Total distance travelled on land:
14,117 km / 8,772 mi

Total distance travelled by air:
25,776 km / 16,016 mi

Longest train ride by distance:
Yekaterinburg to Krasnoyarsk – 2287 km / 1,421 mi

Longest train ride by time:
Yekaterinburg to Krasnoyarsk – 32:23 for 2287 km

Slowest train ride:
Ulan Ude to Ulan Baatar, 28:25 for 657 km – 23.12 km/hr / 14.37 mi/hr

Fastest train:
Maglev from Shanghai to airport – 431 km/hr / 268 mi/hr

Fastest long-distance train:
Tokyo to Osaka, 2:30 for 556km – 222.56 km/hr / 138.29 mi/hr

Longest flight:
Osaka to San Francisco – 8673 km / 5,389 mi

The engine of my plane as I fly down to San Francisco:

Our British Airways 747 to London:

The women who decided to talk us up at the hotel in London (mother and daughter, quite friendly):

Amy and Nick (and me, but I took the picture) sit in a sushi restaurant in St. Petersburg. Russia has surprisingly good sushi for a country that seems to have very few Japanese:

Siberia doesn’t have a lot of features. It generally looks like either of the following two pictures. Usually more the former than the latter:

And periodically, you do see other trains:

The forests often get thicker, too:

Another shot of the Museum of Wooden Buildings. Didn’t post this as I took too many pictures there (was unsure of lighting, etc.):

This is a far, far better shot of the Mongolian Embassy in Ulan Ude, Russia. I think I chose the other one because it did look better … at least at the time:

Me at the lake in Mongolia. Wouldn’t want to go swimming in that, though. Probably not the “cleanest” of places, with all the waterfowl and horses:

Amy catches up on journal- and postcard-writing:

We caught a sunset at Hustai National Park. This was before I nearly froze to death:

A line of rail car bogies sit to one side in the bogie-changing shed in Erlian, China:

Most of you are probably wondering what the toilets in the trains looked like. Here’s an example of the “western” toilets. Never did take one of the squat ones, sadly…

On the road, especially for this length of time, you periodically have to do laundry. Normally, not an issue. But this is what it looks like after washing out all the sand from Mongolia:

We hit a great little restaurant in Beijing for lunch one day, and were served a pot of tea. Make with chrysanthemums. Not exactly normal, but quite tasty:

Don’t ask me what kind of store this is. With a name like that, who really cares, anyway?

This is the view from our hotel in Shanghai. As you can see, it was quite hazy there. The humidity was murder:

It rained a lot in Xian on our first day there. Nice, but wet:

Who doesn’t want to go to a Yummy Restaurant?

We walked around part of Xian’s walls one night. They looked pretty nice:

Our last meal in Xian was at a strange hotpot restaurant, where we had to get someone to translate the freaking menu for us because we couldn’t read it at all. It was pretty tasty, though:

We made a mistake of going to the “Entertainers”, a trio who perform in the lounge of the same name at the Hyatt in Xian. They forever butchered many of my favourite songs…

I meant to post about this. I mean, really, who names their water: “WAHAHA?”

At least you can’t miss the sign to get you to Kowloon (Hong Kong):

Chinglish isn’t escapable, even at the Chinese/Hong Kong SAR border crossing:

One of these is the actual border between China and Hong Kong SAR. I have no idea where the heck it is, as it’s no longer marked:

Rogue vendors are so bad in some areas that private property owners try to keep them out with signs like these:

Ferry traffic!

Our hotel in Kowloon was next to the Avenue of Stars, sort of like the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I found a few names I know:

Jackie Chan apparently heavily sponsors California Fitness. He’s probably an owner.

Inside our favourite dim sum restaurant in Hong Kong:

We had this at a sushi restaurant in Chiba. We thought it was some weird pickled eel. It was eggplant:

So naturally, for dinner, we headed out to Dontonbori where we’d hoped to find incredible Osaka-style sushi.

We failed on the Osaka-style sushi. We found some but it was decidedly less than incredible. Less than thrilled, we did the photo thing.

(Please pardon my cruddy scanner, these are actually prints from the first roll of photos I had developed today.)

And I couldn’t resist a shot of this cafe’s window display. Loads and loads of plastic replicas to show off the restaurant’s specialities. You see this in Japan everywhere, just not typically so photogenically lit.

Eventually, we did find some really incredible sushi. I think I would rate it the top sushi, or at least a tie for first, in my life. Fresher than fresh, with atmosphere to boot. And, not terribly expensive. All good things. You know a good restaurant when you have to wait in line outside to squeeze into a tiny tiny space at the sushi bar.

The last train (finally, even if it was just an airport tram; I was thwarted from taking the airport express train by a completely bulletproof argument put forth by Amy that the bus was faster).

The last flight.

The last airport.

The last country.

We left through Kansai Airport (the sinking island — I wonder if it still is sinking?), not nearly as impressive as I’d hoped it would be. Chek Lap Kok is much nicer, I think. Amy flew in Business, with me back in Galley Slave. The food was horrific on a level I can’t even begin to describe.

San Francisco was a rush of English. Ouch. But nothing was more painful than trying to get through United States Immigration.

Okay, rant…

We’ve been to a number of countries, now. Why is it that, even with countries that need a visa to enter, getting in and out is generally trivial? Amy’s got an American passport, I’ve got a Canadian one. Not a single issue. Ever.

Except in the United States. Amy gets to go through the Resident line. Quick, effective. Me? “Visitor”. Never mind the fact that Canadians are effectively treated like Americans, especially when in transit through the United States to home, and especially when not there on business. I was one of only two Canucks in the line of about 300. The rest were mostly Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino, with a couple of Aussies thrown in for good measure. Time for me to get through? An hour.

Really, does the United States need to be this paranoid? Fair enough, there’s been a terrorist attack. Do you really think that anyone determined enough is going to let you inspect them at the border? Scans of index fingers and digital photographs probably aren’t going to do anything useful, except make people wonder why they’re being treated like criminals. As a Canadian, I’ve been lucky to avoid that crap, but I’m waiting for the day we have to do that, too. Grr.

The delays meant no early flight home. So we spent a few hours wandering around San Francisco. Probably the smartest thing to do, since we needed the time to realize that yes, Toto, we are back in Kansas. It’s weird having to relearn to listen and read a language you’ve known your entire life.

I’ve been to Osaka once before — a few hours last year, when Jen and I came here. Mostly to see the Aquarium, mind you, but we did see a few other things.

Our hotel has got a great view … of the harbour. If that sort of thing interests you, then you’re in luck. The Hyatt is, otherwise, quite isolated. Thankfully, they have a free shuttlebus to the JR Osaka station. A little more convenient (although the route is anything but direct!) than trying to take all the trains.

Destination: Domtomburi (and surrounding area). This is the major outdoor market zone. It’s big, it’s busy, it’s loud (lots of pachinko parlours), and it’s very Japanese. (Which is good, because if it was, say, Angolan, that might be a little weird.) We even found the area where every sushi restaurant in the area seems to buy its equipment (including the plastic food featured in the windows).

And after a great deal of effort (and patience on Amy’s part, because I was no doubt becoming quite annoying about this), we found some Osaka “zushi”. This is sushi, but formed and cut into squares. It’s a different presentation, and I honestly expected it to be a bit more different than it ended up being. I won’t say I was disappointed, but I guess I had a higher expectation for it.

Nara, as it turns out, is a very neat little city. Make no mistake, this is most definitely no town. But it doesn’t feel large. At least, if you’re within the “walled” portion. (I’m not sure if there’s an actual wall, but that’s what it looks like on the maps we’ve seen.)

Our trip there was an adventure and a half. First, shinkansen to Shin-Osaka, Nozomi-class. (There are three classes: Kodama, Hikari, and Nozomi. Although JR Rail Pass holders aren’t allowed on Nozomi, the cost to buy a ticket isn’t much different (maybe 300 yen) between them. And you save almost an hour.) Originally, we were to go to Kyoto, but Amy convinced me to go all the way to Shin-Osaka. Once there, we switched to a local train to Osaka station, then to a regional train that took us all the way out to Nara. From the moment we got off at Shin-Osaka, all the way to a taxi that we finally climbed into in Nara, we stood. My feet were KILLING me.

We’re staying at a ryokan, a small traditional Japanese guest house. Apparently, it used to be a geisha house. I don’t know if that’s Japanese geishas, or American geishas. (What’s the difference? A proper Japanese geisha is an entertainer. Their job was to placate and entertain powerful men who paid very highly for the services of a geisha. Despite beliefs, Japanese geishas were not prostitutes, unlike the American geishas. These were introduced by the U.S. Government after World War II as an effort to keep American soldiers from “disturbing” the Japanese people. These were prostitutes dressed up as geishas, and called as such for the exotic overtones.) I’d like to believe the house was a Japanese one. It’s nothing fancy — a pair of mattresses, a couple of chairs, and a noisy air conditioner. Toilets and showers are communal, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone around.

Nara is full of temples. Aside from being a former capital (many Japanese cities seem to hold this title), this is still a religious centre. Thankfully, most of the neat stuff was in walking distance of the ryokan. (For the record, though, our “walking distance” is probably a lot further than some people’s definition. We’ve walked a lot in this trip.)

Starting off at a pond near the Five Storied Pagoda, we found a healthy collection of turtles. Then we wandered through the Pagoda area and were introduced to the deer. Nara deer are … odd. They’re small, not as small as the ones on Miyajima Island near Hiroshima, but certainly smaller than the ones in Canada. They’re defined as “semi-wild”, meaning that while they are wild animals, they tolerate interaction with humans quite well. (Although there are a lot of signs telling you to be careful and not to enrage the deer.) It’s stuff like this that reminds me why many tourists in Banff (Bamf!) are told not to get too close to the elk.

We were distracted by a rather nice park on the way to Tennoji Temple. Aside from the wonderful Japanese stone lanterns, the biggest attraction we saw was the botanical garden. Apparently designed off various literal works, the garden contains a wonderful collection of plants, arranged into very beautiful pockets of splendour. Of particular interest was a small red deck built over a lilypad-covered pond. The pond was home to a school of carp, which a trio of elderly photographers were taking turns snapping pictures.

Tennoji Temple is quite impressive. Like other buildings I’ve been to that claim it’s “the largest wooden building in the world”, it’s big. Really big. And impressive. There’s a large Buddha that sits inside, sheltered by the building. Interestingly enough, the building is smaller than it once was (fire reconstruction), and the temple itself is smaller, having been reduced by similar damage.

We walked around through various alleys and laneways (Nara has many that are very picturesque. You’ll see something interesting down nearly every road, it seems.)

Amy finally found some Japanese yarn. I thought she was going to have kittens when she found it. She couldn’t decide, either.

I’d glad to have finally been to Nara. It’s a nice little place. If you’re thinking of coming to Japan, give it a thought. It’s an easy trip from Osaka … so long as you’re not carrying all your bags with you.

We went through the sweet electronic sanctity of the Sony Showroom [insert drool marks on the screen here], then over to the Apple store (four floors of pure industrial design nirvana), before crossing Ginza dori in search of, well, food. Amy spied a small sign that led us down an alley barely wide enough for us to walk, then down a set of barely-marked stairs into a basement restaurant that served some darn fine raumen, and some pretty funky dumplings.

Next to that was a paper store. I think Amy’s heart raced pretty much the whole time she was in there from the paper overload. Too much to choose from, and we’re almost out of money.

Matsuya and Mitsukoshi (two massive Japanese department stores) were next. But the illusive yarn Amy needs was not to be found. So we went to the food floors in Mitsukoshi to see what samples we could find. There was quite a lot.

We caught a subway over to Akehabara. This is geek heaven when it comes to all things “batteries not included”. [Insert more drool marks on the screen here.] Then it was over to Shibuya. The only real things to see there, aside from Shibuya itself, was the HMV, where I hoped to snag some of the music my cousin Jen had asked me to find. I found the artists, but sadly, all sold out. (Go figure.) Sorry, Jen, I’ll have to keep looking.

We were late meeting up with Chris and his friends Jessica and Alex for a late dinner in Chiba. They didn’t mind at all. Shinichiro was out again (he’d come out last night, too) as was another of Chris’ japanese friends (whose name I don’t want to screw up by spelling incorrectly).

We’ll be off for Nara before too long. Then Osaka, then home.

Three more sleeps!

Chek Lap Kok airport was designed with an express train in mind, which is great considering how far out the airport is from Hong Kong Island. The train system (the Aiport Express) also lets you check in at the train station, so you don’t have to check in at the airport.

At the airport, we did a last bit of souvenir shopping. Well, Amy did, anyway. We then headed out to Gate 63 for our flight to Japan. It seemed strangely final. This was our first plane since landing in St. Petersburg all that time ago. Amy flew Biz class (as you already know), and I flew in Galley Slave (aka Economy) class. Lest anyone think I resent Amy for this, I don’t. We flew to Russia on Amy’s points. She had some leftover on United Airlines, and upgraded to Business Class. All the power to her.

Doesn’t mean that I’m not gonna bug her about it, though. I gotta have fun with this, don’t I?

For the record, I ended up with about as much footroom as Amy, if not a bit more, because I asked for an exit row. You want to have a good long flight? Get an exit row — you’ll be able to stretch out without concern. Doesn’t matter if the row is full and others are not — you’ll have tonnes of room to spare.

Two flights left. I hope they go quickly.

Being in Japan, actually, is almost like being home. This country is so familiar to me (well, certainly Yotsukaido, Chiba, and Tokyo) that I didn’t actually notice getting off the plane, going through immigration, getting the bags, getting on a train, finding Chris, and getting to his apartment. I think I might actually have been here too much…

The flight from Hong Kong was okay. While Amy was enjoying her champagne at take-off, those of us in Galley Slave were firmly chained to our iron racks. (One minor improvement: less flesh-mauling spikes.) The smell of previous passengers’ fates faded once we got above 20,000 feet, though I suspect that might also be due to the thinner air at that altitude. (They save pressurization for the VIPs, you know.)

They still feed you, though. I always wondered what they do with the leftovers from the various peanut and pretzel packages. Now I don’t wonder anymore. I really don’t want to know what the liquid was, though. “Orange” isn’t supposed to be a light purple.

In the past, entertainment was watching your blood vessels bulge (due to air pressure, or more importantly, the aforementioned lack thereof). Those around me obtained a far greater spectacle, though, when the staff realized I was flying free on points. I think the whip marks will fade in about a week or so…

Amy looked quite relaxed and happy when I finally managed to break free of my shackles. I really need to remember to consider those USD$79 upgrades the next time they offer…

As it turns out, it’s much the same as what’s downstairs in business class, just smaller.

So, we’re here at Chris and Kaz’s apartment. Kaz is on her way to Calgary tonight, so I won’t get to meet her. And, Chris is still at work so I won’t be seeing him until later. I think the general plan is to settle in a bit, and then go get sushi!!!!!