2 Feb 2011

First impressions of Tokyo

- cleaniness: the street are small and cluttered sometimes, but not dirty. You can't find trash in the floor. There are always recycling bins next to trash ones, but these are not easy to find. In the suburbia you can see mattresses hanging from the balconies to get some air and sun. They are very thin, so they are easy to carry outside.
Inside the houses (hostel included) you can't have your shoes on. They provide slippers for you and you must use different ones to go to the toilet. There's always a pair in the entrance of the toilet for that.

- Pets: There's barely any pets around: I think we've seen 2 dogs so far. The only cats were stray and old in a park. But stray dogs don't exist here. I found out that they are a lot of housing rules that don't allow pets, and let's face it, with such small houses is not easy to keep one. Turtles instead are very popular.

- silence: is overhelming. The only noise is from the cars. People don't talk. I havent seen anyone on the phone. Even if they talk among them is very silent. . I found some people saying is imprinted in their education to avoid unnecessary noise. There's 12 million people here, so a curb of noise is enforced. No one laughs exuberantly, affection displays dont exist. They transmit a lot of coldness, but they are very helpful

- etiquette: it's against etiquette to walk and eat at the same time. Smoking is banned everywhere excepted in designated areas, I mean everywhere in and outdoors.

- cellphones: I've seen basically the same type of phone everywhere. The choice is limited. iPhone is rare to see. That really surprised us

- bicycles: are considered more as pedestrians than vehicles. They are ridden more in sidewalks than the road it self. No one rings the bell (again, no noise policy) so we are all the time almost being run over by one.

30 Jan 2011

from Tokio in love...

We started our journey on Saturday at 1.00 am from Shrewsbury, and we finished first part on Sunday at 11.30 in Tokio. We are destroyed, this flight was exhausting! Food on the plan was acceptable, but just to make you feel little bit full. We had small problem to print out out tickets, but nice lady from Airitalia helped us. Well, if I could say that planes in Airitalia are not very clean, and little bit damaged. I would expect something more from flight on such a long distance.
Now we are in Tokio, already after short walk around and after shower that was one o those things you can miss on such a long distances. Tomorrow? We'll see....

14 Jan 2011

Another continent,,,

I never, in my deepest mind thought that there will be some day in my life that i will plan such a huge trip to another continent. It's nothing special for someone who was travelling around the world so many times and visited places in different countries. But me? I'm sorry, me and Ana! We were planning to go somewhere far to release our primary urge to see more and more!
Long story short, we are going to Australia and Japan for one whole month. It is obvious for us that there will be many problems and many obstacles to get through, but we are prepared for that!
The planning was done by us and we book everything personally so if there is a problem we have to deal with it ourselves.
Just to give you small picture what we are planning to do, our schedule is to go at the end of January to Japan for one week, we know that it is to short time to truly appreciate beauty of that country but for us it is just a start. Then we are going for three weeks to Australia, to see it East Coast. Unfortunately our plan was messed up by the tragic event of the flood in Queensland. We had to re plan our journey and make it more complicated! But to be honest this is what we love! How simple and boring would be just to sleep on the beach and drink margaritas while somewhere on the other side amazing nature is waiting to be explored!
Two weeks travelling around South- east coast, and flight to spend one week in Sydney.
This is just a small piece of our plan but it gives you an overview what we intend to do.
How it's going to be??? At this time please don't ask... We really don't know! The only thing we can promise is that we'll do our best to document this trip in any possible way for you and for us to enjoy!
So please visit our page in the next few weeks for more exciting news about us!