Vibrant Vietnam

A little video for you all. 2011, March, the main part of the trip started in Vietnam. Will be visited in a 'Short journey', probably next year.

Motorbikes in Ho Chi Minh City

here is the link:

Vibrant Vietnam


Don't forget:

Dhaka to Dakar

Videos of Ethiopia

Addis Ababa

Back in 2009 I took what was an amazing trip to Ethiopia with two friends of mine. This will be the subject of the very first book in the 'Short Journeys' range, coming in around a month's time to a Kindle store near you (also know as Amazon).

Today I am very happy to be able to share with you two videos I made of that journey.

The first, Extraordinary Ethiopia, sees me visit the capital Addis Ababa, Lalibela, Gondar and Bahir Dar.

The second video remembers the trek through the Simien Mountains, a national park which was truly spectacular. One of the highlights of all my travels.

Please enjoy :)

Free Kindle chapter!

Hello everyone!
Just a quick blog to say that I have a promotion going on Amazon for the next five days. The very FIRST chapter of Dhaka to Dakar is available - Malaysia and Singapore. Yes, I didn't start the Dhaka to Dakar journey in Dhaka, strangely enough. So if you'd like to take a look into the book, this chapter (Chapter One overall, and first chapter of 'Journey Across Asia') is now FREE for download for five days!

Link here:

Dhaka to Dakar: Malaysia and Singapore

And for more info on the book and ALL the chapters:

http://dhakatodaker.webs.com/

More on the new writings and videos in the next few days! Take care!

Kazakhstan Videos

Everyone, in lieu of the new books I am working on, I am also working on some short videos of my time in different countries. Today I present one I just finished working on last night. This is a short summary of my time in Kazakhstan where I visited:

1/ Almaty and Medeu
2/ Semey
3/ Astana

It's shot with my old Canon video camera which used mini-DVD tapes. In particular it features some performances from the Museum of Kazakh Musical Instruments in Almaty which was great, and you can see a lot of the strange and wonderful buildings in Astana. Shot in June 2011. Enjoy!

Curious Kazakhstan

Short Journeys

Hi everyone.
I have started work in earnest on my next batch of ebooks, called 'Short Journeys'. They will chronicle my travels in different countries across Asia, Africa and ex-USSR.
I am working primarily on 'Short Journeys - Ethiopia' at this stage, and also have 'Short journey's - Kazakhsatn' in the pipleline. More information will be forth coming! I have visited many places that aren't covered in 'Dhaka to Dakar', so it was about time I started working on them! Incidentally, here'e the webpage again I made for Dhaka to Dakar:

Dhaka to Dakar, the book!

As for the new series, 'Short Journeys', I hope to have the first out by the end of October, and one or two more out by the end of the year, followed by maybe 6 or so next year. Eventually they will be available in three bigger volumes. Anyways, to whet you appetite, here are some photos from countries which will feature in the 'Short Journeys' range :

Ethiopia

Kazakhstan

Cameroon

Uzbekistan

Estonia.

Ishinomori, manga and boats

Space design for the museum.

It’s great to find a new place to explore, isn’t it? Just over a week ago I headed with my wife and friend to Ishinomaki, a coastal city around 70 km from Ichinoseki, and we saw a movie and had dinner. Three days ago I returned to this city to find out a bit more about it and see a couple of things.

In fact I thought it was a really nice place. It lies very low, with hills appearing here and there. This part of Japan I am told dropped something like a full metre into the ocean after March 11^th 2011. You can believe it when you visit Ishinomaki and see how high the ocean reaches in high tide. Ishinomaki was devastated by that tsunami. The before and after shots are horrific. Yet today,  two and a half years later, it seems to be doing ok. It’s a pretty busy, happening place.

We visited the Manga Museum. Ishinomaki is famous as the birthplace of Ishinomori Shotaro, who was a hugely successful creator of manga, including a story involving cyborgs numbered like British secret agents. I have to say, their 007 isn’t as cool as James Bond. The museum is housed in what on the outside looks like a space ship, not quite a flying saucer but flying saucer inspired. A section underneath opens out and anime figures, rather

small, pop out and music plays. Thankfully inside the museum was more interesting! (we were left underwhelmed by this)

Inside the girls dress up in some sort of space uniform, and on the second floor there is a display which is probably not worth the 800 Yen admission (the rest is free) but nice all the same. One part is examples of manga, some in English, as people continue on with his cyborg stories. The other part is slightly more interactive, angled at kids of course. There were lots of helmets from a TV series based on one his characters, and various other examples of characters from his work. Unfortunately cameras were not allowed for most of level two.

Level three had a couple of food shops and a library, and the first floor had the entrance and gift shop. We were also able to watch a 15 minute anime short which we both enjoyed.

The museum was hit but the tsunami. It’s on a small island in the bay, and must have born the full brunt of the thing. The island can only be about 400-500 metres long and 100 metres wide, and we were able to see before and after shots at the museum (in a photobook) and we could see there were a number of buildings on the island pre-tsunami. Today I think there were three. The museum survived, although a massive cleanup was needed and glass had to be replaced afterwards. Elsewhere on the island a much-smaller-than-the-real-one Statue of Liberty stands, missing part of its plastic exterior. It’s very eerie.

There is a Spanish galley moored in the harbour, next one along that is. It’s about 8 kilometres from the museum, and this particular harbor is really beautiful. The water was very still, the boats hardly moved moored in the bay. The San Juan is an immaculately maintained and restored galley from  Spain back when Europeans were trying to convert the Japanese – about three centuries ago. It looks brand new today, although the museum was closed and we couldn’t go on the ship, rather take a photo from a gate 30 metres away.

Outside the San Juan museum and centre it said the opening hours were 10-4pm. To be honest I don’t know if it’s reopened since the Tsunami. People were hard at work near the boat where they seemed to be constructing some of shaded viewing area. I wondered how much damage was done to the ship by the tsunami too. It’s a very strange feeling to stand next to the bay knowing what happened there in 2011. I was happy though that life seemed to be continuing for the locals. A lot of new houses being built, but still some people are living in emergency accommodation that we saw.

From the outside it appeared a fair amount normalcy had returned to Ishinomaki. But, who am I to judge that? I can’t comprehend the effect on people’s lives the tsunami had, and still has today. I was glad though that I was able to visit.

Hawking around

Howdy all
Just checking in with everyone to say hi! It's the first day of Autumn in Japan but it's been hot again. C'est La Vie I gues! Nevertheless I think we'll be seeing a cooling down over the next few weeks. School is about to go into exams, and I have started working on a new book, so more info on that soon. I will be revisiting my time in Ethiopia in the first of a new series called 'Short Journeys'.

Amazing birds

Yesterday I journeyed down to Ishinomaki to go and see a movie (Star Trek: Into Darkness) which I very much enjoyed. I'd heard bad things but I was happily surprised. I ventured down with a friend, Kevin, and we met my wife at the station (she had been in Sendai). It looks like a really nice interesting place, it was devastated by the tsunami in 2011 but we didn't head to the coast.

A hawk in flight!

The road we took to get there though was quite treacherous, on the top of a cliff high above a river on a road that was broken in parts and sloping down towards the river in others. We were lucky that on that stretch of road we didn't pass a single vehicle. Actually, the condition of the road was probably why no-one was using it.
A bit further on and we saw a bunch of hawks swooping around beautifully in the sky. It was quite a sight. Big, beautiful birds.

Ishinomaki harbour.

At Ishinomaki we had dinner at 'Big Boy', an American chain I have never visited although there is one here in Ichinoseki too. Their salad and soup bar was good value, as it was all you can eat. We also briefly visited the harbour for a quick snap! Took in the movie and went back via a different route. The heavens opened and kaboom! We were well and truly dumped on! The rain was so heavy it became very dangerous, and yet people in this part of the world don't seem to think they should stop tail-gating or turn the high beams off! Well, that's driving in Japan for you!

Bog boys at Big Boy!

Next week I hope to return, because the place looks interesting and there is a Manga Museum there I am keen to see. So stay tuned.
AND if you have any interests in my travel writing, don't forget the website now up and running.
The writings detail the journey I undertook from Dhaka to Dakar (Bangladesh to Senegal)  and you can buy the twenty chapters individually for Kindle via Amazon, or it's also compiled into three volumes -Asia, Europe and Africa. If you like the blog, please consider!
Thanks!

Dhaka to Dakar the website

Beautiful Iwate gets hot!

August appears to have thrown its worst at us here in Iwate in terms of weather. Last week there were a couple of rather sticky nights where sleep was difficult to impossible. Although it’s still hot in the days all of a sudden the nights have cooled down which is obviously a mercy. Last week was a very busy week, first back at school.

Beautiful Iwate.

Then on the weekend we visited an onsen on Saturday and then on Sunday went to a concert by my school’s incredibly talented brass band!

I have never been to an onsen before. I was tempted to go to a public bath back in 2004 when I visited Hungary, and there have been many places where hot springs/baths/onsens have been very popular. In the ex-Soviet states hot baths or banyas are widespread and enjoyed by many. When I visited the remote settlement in Kyrgyzstan they had access to hot springs there, and there was bath in a shed fed by the hot springs, but I have to be honest, it never really interested me enough, especially in the cold!

But they say you should try everything once, right? What? Wrong? Nevertheless we hopped in the car and drove out somewhere between 20 to 30 kilometres from Ichinoseki. It’s name? Kurotaki Onsen.  The drive was windy, but beautiful. The greens out in the rice fields are very striking at this time of the year and I was taken by just how beautiful this area which has been my home now for 1.5 years. You only have to get 5 kilometres out of the city and it becomes apparent, especially if you head down the right road.

The onsen well, it’s a big bath. You enter the change rooms connected to the bath. The bath was quite big and around 43-44 degrees celcius or so it claimed. There was a piping hot sauna – only big enough for two, a cold bath and showers and stools around the rest of the walls. A section of the bath was devoted to a ‘pulse bath’, some sort of electric current you can sit in the middle of. And I tried it – it felt very strange!

I couldn’t stay in the bath for more than a few minutes, it was just too hot! I braved the sauna a couple of times – 30 seconds a pop. I’m not sure how hot it was in there, the thermometer said 90 degrees but that couldn’t be right, could it? I would think 60-70 degrees. Probably shouldn’t go in the sauna alone though, with no-one directly outside. I felt close to passing out and I might have woken up cooked!

After that was pretty much done. I used the shower as five or six men entered from nowhere. I had had the facilities to myself for the first thirty minutes. 

Ice Cream stop!

There was a relaxation room too and I took a little nap. We drove back as the sun set around the hills and rice fields which were truly amazing. There’s even a few flowers here and there. We stopped for some nice ice cream too, it has to be done!

Sunday saw us watch the brass band concert in Fujisawa. For a small town they have an excellent culture centre with quite a decent concert hall. Who’d a thunk it? The band really is excellent, they went to the school brass band finals in Morioka not that long ago. The weekend finished with me being one tired boy! But I’d had a good weekend. Pity I didn’t get to the beer festival going on in Ichinoseki!

More Tokyo stuffies!

After Ueno my day was not done, oh no! I made my way to nearby Asakusa by the train to see the famous temple, Senjo-ji. I was pushing time as I had a movie I wanted to see, 'World War Z'. Maybe I should say I wanted to see A movie and this was about the least crap-looking thing that was on anywhere in English.
Anyways.

Ooops. Going to Senjo-ji was a big mistake. Why? Well, simply, I'd been there before! So no really a BIG mistake, but I didn't realise until I got there that I'd visited it last August! It was a mistake because I was going to struggle to get to the movie early enough. Anyways, at least I could take a couple of nice photos.

I also passed this charming house less than 50 metres from the temple which looks old-style at the very least! In amongst the bigger, modern building I thought it was quite charming. Did I mention it is charming?

Then I rushed back to the train station, taking a line that I couldn't find anywhere on any map to Shinjuku station, where I found my cinema, 15 minutes in hand but no tickets left...
So I went to Harajuku, a little area north of Shibuya where apparently cos-players line up for photos, but I must have been too late for that as well :( although there was a little activity, and some sort of music festival going on too. Also passed a packed street which apparently has a lot of children's shops on it I found out later, Takeshita Street.

A school group from Hong Kong in Harajuku

I walked slowly down to Shibuya, and stopped at Tower Records. They have a lovely air conditioned cafe on the third (?) level where I had a beer and waited for my wife to finish a seminar. It had been a hot and sticky day, and I had spent a good portion of it on trains. But you know, at least I was getting around right?

Ueno and the Shitamachi Museum

So late Friday night we arrived in Yokohama. It was darned hot, much hotter than Ichinoseki. Saturday was a recovery day for me, I did very little but sweat in condition approaching forty degrees inside with no air conditioning. I sat near some fans and watched a great win by beloved bulldogs back in Australia.

Ueno.

Sunday however, I braved steamy Tokyo. It was much hotter than last year, most days pushing the 40 mark. I took the ol' JR line to Ueno. It took an hour from where I was but at least I didn't have to change. Taking the metro around Tokyo often involves 17 confusing changes to go anywhere so an hour with no changes is as relaxing as taking the metro/subway/whatever in Tokyo.

I went to Ueno to see a few museums two years ago, there's also a zoo in the area. It's a good place for tourists with lots to do and see. This time I visited the Shitamachi museum. It's a great little museum which shows how Tokyo was around 100 years ago (principally) before the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923 which devastated Tokyo.
There are a few examples inside of dwellings back in that era. Everything was made of wood back then so fire ripped through the city destroying so much of it in 1923. Most houses were heated by a fire so it was always going to be the biggest danger resulting from an earthquake.
House were smaller back then with more people living inside. There was even less protecting the dwellers from the winter too. Tatami mats were still the rage. Later, Tokyo would start to grow upwards which I imagine actually created more space. Back at the turn of the century though, it was much flatter. Safer with the earthquakes I guess.
Upstairs are some examples of life in the 1950s and 1960s. I enjoy this style of museum - not a fan of museums full of rocks as you know! There was a home interior and a bar with various types of interesting board games. Very interesting.

Typical room cica 1900 in Tokyo - Shitamachi Museum

View over lake.

Outside the museum is a large lake, covered in lilies. It's divided into sections. To the north is the zoo, to the east is an open lake with those swan-boats you peddle, in the centre is a temple. To the west is the main Ueno park, with a statue to Saigo Takamori near the southern entrance. He was a samuari who according to 'the guide book' originally supported the Meiji Restoration but changed his mind and disemboweled himself in protest when his opposition failed. Oh well, each to their own.

A worthwhile area of Tokyo to visit for the tourist is Ueno. But I should say, I heartily recommend choosing a different season to visit!

The Statue.

Approaching 8000 and expressway madness

Thankyou all so much! I am almost at 8000 page views! I'm sure there are millions of blogs with more, especially over the time frame that this blog has been going - since late 2005, but still, it's an achievement of sorts. After the next couple of posts, I might do a retrospective perhaps!

Last Friday we hopped into the car at around 3.30pm and started the driving down to stay with my wife's family in Yokohama. It's around 500km, so no Sunday arvo dawdle, we hoped to be there not too late. And it went mostly to plan, despite the inordinate amount of trucks on the road. We took the expressways for around 70% of the journey - otherwise we'd probably need two days. Students are often amazed in my classes when I try to give an idea of distances in Australia. I was telling students about a drive to Uluru from Sydney - well I've never done it, but that it would take a cgood 3-4 days minimum. That journey is nearly 3000km by road via South Australia as chosen by google maps.

See, Google Maps knows all! 30 hours driving but good luck doing that in two days. You'd have to be mad. At least the roads move at a good click back home. Non-expressway travel can be tedious, as it was on the journey, at times. To save money we did some stretches on expressways and some not. Turns out that it would have been cheaper to stay mostly on the expressway - I guess you get a charge every time you enter the expressway, because on our way home today we used it all in one long stretch, further than on Friday, and it turned out cheaper.

The expressways get crazy once you hit Tokyo. It had a futuristic feel with so many bridges and roads spinning around in circles, all lifted mightily above the ground. Sometimes there are like four levels of roads held up by pylons it's like the States in that respect. There are plenty of trucks,  just like at home, and just like at home tail-gating is a keen sport here. The limit is supposedly, I believe, 100, and generally cameras and police let you get away with 120 ish. Still there's always the odd car going at 150 km/ph and with the trucks trying to pass each other it get's pretty stressful. Then around Tokyo area the signs get very difficult to read. Thank you to the internet and wikipedia for the following pic:

Good luck figuring that one out! We made it to Yokohama at about 11.15pm I think. So nearly eight hours of driving. On the way home we did it in six and a half but boy is my brain frazzled from the concentration.

SO what did I do in Tokyo? Next time folks! Next time!

PS. don't forget this page - link to my travel book!

Mount Murone

Surrounding mountains near Mt Murone.

Howdy all,
As things hot up here in Japan in terms of the weather and in terms of politics in Australia with an election around the corner, tomorrow sees me take to the roads again as I drive to Yokohama. It's going to be quite a drive! It's been a long time since I've headed out for such a long drive so I need to take a big deep breath and get ready!

The Observatory.

A few days ago I took a drive up a local mountain - not very high, a few metres less than 900 metres, Mount Murone. It was a beautiful little spot - I was there in some pretty nasty weather but still I could take in a bit of beauty amongst the clouds and rain - which thankfully tapered off a bit when I reached the top.

There is an observatory there too, which unfortunately I didn't have time to visit whilst I was there (save that for another day and another blog), but I was able to take some photos to share. Mount Murone is about 40 km from Ichinoseki, between here and the coast. For locals it's a pretty famous place. For outsiders, it's very much a hidden secret. One worth visiting! It was even a couple of degrees cooler there!

The weather is certainly getting up there now, we are into our third day of 32 or more here in a row, I saw in Tokyo it was 37 yesterday - crikey! That's what I am heading into and Tokyo is even more humid than it is here. Take care everyone! See you soon on the blogsphere!

Website up!

Hey folks, how goes the day?
It's a warm and sunny day here in Ichinoseki. Tonight there will be a festival and fireworks in town. Lanterns and flags are out in force, and the nuff-nuffs are out in force on the road! Ahhhh no I shouldn't complain! Sorry sorry sorry!

I have just put up a webpage for my Dhaka to Dakar book. It had been pointed out to me that the Amazon author page is confusing and it's hard to work things out there, so this website, I hope, presents it in a logical way.
Each of the three books have their own pages, with links to the individual chapters as well in order. Please check it out and leave a comment!

Dhaka to Dakar webpage

Cheering BE-SU-BO-RU style!

Yesterday I had a great experience with my school. We travelled by bus from Senmaya to Morioka - ok that was not so great on the winding roads, but we all travelled up to Morioka to watch our school take on the SIchinoseki Gakuien (or a school that sounds like that) in a baseball game. Now I mentioned once before that it's pretty serious, the high school baseball here, so with the news that we had won the first game, the entire school bar office staff and one of the vice principals was bussed two and a half hours away to support the team! Quite a feat. Interesting choice too as the schools are only 35 minutes apart to play all the games in Morioka. The team actually had stayed in Morioka since the knockout tournament began. Perhaps this is the power the prefecture capitals have here in Japan.

The ground was wide and open, and left me wondering why baseball is played on dirt with a grass outfield. Nicer to play on grass all the way, surely?? Anyways, we waited outside the ground for 20 minutes and were finally let in. The cheering is all very organised, and every student knows all the chants and dare I say it? - dance moves!When your school is batting it's your turn to cheer. Our school was very very good at cheering, with lots of songs, many apparently anime songs, and the strange custom of dunking three buckets of water on the three cheer leaders at the start of each batting innings. The leaders, by the way, are all boys and were in full school uniform!
Thankfully it was sunny, around 24 degrees - perfect. The rain, as mentioned, has delayed this tournament big time!

Preparing the playing area.

The game went on, and I was encouraged to dance and cheer and I joined in. I don't want to dob on the other teachers, but they weren't quite so enthusiastic. The brass band and the cheer leaders led everyone, and we had a blast. Half-way through the seventh innings, the game was called off because it wasn't close. we were losing 9-0 at the time! The opposition looked much bigger than our students I must admit, and I was told they ran 10 km a day! That's what I mean by taking it seriously. I was also told our players didn't run so far.
And we piled back into the buses and headed back, another 2.5 hours, to school. At times the cheering overshadowed the game. Actually, it did most of the time. The result didn't matter, a good time was had by all, and in a country where there is so much pressure on students to do well in tests and the like, where they are worked incredibly hard, that's a very good thing!

The Rainy Season

Last year I was warned - 'oh the rainy season is coming' around June. It never really did. There was a day here and a day there of rain, yet I thought 'rainy season' was a bit of an exaggeration. This year, however, It's the reverse, a day here and a day there of sun, but generally rain is the default setting. We've had one day without rain this week, that was Tuesday.
Today I was supposed to be joining the entire high school in going to Morioka by bus to cheer our baseball team on. It didn't happen because the weather gods were not with us. In fact the entire high school tournament - many games of which are televised here in Japan, is four days behind schedule because of the rain!
Still, although it rained all day and last night too, it's not raining right now. The temperature is down too so I should be thankful for that small mercy. As a break approaches, I hopefully will update more for you.

Today I'd like to share some photos around the Morioka castle site. Well, it's more of an old fortress and now a garden with impressive (restored) walls and a very pleasant place to spend some time. I was there three or four weeks ago and the weather was perfect for that day! And then it rained the next!

Sorry muchly for the lack of blog posts for the last month and a bit. Life can get on top of you sometimes and before you know it SNAP! You haven't blogged for ages.
I've been having some severe issues with Kindle - but I finally received a payment (of around 10 bucks!) last week. It was all a matter of matching names correctly for my bank account and my kindle account, but I kept getting bad information. It was rather frustrating.

 At least I was finally able to see something for my work - and if you're interested in my travel writings, don't forget to check out my Amazon Kindle Author page -
Andrew Boland's Kindle Author Page

It's always been a tiny trickle of money, but I use that to validate my whole existence on this Earth.
I hope to blog again soon, maybe Monday or Tuesday! Hopefully the baseball will be on tomorrow, and Sunday there should be more cricket in Morioka! Until then, take care!