October 21st
October 21st, 2006 at 3:01pm
Today is the last day of the trip we leave for Australia about 8PM so we have a lot to pack into the day. We headed into Shinjinku and caught a train to Yebisi which is home of the historic (didn’t look to historic to us with its modern brick and glass buildings but anyway) Yebishi Beer Park. This complex consisted of a lot of nothing, with a big beer hall come restaurant and small museum where you could see some of the history of beer in Japan. The centre had some good displays and also had a sampling area but because it was before 12 we and last night ended about 2 am when we ran out of liquor we decided not to partake.
Next stop was Shinjinku where visited the skyscraper district with the plan to go up Tokyo’s highest building the Tokyo Metropolitan City Building, this is basically the city council’s building it’s huge. Once we found it after about a 40 minute walk we read a small sign on the door saying it was closed 21st of October for some sort of electrical check, cant win them all.. so we wandered back into the Shinjinku centre.
We were a bit peckish so we had a look at the big department store and found there food court after 12 flights of escalator. Most of the restaurants were full with quess and the food was from the ocean or maybe space, so we went across the road and got a nice burger at Standard Burger, an interesting place, 3 floors of stairs to reach it and a broken japlish sign on the door saying something like “service table is by you and seating is located” it sort of meant they found a table for you, you ordered and ate the food I think.  Burger wasn’t too bad, probably better than standard.
Our next job was to find Piss ally, this was the English name it had been christened, the Japanese one was too hard to pronounce. It was a little street about a metre wide and 100 metres long down the side of the subway line. One each side of the track were tiny little restaurants and bars, some only 6 or 8 feet wide and 12 feet long. They were packed with people slurping their noodles  or sticks, The whole laneway had a haze from the tasty (or in some cases not too tasty) yakatori sticks cooking on the open coals.
We headed back to the hotel on the train and picked up our bags and headed down to the station for our trip to the Airport. Along the way this older Japanese guy asked Rocky for a photo, Rocky thought that he wanted him to take a photo of the guy but no he wanted a photo of rocky. He had to stand in front of the drink vending machine… Who knows, might have a fetish for fat guys or may not have seen anything so handsome?  Gary had a bit of a treat along the way too, with an encounter of a large bear which was standing in the street waving to the passers by.The station was packed there would have been 10,s if not 100’s of thousands of people in the station.. It was like 2 MCG crowds criss crossing everywhere it was an interesting challenge trying to get the suitcases up stairs with a thousand people coming down but the people are very polite and tolerant.
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October 20th
October 20th, 2006 at 2:58pm
Today was our first full day in Tokyo so we decided to do a few things we missed out on last time. We started out at the furthest point which was Asakusa here we took a look around the Asahi beer head quarters next to the station. The building is shaped to look like a beer with froth on top. there is also a big gold water droplet statue that the locals call the golden turd. it was a bit too early for their bars so we continued down the road to the Sensoji temple. The temple was huge and was making a killing with people buying incense and trinkets to  burn at the shrines. It was meant to be a 400 year old temple but you could tell it must have been rebuilt after the war or something because it used bessa bricks and aluminium. We did a lap around the local streets such including the kitchenware street kappabashi dori on the way back to the station.  The kitchen street was huge it would have gone for over a km and every shop sold kitchen stuff, plates, cuttlery, kitchen furniture and even plastic food, this must be the place the Iorn Chefs shop for their kitchen stadium.  We would have liked a plate of plastic food for the coffee table back home but it was far too expensive, you could pay hundreds of dollars for a real good one.
Next stop was Akihabara, this is well known as electronics town as 90% of the shops in this town are computer or electronics shops. a new shop here that was not open last time we were here is yodabashi camera, this is meant to be the largest electronics store in the world, it’s 8 floors high and I think we believe them. By the end of the 4th floor your brain hurt with all the computers, cameras, and plasmas. Lunch was up the top of this store at the fast food chain Pepper Lunch this is another vending machine restaurant they bring a sizzling plate of raw strips of meat to you with rice and you cook it up yourself, it was rather tasty.

We did a lap of the Akihabra area, there are basically 3 things sold there, new electronic equipment, second hand electronic equipment and magna cartoons in both comic and dvd form, and there.s the odd magna theme restaurant, where these girls dress up in silly french maid costumes and fluffy boots and are made up like the cartoon characters- they are pretty funny but the teenage guys just love it,, maybe a little too much.  It seems magna is to Japanese computer nerds what dungeons and dragons, lord of the ring and little army battles are to Australian computer nerds…scary stuff!
After Akihabara we stopped off at Ginza, Ginza is the area were we stayed last time we were here so we knew it pretty well. Under the rail bridge there is a collection of tiny restaurants and bars. We visited one we have been to before it is smaller than Gary’s laundry but still managed to contain a kitchen bar 2 staff and 5 customers (although we did spill out on to the street a bit) here we had a few beers and a stick of yakitori chicken skewers each. We avoided the other things on the menu like back parts and  uterus (raw) and the old favourite gizzard. We were going to go the meat balls one but thought better against it. We had a look at the Nissan Gallery which had a couple of nice new vehicles on display followed by a couple of nice cold beers at a little bar upstairs around the corner. The place would have only been able to hold 10 people max.
Next was Roppongi the night club and red light district it’s a bit seedy here and all the black Americans (or want to be Emericans) who work for strips clubs were annoying us trying to get us to visit their clubs, mostly girly clubs. Shortly after get out of the station we saw a guy come off his motor scooter in the middle of an intersection, he didn’t look very happy and was having a lie down in the middle of the road when we last saw him. Some bars along here are rip offs so we decided to move on closer to home and went to Shinjiku. Shinjiki is Tokyo’s skyscraper district, it was feature a lot in films like lost in translation and fast and the furious. There are a few bars and stuff here too we had a bit of a look around before heading back to Shibya. The station at 12pm would have had 30-40,000 people heading in all directions.
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October 19th
October 19th, 2006 at 2:54pm
Not much to report here as this day was half lost due to our plane trip. We got into Tokyo at about 3 PM with customs guys wanting to go through rocky’s suit case for as part of their random search. We were questioned if we had a wide range of products, drugs, weapons, pornography (they should talk) or mushrooms. They didn’t open the hand luggage just pulled every thing out of the suit case which was jammed packed, They really took a liking to a few bears which were purchased in London and took them away for a x-ray (or cuddle).
The train into the city took about an hour and we got to our hotel about 4. The hotel was pretty good the room had microwave, dvd, tv, video, fridge and there was even a washing machine and dryer, which was the first washing machine our clothes had seen since leaving Australia. We had previously just used the sink.
We were staying in Shibiya and did a bit of exploring when it got dark, the main feature was a huge neon and video intersection which is meant to be the busiest in the world. The station handles some 2 million people a day.  A vending machine restaurant for dinner, which is a Japanese treat, you up to a vending machine fill it full of yen then press the buttons against the pictures you want. You then give the ticket to the person behind the counter and they cook up the treat for you. There’s quite a few of them throughout the city and it makes things really easy to order, usually the picture looks like what you get. Fortunately we didn’t get anything with cod roe or sea urchin sauce…who knows it tasted pretty good. After a feed we picked up a few cheap beers at the convenience store and back for a sleep.
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October 18th
October 18th, 2006 at 2:49pm

Our last day in Paris, we walked around a fair bit here and also went up the tallest building in the city for a look out their observation deck. It was a little foggy but the view was quite spectacular and there was hardly any one up there, which was a much better idea than the 3 to 4 hour wait over at the Eiffel Tower. Here you got a great view of the tower so the view was probably better.

Lunch was a tasty calzone t one of the brassieres along one of the boulevards.  We then jumped back onto the subway to the the way back to the hotel to pick up our luggage for our flight back to Tokyo.

We had a few hours wait at the airport before taking an almost fully booked flight back to Tokyo. Pretty much all of the plane was made up of Japanese tour groups. It was impossible to sleep but did go into a half sleep a few times. The back of the seat had a TV so there were a few films that helped fill the time.

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October 17th
October 17th, 2006 at 2:45pm
A full day in Paris and we really packed it in we started off the day walking up to the Arch de Trump looking at some of the fancy stores and visiting the Peugeot showroom which was basically a fancy room with a few prototype vehicles and a gift shop, it was rather impressive.
Lunch time we headed over towards the Sacure Cour and found the Moulin Rouge we thought we would come back later in the day when the photos would look a bit better so we left and went on a few different train trips to other suburbs around the city.

We finished off the night with a visit to see the Moulin Rouge building, not as spectacular as the film, its basically a crappy 60’s box with a really crap wooden windmill on the top. The photos looked good at night, check out the one from earlier in the day. The place was packed and you have to pay about 250 Australian for a night out there.  We then headed up to the Sacure Cour which is a church that looks over the city. There were some pretty good sights of the city up there.
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October 16th
October 16th, 2006 at 2:42pm
Our last day in London and today we have special guests, no Charles and Camilla don’t join us.. the bastards but Gary’s Brother John and wife Kath turn up in London for the start of their “Sound of Music” tour of Europe…what a hoot! if only we had have done that…high on a hill with a mountain goat

It was a pretty sunny day with a little haze so we thought it would be a good chance to try out the London Eye Ferris wheel. It is an amazing engineering feat, you don’t realise how huge the thing is until you are actually 3/4 the way up the thing. The capsules hold about 25 people and give great views across London. Leaving it to early Monday morning we avoided the huge que, it only took about 20 minutes to get on the ride. The one revolution took about 30 minutes and cost 13 pounds. A few capsules over from us there was a wedding taking place. talk about tacky extravagance- might be London’s answer to Vegas?
We met John and Kath about 12:30 at Trafalgar Square and went and got some lunch and a few pints at the Bat and Racket which was just around the corner followed by another 1 or two at another pub in the theatre district.  We headed back towards the hotel (via the pub) and then had to rush a bit to meet our Eurostar train back to Paris. The fast walk burnt of a few counteries and pints.
The Eurostar service was so easy, flash your passport at the security desk, they didn’t even look at Rocky’s but Gary got a stamp. Put your boarding pass into the ticket machine, then put your case on the xray then jump on the train and find your seat. At the Paris end it was just walk off the train and into the street. No customs no security just so easy.  The train takes about 2 and a half hours and is as smooth as, the Channel Tunnel bit takes about 20 minutes the system is just so easy, much better than  Airports and you leave and arrive right in the heart of the city.
Our hotel in Paris was the same one we stayed in last week and was about 200 metres from the Station. We got to our room, fortunately it had a window to open, it was about 50 degrees and someone had smoked 6000 smokes in there that day. It was a shocker, but a bit of spray deodorant and the window open for a while it improved a bit.  Went for a walk around the neigbourhood and got a kebab before calling it a day.
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October 15th
October 15th, 2006 at 2:39pm
Started the day by heading over the the London Eye, the huge Ferris wheel, but we decided it was too foggy and would try again, So we decided to catch the sit and stare double Decker bus.  This wasn’t a bad deal it was 4 or 5 bus routes and a boat ride up the river. You could get on and off when you liked and there was either a headphone commentary or if you were really lucky there was some Muppet or geezer who told you what you were looking at in a ‘hilarious’ ye old tales. It was a bit of fun.
We got off for lunch and down to the Had and Racket for a few pints of lager and a pie and chips, pretty damm good too!
We went for a bit of a walk around the area before returning to the bus and ended up at a computer swap meet at the Middlesex hospital, just the same as ours, and like ours full of smelly computer nerds. Then it was back on the bus to see some more sights of London. The guy giving the commentary this afternoon was a bit of fun and he showed us some interesting things. We passed another protest near Hyde park this time a heap of chanting Muslims (maybe about 1000 of them) with there shirts off and thumping their chests until they were red raw carrying on about Tony %$*ing Blair.
We took the bus trip again and ended up near the Tower of London so we jumped off and took our boat ride which took us back to near the London Eye so we thought back to the hotel for a quick refresh- and a jumper it was starting to get a bit cold.
We took the tube down the western side of the city towards Kensington and Knightsbridge, we didn’t get to do this area on the bus because we ran out of time. We found a local and had diner with a few pints before walking back into the city taking in some of the sights and pubs along the way.
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October 14th
October 14th, 2006 at 2:27pm

Our first day in London and we got up and walked across the river to parliament from where our hotel is located. We
walked up to Trafalgar sq and Piccadilly circus. we called into Virgin and HMV to pick up a few cds that you cant get back at home.

By this time it was about lunch time so we decided that being English it would be either a pie and chips with a pint or bangers and mash with a pint. We visited a few pubs until we found a pub with that did meals. At the champion we ordered a couple of pints and something called ‘toad in the hole’, this was like a pie with bangers and mash and gravy in the middle, this was very tasty and also met our British cuisine requirements. After this tasty feast we had a bit more of a walk around and visited Maplin electronics (a kind of English Jaycar) Gary picked up a USB controlled pcb that can control 8 relay outputs from visual basic and is quite excited his home automation project will once again gain some momentum, Rocky bought one too putting a lot of faith in Gary’s rusty visual basic skills hoping to automate his backyard beergarden.

A few more pints and we ran into a good protest in Trafalgar square where the Congonese were complaining about Tony £&#€ing Blair…with hundreds of coppers, it was a bit of fun. Grabbed a feed at a buffet Thai cafe and continued our walking tour of London.

Back to the hotel for a refresh the down to the local, well actually the one down from that the local looked a bit scary.

Not happy with British beer its crap it tastes milky which gives it a stale warm feel though it is chilled to our liking. Stella, fosters 1644 are all crap too…must have had it too good on the continent where it was crisp, so we just had to keep trying different ones, and there are some unusual ones, some even hand pumped into the glass.

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October 13th
October 13th, 2006 at 2:25pm
Friday was our first real chance to see the sights of Paris. we started off where things were meant to go yesterday with a trip to the Notre Dame cathedral it is an amazing sight with its wing buttresses and gargoyles. Didn’t see the hunchback but there were a few bums around who resembled him.
We saw a tourist cruise and decided to take it, it had about a dozen stops an you could use it all day, our first stop was the Eiffel tower. this is one of the most amazing sights in pairs. there were thousands there, the que would have been 3 to four hours so we decided not to waste our day. the tower like many of the other icons and major stations are patrolled by machine gun armed army personnel, which gives you a funny feeling.
The palaces, galleries and monuments along the water were amazing, Paris is the most beautiful and artistic city i have seen in the world.

We crossed the river for a look at the trocadero and got a great lunch from a breadshop close by. Seeing that 1/2 the F1rench population seem to roam the streets with a French stick in their arms we thought it only fitting to have a French stick filled with a hotdog, melted cheese, sauce and mustard, all washed down with a can of beer overlooking the tower, life is so hard.
Back on the boat and cruising up the river, we get off near Notre dame again and see the popedom centre, its a weird modern building with all the services and stairs on the outside. a couple of beers for afternoon tea then another few kms of sights before hitting a Turkish restaurant for dinner.

we headed back to hotel, grabbed our bags and headed to Paris nord station for the Euro star train to London.
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The cars that will eat Paris
October 12th, 2006 at 2:09pm
Got up today around 10 ( must of been a good sleep in due to decent bed for a fair while). today we visit the Paris motor show, we had free press passes to the Paris motor show due to our previous work on the Pulse FM Motorshow which we arranged before we left.
The Paris Motorshow is absolutely huge this was one of the last days it was on on and it covers an area around 6 times Jeff’s sheds.
There were many cars here that we know and heaps more we don’t. there were a handful of oddball manufactures like Lada, a few Chinese and Indian makers as well as a few micro cars makers that churn out cars that make the Smart ForTwo look like a stretch limo and contain the throbbing power of 50cc. regular listeners to our Pulse FM motorshow may remember one of these featured as weird car of the week. they are quite popular in France as you don’t need a licence to drive them.
Other things at the show included a huge shed of used cars, a go kart track and a shed devoted to the usual array of car accessories, car polish, magic cloths and a stand of guns. I spose road rage is not a problem when you have a 9mm glock in the glove box.
After the motor show we hopped back on the subway via a few tourist spots on the way. first we had a look around the big white arch le’defence, this hideous structure was built to commemorate 300 years of the republic.
The whole area is a collection of futuristic 1990 style (dated) buildings with a bit of weird art thrown in for good luck.We then we hopped back on the train to the Notre Dame area were we had a wander around We were heading towards Notre Dame or so we thought but ended up going the wrong way, so decided to stop at a sidewalk cafe and take in the sights over a few beers. Beer is much dearer here than anywhere else we have seen in Europe, we paid 680 for a scooner, there’s a bit of a premium for the view and service. The convenience store sold cans for 170. Dinner was a lovely cheese burger with crumbed cheese sticks at a fine dining establishment, Quick Burger. Quick burger is a French version of McDonalds but with an emphasis on cheese, we didn’t try the cheese burito as the picture of it was most likely what our arteries would look like after consuming it.
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October 12th
October 12th, 2006 at 12:20pm

Paris Motorshow Pics Below

1 2
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We we Pari
October 11th, 2006 at 2:00pm
We got up around 8:30 and had some complimentary breaky in the lovely Bastion Hotel before starting our trip to down to Paris.

Today was the last day of our stylish Chevy (Daewoo) Nabira, so a few mins was spent empting the tip floor the back floor (it started to remind me of my Fujitsu van back home). It will be a happy day as its the last we will see this bucket of crap. its now done 18000 km and needs a few repairs, now needs scrapping. it must have had a hard life before us. marks everywhere in and out. A gearbox like a tractor, airbag light on, windscreen wipers which make the screen worse and an inability to get up even a 6 grade hill. one consolation the radio is working ok again now. It will also be good to see the back off sally our sat nav system she’s been a bit lazy and forgetful the last few days and if I hear her say calculating route one more time ill smash it. nagging woman!
We programmed the sat nav for the last time to take us to Charles de Gaulle airport out side Paris as we had to return the car to the same place we picked it up due to the optional sat nav system. this wasn’t a problem as we didn’t fancy driving in Paris traffic and there is a decent train system from the airport to the hotel.  When we finally got into Paris and saw the crazy traffic we were assured we made the correct choose…it’s mad out there. Bikes and small cars going flat out, and if the lights go green they go, they don’ care what’s in their way. its madness. Just crossing the lights you risk your life.
The 4 hr drive from Amsterdam to Paris was fairly easy, but not as nice as Germany’s roads as speeding is discouraged in these parts unlike in Germany. The drive out of Amsterdam was a bit of a pain the speed limit on the motorway changed every few kms from 120 to 100 to 70 to 50. Every time it dropped to 50 their was a huge traffic jam for no reason, all I can say is Amsterdam’s version of Vicroads are more than likely on drugs.

Once out of Amsterdam we made a bit of a fair bit of progress, we hit Antwerp in Belgium around lunch time but because it looked like such a crappy place we continued along the motorway and had lunch at one of the many popular motorway truckstops.
We arrived into Paris around 4ish, the hotel was a few blocks from the station and we had a printout of it from Google earth (jee’s we are organised) so it was easy to find. We had a bit of a refresh and headed into town for a bit of a look around. Did quite a few Kms walking (about 10) from the Louve area along the river across to the Arc de triumph and down the Champs de Elesses, (typical tourist stuff). Paris is amazing at night, the historic sandstone buildings glow and the Eiffel Tower is just amazing with its flashing stroblelights. After taking plenty of pics and heaps of walking we needed a feed and a few beers. we went to the McDonalds due to their free wifi internet in Paris with the intention of doing a few jobs on the laptop while drinking a McBeer (1664) In the end we had a Royal with cheese value meal (you have the choice of coke or beer for the same price) there is also an option of fries or wedges and they are not French fries in France, just fries. After 3 decent sized Kronenbourg 1664 beers we decided to head back to the hotel for a bit of a kip.
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