, assisted by cables and boards laid across as steps.  Without that assistance, you could very easily fall thousands of feet to your demise.  With the assistance, you pull yourself up to the next step, and then gather up the energy to continue. If/when you reach the summit, the view is stupendous.  Mountains in every direction and  a 5000ft drop off down to the valley floor all around you.  It is one of the best views I’ve ever seen.The whole thing took around 10 hours to get up and down, and I’ve never been that exhausted before.

So in summary, the mountain kicked my ass, but at least I got a great view out of it and the pictures to prove it.  The perfect weather in California continued, and I slept very well that night.

As I’m posting this, I’m in San Francisco. Spent the day here checking out the city, walked out on the golden gate bridge, rode the cable car… Cool city, wish I had more than just today to check it out. My flight to Tokyo is tomorrow and I’m just about ready for it.  This is the “real” starting point of my trip.  As for tonight, I’m relaxing and enjoying some great beers here and savoring people speaking english everywhere.

Next time I post on here it’ll be from Japan….

Redwood Park, California.

Big trees.  Really big trees.  The biggest are 300+ feet tall, and up to 22 feet across (though most in the forest are more like up to 15 feet across and 200 feet tall) and there’s forests of these things!  You don’t realize how big the trees are until you get out of the vehicle and stand next to one, then turn around and look at the truck parked next to another one and then feel like an ant.  

The first night here we camped at one of the network of state parks in a campsite that had two redwood trees in it, (one of which was 10-12 across) with just enough space between them to back the truck into.  A very unique campsite.

Next morning we hiked a couple short trails to old groves of redwoods, the first one was awesome, the second was better.  When you’re walking on one of these trails, you notice that the trees are really big, but after a while walking through them you also notice that everything else is larger than normal.  eg: the ferns, the clovers, both at least twice the size you would normally expect.  The ferns routinely reached 5-6 feet tall!  

In the afternoon we drove from the Northern park where we’d been so far, to the Southern park and hiked a trail there.  This trail was even better than the earlier two, with more huge trees along it.  Then, near the end of the trail we encountered a bull elk with a really big rack, by my count it was at least 12 points, maybe more.  It was just off the trail eating blackberries, about 30 feet from us.  Really cool seeing it that close, and the first large animal I’ve seen on this trip.

I have taken a bunch of pictures of the redwoods, but they don’t really show the size of them.  You have to stand next to them and look up, which is disorienting, to actually appreciate how massive they are.  

The Oregon coast is great.

 
There’s a highway that runs along the ocean, sometimes directly adjacent to, and sometimes a mile inland.  It’s nice.  Every mile or two there’s some kind of state of county park with camping and/or beach access.  There’s overlooks every few hundred feet on some parts of the highway, and the coastline is as varied as it is great.  Some just sand beaches, some huge sand dunes, some rocky scraggy areas with off shore rocks.  There’s even some parts with the rocky cliffs, flat sandy beaches, sand dunes farther in on the beach and off shore rocks making it just about picture perfect.

 
We camped along the coast two nights, in two, randomly chosen campsites.  One in the woods 1/2 a mile from the beach and the second 1/4 mile from the beach near a lighthouse next to a whole bunch of sand dunes.  The day spent getting from the first campground to the second we drove a grand total of 50 miles, stopping at many overlooks & beaches and a semi lengthy detour to eat some seafood in Florence, OR.  

Next it was on through the rest of the Oregon coast to California.  Still stunning scenery, and beautiful weather for this.  Got to California after exploring just a few more beaches and dunes in Oregon and headed straight for Redwood Nat’l Park where the trees are freakin huge, next entry…

We spent Labor day in Portland, checked out some of the local micro breweries with good results.  Beautiful weather all day, it doesn’t just rain constantly up here!  Portland is cool, friendly people, some of the best pubs I’ve been to, fresh seafood and plenty of stuff happening in the town.  I even found the elk burger I’d been looking for and had the best gelato I’ve had on this side if the atlantic.

The next day, we left Portland and drove to Newport, OR.  A small town on the coast, home to Rogue Brewery, one of the biggest craft breweries in the US.  Spent the afternoon and early evening there taking a tour and sampling their products.  Then down South on the highway that follows the coastline, perfectly clear skies and saw the sunset on the ocean.  The coastline here is awesome, every turn on the highway and you’re overlooking a little (or not so little) bay or inlet.  Rocky cliffs surrounding sandy beaches and the colours just after sunset were great.  Once the light faded, we found a campsite less than half a mile from the ocean, in the forest.  Now I’ve got a couple more days of this coastline into California and the Redwoods… 
   

On the way to Portland we camped for the night in the Mt Hood Nat’l forest, nice area but the next morning when we were going to explore the Mt Hood area the clouds rolled in very low and it was raining so we drove on to Portland.  

First impressions of Portland were good, very good.  First we stopped at a recommended Pub that was the best, most authentic English pub I have been in outside of England.  Then, the building next door had a sign on it for some beer & English food store had moved up the street.  We decided to check it out, it just happened to be the best beer store I have ever set foot in.  After making the best make-your-own-6pack ever, I discovered that they also had English chocolate etc that I had never before seen outside of England.  I am finding the Washington & Oregon have many English style places, more than the so called British Columbia.

Downtown Portland was somewhat strange, it being Labor Day weekend.  Many things were closed and some areas of town had hardly any people in them.  We did finally find a busy area with stuff open, several good looking restaurants and the one we ended up eating at had 100 taps of beer.  I had fresh shellfish and one of the best beer selections I’ve ever seen.  Apparently people in Portland like drinking good beer, this is no miller or bud town there are tons of beers brewed in the area and readily available on tap in Portland.

I also visited the biggest bookstore I have ever been in.  Half a dozen floors with every kind of book you can imagine, and it’s so big that they have another store down the street with their “technical” books.  I just got my Taiwan guidebook and something to read for my flight to Japan.