At the beginning of September, we took a unplanned and spontaneous trip down to Sydney just for a week. Nick's good friend got engaged and since we won't be able to head back down for the wedding, we thought we would fly down for the engagement party and see some family and friends. Most of our days were centered around meals and eating while visiting various people. It has been over a year and a half since either of us had been there, so it was great to get back.

We stuffed ourselves silly with lots o' meet including steaks, sausages, a lamb roast, Nick's favorite hamburger shop, the list goes on and on along with a awesome Seafood platter for lunch one day with Nick's Mum and Dad. We definitely did some damage, but well worth it as we really don't eat too much of the beef here in Japan.

We saw an exciting Sydney FC soccer game, although they tied and wandered around where we used to live in Kirribilli along the harbour. Unfortunately, our favorite Thai restaurant closed down! It was great to see friends and family and be back in a English speaking country able to read all the signs and understand everything! A few pictures are below.....the trip was lucky addition to our summer holidays, but a little too short!

Xi'An was about a 12 hour overnight train from Beijing. It took us about 3 days to get train tickets as at the station they always said 'sold out" or if your familiar with this one "no tickets for you...come back 10 days" We got them through a travel agent and had to pay a commission, of course. Xian was a neat city as an entire wall surrounds it with a bell tower in the center. It's home to many Chinese Muslims and walking around the "Muslim Quarter" was a very different style to see in China. Our highlight in Xi'An was definitely the Terracotta warriors. After booking a tour and having them take us to 3 de-tours including a silk factory we finally got to see them. It really was incredible to see what they have uncovered and left in tact since 1975 when a farmer working in a well discovered them. These had been there buried for centuries. And there still working on the site as there are expected to be thousands more of these soldiers.

Shanghai was nice, but to be honest we spent a little too much time there. It's a very modern city with a shopping mall on every corner. There are still old parts of the city and a huge contrast to the tall skyscrapers and hotels. They have the Bund area which is along the riverfront and has colonial style buildings which were really nice as they have spent many years refurbishing the area. The highlights of Shanghai included spending the night at the Crowne Plaza for my birthday, a much needed getaway from our nightly hostel accommodations and we were on Shanghai TV.

When we were walking along the Bund a Chinese Camera crew and reporter stopped us and asked if we would be willing to be on the Sports Channel later that night around 6:45. We agreed and they just filmed us answering some questions about the Olympics next year and where we're from, etc. That day was the 1 year countdown to the 2008 games. Of course we wanted to see ourselves and if we actually made in to Chinese TV and sure enough we did. We went to Hooters for wing night and happy hour (yes there is Hooters in China...hard to imagine) and waited it out over pina coladas and wings. Unfortunately no free drinks for being on TV!

We spent time in Beijing at the beginning of our trip and at the end. It took a few days to adjust to the culture as it is very different from the Japanese culture. Along with the initial frustrations of getting train tickets, our second time back to Beijing was much more pleasant. It probably helped that we actually saw the sun and some blue sky in Beijing, which rarely happens, especially in the heat of the summer. In Beijing we enjoyed roaming around The Forbidden City and Palace, it really is a city, it's huge! There were some renovations going on so the main courtyard area wasn't as picturesque as we would've liked.

By far the best part was our visit to the Great Wall at Simitai. It was a beutiful day, we took the 2 1/2 hour drive from Beijing and couldn't have asked for a better day to do it. Never mind the fact that we had tried to go the 2 days prior but something always got in the way of us actually getting there. Anyways, you could see the wall stretching for miles along the hills and countryside. It was nearly deserted which was surprising. You usually see photos of massive amounts of people crowding the wall from one end to the other (of the tourist area). They were 14 watch towers we could visit. This was strictly for tourists and parts had been rebuilt. Once we got to the 14th tower there was a big sign that said if we trespassed it would be an equivalent to a $10 fine, not nearly enough to stop some people, we thought.

Also in Beijing, we got to see a Kung Fu performance which was good, Nick would've like to have seen some more fighting though, as it was very artistic. We visited the different temples and on the last two days shopped till we dropped. Our bargaining skills have never been better, we actually had to buy a new backpack to bring our things back. Thankfully we went over there with nearly nothing in our bags.

Overall the food was a bit disappointing, of course edible, at least most of it. But it would've been ideal to have a Chinese person with us reading menus for us and recommending places and things to eat. On the other hand we never went all out on an expensive dinner, so maybe that's our fault. One of our best meals happened to be a Japanese all you can off the menu restaurant, kind of pathetic!

We're looking forward to seeing the Olympics next summer and what things will have changed and what things will have remained the same since our travels there.

Qingdao is a city on the bay about 9 hours by 'slow train' east of Beijing. We stopped there on the way back from Shanghai and were thinking a little beach town in China would be nice. Of course we didn't expect Australian Beaches, but thought it would be nice to see some water. We arrived and it was downpouring and flooding. Not a good start. We had to stay at a different hotel, all the hostels were booked and I don't think we've ever stayed in such a shity hotel before. Thing were old, but clean thankfully and it was just for one night until we moved to our hostel the following day. Again we had a hard time getting tickets back to Beijing and spent a lot of time tracking some tickets down and people kept telling us nothing was available for 10 days. We were quite nervous as our flight from Beijing back to Tokyo was in 7. The 2nd day cleared up and was beautiful, we spent time walking along the beach and promenade which was nice. This city has German/European influences as some settled there years ago and the architecture displays this. There is great distinction between the old town and the new town, where the new town has been flooded with tall buildings, shopping malls and apartment complexes. Many new as they will be the host for the sailing events for the Olympics. We really didn't spend much time there as that night we got tickets for the next day back to Beijing. It was a very interesting ride for 9 hours. They were the only seats available, hard seats and imagine a lightly covered plank of plywood, that's how hard they were. The seats had 3 facing 3 other seats, so things got pretty cozy with our Chinese seatmates. They also had let many people on who didn't have tickets to lay and sit in the aisles and between the carriages. It was a crazy crowded train which made trying to get to the bathroom almost impossible. Speaking of the toilets, the Toilets everywhere in China were disgusting, the ones on the trains were among the worst after 9 hours of traveling!

Greetings to our new Blogger account. You might be thinking so Jen has now changed her name to Yates......not quite yet, but unfortunately www.jenandnick.blogspot.com was already taken as was "nickandjen" and well eventually one of these days, years or months I will become officially a Yates.

We're trying out the whole "blogger" thing now as we have been quite frankly shit at keeping up our own website. So from now on we'll just hope to post a few things on here every now and then, but most importantly put up pictures so everyone can see what we've been up to here in Japan and our travels around Asia.

Posting our photos through the website was a bit tedious and with some of the online photo sharing sites, you can easily connect them with Blogger.

So that's our first post, from Tokyo signing off