kiting, diving, trippin'

Castles, Ball Games, Bike Rallies and Volcanoes

bundynbeaches — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 11:39:00 GMT

Last weekend I got invited to to go along to a Baseball game between Japan's top two teams in Fukuoka. Why not? Never been to a ball game, and was not disappointed. Only knowing the most basic of the rules, I sat up there behind the guy who catches the ones that don't get hit (told I didn't know much about the game).....and had a ball! The local team won, the fans made a heap of noise, ballons and fireworks were let off, and then they opened the roof to get rid of the smoke. That was different!

This weekend I went for a drive south with the other guy I'm here working with to have a look at an active volcano that he hadn't seen since his days at primary school. We drove for three hours and watched the sun go behind the clouds more time than not, wondering if we were going to see anything. The road to the top was full of Sunday traffic as well as thousands of bikes on a rally for the day to Mt Aso - one of the world's largest active volcanoes......apparantly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2oje3eNySw

The bike riders were out on anything they could get up the mountain - and some didn't quite get there -, there was every manufacturer represented that I could think of and then some. Some had tiny ten inch wheels and some were used to deliver mail or pizza. Some even looked like they might float, but the place had a buzz and a lot of people were having a good day of it.

When we got to the top the sun came out, the wind blew from the east(we had the wind behind us), and we got a near perfect view of a crater full of green water spewing sulphur smoke. I was told that the last time this thing cleared it throat was over five years ago and the hundred sensors at the top would give you fair warning in any case. Which is why the emergency shelters were there......right?

After getting in on an orange light (for sulphur gas) and leaving just as the place was being cleared on a red light, we wound back through the bikes still trying to register and back in to Kumamoto city.

From here we found our way to Kumamoto Castle for a few hours of checking out ancient Japanese culture. This place had been rebuilt in 1960 or so, but it was a very well preserved site that had a lot of interesting history and stories about the place. An interesting few hours were spent and then a drive back to Kokura to finish off the last of this job before going back home to China.

Definitely looking forward to going home after only six nights at home in the last seventeen weeks. Gotta work on my mandarin again now....

Taking in some Kitakyushu sights

bundynbeaches — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 22:56:00 GMT

Kita is north in Japanese, and Kyushu is the southernmost of the main islands in Japan. Kitakyushu is the main city in the north of Fukuoka prefecture at the northern end of the island.

A couple of weeks ago two of us went for a train ride out to Moji, which used to be the main port in the area. We had a look around some of the old customs buildings, ships and train station collectables. In a country where everything is so squeaky clean, new and ultra modern it was nice to find a place that was still a little bit slower, older and dirtier than normal. We got to the Moji port just as an Ironman race was started, so we watched some serious people going hard and laughed at six guys at the tail of the group doing their best to either drown themselves or each other. The divers in the water on safety watch weren't impressed though. It might have had something to do with bobbing about in oily water watching some clowns pulling themselves along on the rope to get some distance between themselves and the guys behind trying to pull him under.

Once we got past the music in the park and caught a little train to the other side of the mountain via tunnel and aquatic themed blue light pictures on the walls and roof, we walked around until we found the tunnel under the body of water that separates the two islands. The tunnel is claimed to be the world's only undersea pedestrian tunnel. The water above is flowing at around 12 km/hr but is tidal, so it keeps changing direction and makes for interesting ferry crossings, not to mention the ships either steaming or coasting through depending on which way they are going. On the other side there is a memorial to two clans who didn't exactly get along too well until finally they had a major battle at the site and the losing clans chief suicided by throwing himself in to the sea. I would've thought he could swim..... One clan went in with steel swords against the other armed with a wooden weapon. All bets are off on on the winner there. On this side all the street signs have a ballon fish on them. This area has a very famous fish market and is well known as a ballon fish restaurant area. This is the fish that is supposedly deadly if not prepared properly. The taste is nothing to get too excited over though.

This weekend is a National holiday so we ended up with a three day break from the rain, wind and fog on top of the hill at Higashitani. Pity I only found out about it on Thursday, I might have gone a bit further out.

We woke up friday to more rain so the planned trip via cable car to the top of a closeby mountain was put on hold because it was again in the clouds. "Let's try Spaceworld" our Chinese colleague said. For some reason there is a replica Shuttle launch, a piece of moonrock, space suit, rocket engine and moon vehicle in this nondescript industrial city on the northern coast of Kyushu island. All the space memorabilia is neatly tucked in amongst some pretty wild roller coaster rides, water parks, theatres and restaurants. It didn't take long to get sick of that, so we got back in the car and went for a drive north on to Honshu Island at Shimonoseki.

By this time the rain had set in and was reasonably heavy so it was an indoor activity if we could find one. On the banks of the Konmon Strait between the two of the main Japanese islands is an aquarium so we went in to have a look. For people who's whole food culture revolves around fish it was a bit dissapointing really. There was an impressive sun fish there though. One of the weirdest looking fish in the sea. Any findings from the 'whale research program' was limited to a ten line (in Japanese) plaque at the head of a seventy foot skeleton of a Southern Ocean specimen. After the sea lion show we had all had enough and headed back to our shoe box hotel.

It is going to be good to get home this time......

And even better to get back down to Aus in a month or so.

Kokura Gion Taiko 2009

bundynbeaches — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:30:00 GMT

The Japanese call Kokura the "Lucky City". Apparently the pilot of the B29 with the second atomic bomb "Fat Man" was told to only drop it if he had clear skies and could see the target. Despite three runs at the target the cloud held out and the secondary target was chosen. Turned out the cloudy skies that day was lucky for here and disasterous for Nagasaki.

For the last two weeks there has been band practise in the streets and in the lanes and community halls for Kokura Gion Taiko (Kokura Summer Festival). The Kitakyushu area (northern Kyushu) celebrates this every year at the end of their rainy season. The drums are pounded in a rhythm not unlike a heartbeat over and over and over and over (getting the idea ?) and over again. The people seem to have a team, because there was judging going on on Saturday night, and they all have their own float, or small shrine, that they pull through the streets and belt the drums at each end of the float as they go.

I was impressed with the drinks cart following each one too. Some were quite elaborate, some were basic boxes on wheels, and one was a Coleman esky.

The traditional dress was all over and some of the floats and energy was impressive. A different beat would've topped it off. The video shows the style though. It wasn't just a matter of bang-bang on a drum and the drummers were changing places, dancing and chanting as well. Not a bad spectacle at all. Japan has a lot of expats and there was a fair sprinkle throughout the teams too.

I was surprised to see so much traditional clothing out as well, on young children, teenagers and adults. The guy with me from Tokyo was saying that most women in Japan would have at least one kimono, or at least one of the less formal types of kimono (the name has slipped my tiny mind). Even in amongst the high heels, designer clothes and impossible hairdos, the ladies in the kimonos and wooden slippers didn't look out of place, and I think I was close to the only one who notiiced.

Because of the heat (26-30deg) there was a lot of drink stalls and people handing out fans all over the place. The headbands, towels and bandannas were also out in force. They might enjoy their Summer Festival, but I got the feeling they enjoy the winter weather more.

Melaka Day Trip

bundynbeaches — Sun, 24 May 2009 13:02:00 GMT

Found it Dad.

'North up the coast from Melaka 20 -30 minutes'. How hard could that be?

Not that easy when it's your first time here and the instructions are fifty years old.

All that is there now is a huge Petronas (State fuel company) facility, a lot of housing and three big units for three different divisions of the Malaysian armed forces.......with signs saying: "Photograghy Strictly Prohibited". So you'll have to take my word for it. The monkeys inside the yard near the guardhouse didn't seem too worried about us though.

Updated directions: Head north up the coast from Melaka and look for the signs to Kem Terendak. Simple!

Anyway we did a trip up the Melaka River on one of their river cruises, walked the streets near St Francis Xavier's church, waterfront stalls and restauarnts in the river mouth and Jonkers Street market area.

Trying to drive out of the place proved interesting enough. After the third trip through Chinatown and Jonkers Street I turned left instead of right and found a whole new way to kill an hour in side streets, illegally parked cars and bargain hunters.

Back to work the following day and the expats and locals are still shaking their heads. I've done a dozen trips to this quarry we're here to work in, and taken a dozen different routes. If I get lost for less than fifteen minutes now it doesn't count and I can navigate around KL by a handful of buildings and the few traffic signs still standing. It doesn't matter which way you're heading here, you're always heading to KLIA ? ?And I've seen more of this country in a few short weeks than most have ever done.

Couple of more blasts and it's off to Kyushu Island in Japan for a few months after a stopover in Weihai to renew my residant's visa for another twelve months.

See most of you soon ................

Harbin Ice & Snow Sculpture Festival

bundynbeaches — Mon, 2 Feb 2009 06:23:00 GMT

Last winter was my first northern hemisphere winter, and come Xmas holidays last year, the last direction I was going to head was further north(I went south to Sanya on Hainan island instead). This year I thought I had better go while I am still so close.

The first warning to how cold this place was, was when we were advised by the flight crew to put on a coat because "the outside air temperature is relatively cool". It was minus 21C ! Glad it wasn't bloody COLD! Then we get outside the (very chilly)airport and the plants are in holders sculptured out of blocks of ice. The streets are lined with ice sculptured road markers, statues and ornaments. The vapour from exhaust gas is frozen on the ground when a car spends any time in one place (which made car parks and intersections an interesting experience).

Three days was enough but it was well and truly worth seeing, and feeling. The warmest temp of the whole time was around -18 and dipped back to minus 30 or so at night. The city itelf is no reason really to visit, but the Snow sculpture competition in Zhaolin Park in the city were really good. Across the frozen Songhua river is Stalin Park with the ice block buildings, snow and ice slides and Shrine. Another competition, this time with snow, is across from Stalin Park where different countries scuplted all sorts of interesting things to look at.

Chinese New Year (Monday 26th - Australia Day) was celebrated as only Chinese New Year can be .... with a lot of fireworks. It was an experience to look out the window of a twentieth floor hotel room at fireworks going off all around, over and at you. We bought some early and carried them around most of the afternoon in a couple of plastic shopping bags and a day pack, lightening the load occasionally as we saw fit.

Like I said earlier though, three days was enough of that weather and it was back to the warmer climate in Beijing for a few days and back to home in Weihai.

This is one of those 'Don't try this at home' situations.

bundynbeaches — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 08:06:00 GMT

Five guys walk in to a hospital with an empty baijiu (local firewater - 'white wine') bottle and ask for it to be filled with pure alcohol.

Back to the beginning;

We set off from Chang Shan Hao gold mine at around 8:00 AM in -20 or so weather in a vehicle with no internal heating system. This meant that the four Chinese guys and yours truly were blowing our frosty breath over the windows which was freezing up as quick as the identity cards could scrape the ice off the inside of the windscreen for the driver to get us down the 160 km of twisting, icy and busy road to Baotou.

The first 10 ks took a fair while and we got to the first vilage where we got out, pulled fuses, lifted the bonnet, pulled more fuses and finally went inside the local co-op store and bought a bottle of baijiu. This is where I started to think this is going to be a very interesting trip. The bottle wasn't drunk though, it was tipped into a rag/towel and wiped on the inside of the windscreen to keep the windscreen clear. Once the baijiu ran down the screen, got too thin and the glass was dry again the driver was looking straight in to an iced up windscreen once more.

The bottle only got us as far as the next major village where the jovial guy in the front passenger seat (the fumes may have had something to do with his mood by this time) decides to go in to the hospital for the good stuff. I think a litre of pure alcohol cost them about twenty RMB, but it was worth it. It worked a treat.

Then we had a good view out the windscreen of all the trucks, bikes, trikes, people, pushbikes and wedding processions for the next three hours to Baotou.

I've had some memorable travels in this country and this came close to the guy on the tarmac in Jinan airport who, after enjoying a long liquid lunch with his friends, left nobody in any doubt of his state of sobriety. This guy was very vocal on the shuttle bus from the terminal to the plane and then when he got off the bus he thought he'd do the right thing and give the plane the once over. As the sober passenges were lined up to board the plane this guy walks under the wing and gave the landing gear tyres a kick to check their integrity. He got hustled on to the plane very quickly after his pre fight inspection where he was told in no uncertian terms by a young hostess who was built like a whippet (and potentially twice as mean) that he was to sit down and shut up.

The next 50 minutes was boring after he went to sleep, but it was a tyre kicking I won't forget in a hurry.

Kiting Mui Ne, Vietnam

bundynbeaches — Sat, 3 Jan 2009 02:27:00 GMT

The guidebooks and website claim it is a sleepy litle place on the Vietnamese coast that is popular with weekenders from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) and backpackers looking for a break from their travels. They forgot about the hundreds of tourists from all over Europe, Asia, Russia and the Americas. This place is loaded up with ritzy resorts and spas. If Airlie beach actually had a beach, it would be much the same.

But it blows ! So for the twelve days I was there, there were only two days that we didn't get to pump up kites and ride. When it did blow there were up to a hundred kites along the couple of kilometres of beach that is pretty narrow and busy on high tide.

I'm reading back through this and it looks as though I'm having a whinge. That's not exactly right. I was dissapointed to see it so busy and commercialised, but I met some great people, had some great times and rode more in the last two weeks than I have been able to in the last eighteen months. I took a trip in an old Willies jeep with a couple from Holland out to some sanddunes, lotus lake and a creek running through the sanddunes to the sea. A few of us got sick of the crowds and cross/offshore gusts and went on a trip around to Malibu beach and Turtle island and rode there for a few days. It was really good to explore these places and ride with three or four new friends and no one else.

Now that I've been there once, I have a better idea of how to get around and where to go, and I'll definitely be going back too.

One tip though .... take some instant coffee. The people are really warm and welcoming, the food is great - and cheap, you can live on $US15 a day(food and accom) fairly easily here -, but the coffee .... sorry, it sux. Living in China, I'm a litle too use to haggling too. The Vietnamese Dong is roughly 15 000 to the $AU, so when you're standing there haggling with a motorbike taxi over 5 000 Dong, sometimes you need a reality check. There are the rip offs though. One guy expected me to pay 450 000 Dong for a sandwich for supper and noodles for breakfast on the way from Saigon to Mui Ne, but changed his mind, and a zero off the price, when I told him in terrible Mandarin that it was too expensive and he is not getting that much off me. It is surprising to see how much Chinese is spoken here.

One other thing a few us were discussing late one evening over a 11 000 Dong Saigon Bia one night - as you do; There are very few people between the age of 40 and 60 years old. This was the case in Mui Ne and then again I noticed it in Saigon again when I went back in for NYE (no wind)

This trip was one of the first times I have booked and planned and when I got there I got told they were overbooked and full, so I had to find somewhere else to stay when I got to Mui Ne, then the same when I went in to Saigon, after I'd had a shower in the room and getting ready to go out for NYE. All worked out in the end and I spent the last hours of 2008 with a Scot "on my way from Inverness to London", three Europeans not living in their country of birth (one lives in Shangahi so we had plenty to talk about), a Philipino band and a friendly crowd in a Vietnamese club loaded with tourists. I met a guy at the bar from the Isa, a Canadian girl going to Beijing and wanting to know where not to go and another Aussie living in Singapore who hadn't heard an Aussie drawl like mine for a while. All in all a good night but even better trying to find my 'hotel' (I use the term VERY loosely) early next morning. There were markets setting up in front of the place so it didn't look anything like the place I'd left the night before, but the lady selling fruit on the doorstep of the place showed me the side door.

So from wintery Vietnam at 25 degrees C on a plane back to Weihai at 2 degrees C at 2:30 PM where any water not flowing is solid ......

Ah ...... back in the real world!

Japanese Oktoberfest

bundynbeaches — Thu, 9 Oct 2008 11:52:00 GMT

Four of us finished work and got into Fukuoka for the night. We did the usual walk around to see what there was to see, found a pub, another good restaurant, found another pub, and called it a night.

Next day there were only two. The two Japanese guys headed towards home - Tokyo - and left us to it. We found a tourist information stand and had a bit of a look at a few leaflets and found ..... Oktoberfest in Fukouka, yesterday and today.

Bargain !!!

After stepping out at the wrong subway station we found a sign to a temple and went to have a look. There were some wedding photos being taken in traditional costume complete with rickshaw. The photogaphers even got out of the way for us to take some photos.

Then we finally found the beer festival. All the usual was on for the day with the beer flowing and a Bavarian band in for the event. They played spoons, bells, clarinet, trombone, saxaphone, drums, bugle, piano accordian, a bloody long wooden thing AND taught the crowd how sing when toasting - in German. They were good fun and made for a good day.

When the sun had set and we thought we needed a change of scenery it was back to the subway, got lost and walked back to the city. It wasn't all that far and the exercise cleared the head for a Vietnamese feed at the Vietnam Frog restaurant. I'm not sure what we had but it was good.

Then, seeing as we were in the party part of town, it was another shortish walk to a pub or club that was in the tourist book we'd picked up with the worst bloody map they could find in the back. There must have been something going on that night because we came across a procession, all female, that were carrying huge wooden carriages with other girls on top of it bouncing the whole thing to a chant. Then there were two big guys dressed in a cross between a street rapper and traditional Japanese clothing, both with microphones, on top of a small stand secured to a power pole at a street intersection. They had a group of dancers in the middle of the intersection and were shouting, grunting and leading the dancers along on an exhibition dance that people were joining in on. We saw these guys twice that night, both times with dancers and in the streets.

Then we finally found a pommy pub on the seventh floor of a tiny building and sat down to a beer and soccer. A local guy befriended us and got to practise his English for the next hour or so. He turned out to be an accountant who was out with his workmates and was going to be in trouble with his other boss when he got home.

And that was Japan. Next day I was back in Weihai for the night, then spent the next day and a half trying to get to Ulaan Bataar because Air China wouldn't fly in because it had snowed. From almost balmy Japan to snowy Mongolia in a day or so. Life's tough, eh?

Miajima Shrine & Kuju Highlands daytrips

bundynbeaches — Sun, 5 Oct 2008 01:19:00 GMT

Tacked on to the end of the Hiroshima trip we got a ferry across to the Miajima (I hope I spelt that right) Shrine. It's a very popular, and famous shrine in Japan because the gate is in the sea and the temple is built on platforms on sandflats that flood on high tide. We went through there with the hordes of tourists, nearly all Japanese, and dodged the hawkers and deer for an interesting afternoon to finish off the trip through the Hiroshima memorial.

The next weekend we ended up with another day off, and after consulting some bikers in Hitomi's bar in downtown Oita, we were advised that we should go and have a look at the Inazumi limetone cave and the suspension footbridge on the Kuju highlands.

Local knowledge didn't let us down either. We set out with the GPS just as confued as we were and wound our way through villages that forced us to pull the mirrors in to get down the lanes between houses and find a hole for the car coming the other way to pass. We saw signs to waterfalls and ruined castles and thought they looked like a good idea too. All in all we drove around all day and saw the sights of everyday Japanese life away from the neon of the cities.

We didn't get all that far from the vending machines though. They are everyhere! You can get nearly anything. Even the hotels check you in, then send you to a vending machine to pre pay for your room and activate the door card. Beer and TV tickets, fuel bowsers that play poker to give the opportunity to get a discount on your fuel, you name they've got it.

One of the most intersesting things in Japan has got to be the food though. I've sat down to 'live' squid, sashimi, sushi, tempura, drank sake ninja style, done the sushi train, eaten Korean barbeque, grated wasabi root on a shark skin grater, dined yakitori style .... and the list goes on. I had to go back to the phrasebook to get half of those names, but I know there are more that I can't remember as well. Very interesting eating over here.

Yet another memorial to madness

bundynbeaches — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 05:11:00 GMT

Hiroshima is well known as the city where the first Atomic bomb was dropped but it isn't until you visit the site and see some of the preserved ruins that you can get a real feel for what these people went through.

Listening to the Last Post at dawn in Anzac Cove was eerie, and walking the trails where the trenches had been dug for soldiers to fight soldiers was full of realisation of what those guys went through nearly ninety years ago.

But that was soldiers fighting soldiers !

This was a bomb dropped on a city that, while a garrison city, killed a lot more civilians in the space of seconds and minutes than it did military people capable of fighting back.

There are all the usual stories of pain, suffering and loss that you'll hear from most war torn places. But there are the extra ones here; where the Elementary school was emptied of children because of the fear of air attack only, for most, to return as orphans; the immediate and immense fire; the injuries; etc, etc.

But with this mess, people who had survived the initial blast, fireball and destruction weren't necessarily on the road to recovery because the bomb exposed anyone in a two kilometer radius of the blast centre, and whoever was unlucky enough to be downwind, or under a shower of black rain, to radiation that killed over 140 000 in the next twelve months. In Japan the people who were there to witness it are called hibakusha.

There are all sorts of interesting facts on display regarding the global distribution of nuclear warheads, the fact that only three countries voted for, while one hundred and seventy voted against, the abolition of nuclear warheads, and the extensive trials and then analysis of the results, especially by the US, of Hiroshima and Nagasake.

It didn't seem right to be taking photos of the burnt and torn children's clothes, or the twisted and melted glass bottles, or the stone step that had the 'shadow' of someone melted in to it when the heat seared all around them, or the shards of glass embedded in a wall on display. There would be plenty to find on the web if you needed to see it.

History has shown that the Japanese army was easier to handle if they were in your sights, rather than running the camp our soldiers were imprisoned in, but, mostly (I know there are exceptions), that is military and military. These were predominantly civilians living in traditional timber framed and paper walled houses that didn't stand much chance when the earth turned to around 3000 to 4000 degrees C the instant the bomb detonated 600m above their homes. The fireball was reported to have risen 12 kms above the city, burned anything flammable for two thousand metres and knocked what was left down with some massive amount of air pressure from the blast that was measured in tons per foot.

There were some surprises in the memorial as well though, the main one for me was the admission for all to see of the (their words) "massacre of over 100 000 Chinese in Nanking during the Sino Japanese war". This is still something a lot of Chinese feel very strongly about, although they claim the figure is around three times as much.

So long as the 'Super' powers are run by paranoid egotists, there is always the chance of seeing the same madness the world saw at 8:15 on the sixth of August just before the end of WW2.

Lest We Forget.