I’m still here, still in the same job from my last post (high travel in Asia), and still loving it all. Unfortunately though the job has not lent itself to much free time, let alone enough time to properly document where I’ve been and what I’ve seen in the details I’ve laid out previously.

So where have I been? Indonesia, China, Japan, Pacific Islands (wont be specific as its been a lot), Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia… Basically name the country in Asia and I’ve probably been there by now.

Have I got pictures? definitely. I’m sitting on over 20k photos taken since my last update here, of which my favourites can be found on my photography dedicated webpage (https://seifert.com.au) and I have a small snippet of some of the most recent ones here below.

So what is the point of this? Well it’s a reminder to myself to update this page, and a general notice that I intend to do so as well. It’ll likely shift into a more abbreviated form of sites/things to see rather than hotel reviews (I’ve fallen for the Marriott chain of hotels, the benefits are just perfect). This means probably some more abbreviated posts with tips/tricks and a couple more happy snap kind of photos.

For now though, here’s some photos I like from an earlier trip this year.

Basically I’ve ended up in Perth for almost 3 weeks to support the local site. Its currently being run by two blokes who are doing 12 hour shifts covering every day of the week to support a 24/7 airport and are basically killing themselves in the process. So in I come, the knight in shining armour if you so wish, or the paper jam king to do his job in some other airport.

I’m hopefully going to get some time off while I’m over here to explore, I’ve got some plans already on what I want to see and I’ve brought my big camera on the journey over with me so hopefully lots of chances to get photos. On which note since I’m sitting in Perth (which for those unaware is the capital of WA, the western state of Australia) I’ve got a beautiful spot to view the sunset across the indian ocean which I’m hoping to be able to capture at some point.

Anyway when something happens or I get a day off I’ll update the post. As I’m just doing my regular job in another airport though there will probably be nothing popping up until I get that day off.

Work wise it looks like I’ll be heading to Narita, Okanawa and Nagoya. No idea how much time I’ll get to post or get some photos but I do have my proper camera with me so I shall try to make the most of the weekends.

Anyway as promised, more pictures from Kyoto.

The shrine itself sits a top of Mt Kuno at the peak. To get up to it is a giant stair case of 1159 stairs (according to an old man climbing with us this had a special meaning in Japanese though I’ve yet to find any other proof of this). The shrine itself is quite fantastic and we were lucky enough to see it in the fading light of the sun going down which made for a very impressive sight.

After the shrine we headed back into town to get some food at a local Izukaya followed by nomihodai at a local pub (basically all you can drink for 2,000 yen in two hours), dangerous stuff.

And that leads into this morning (well yesterday probably when this post goes up). We headed off to Kyoto around midday after a quick lunch then checked in at our fantastic hotel and headed out on the town for a while to wander around and explore. Eventually we were finished and we headed out to dinner at a all you can eat Brazilian bbq in Kyoto named Estrela (seriously if you are ever here go, its fantastic) followed by heading in for an early night.

Also news on the travel/work front. Looks like I’ve been asked to stay on till early February to do a project here in Japan. Will post some more details once its a bit more set in stone. For now, photos!

After a big night out last night not much happened today so I went for a wander around Shinjuku and checked out all the cool buildings.

And thats it! Photos as follows as per usual. The night ones are from the Metropolitan building at night. Probably should’ve gone up before 10:30pm though as a lot of the big sky scrapers had turned off most of their lights by this point.

So I might as well go on to describe how it all was then. Firstly the day we hit Harajuku on it seemed to be a special day for the Shinto Religion (we guessed new years prayers) as the entrance to Yoyogi Park, right next to the exit of the train station was absolutely packed with police guiding people to where they wanted to go. Once we got through the sea of people we ran into the next sea of people scrounging around through the back streets of Harajuku in search of the last new years specials. Our wandering group though only had one shop in mind though, the Neon Genesis Evangelion store that’s hidden away in the back streets (we still looked in others just didn’t chase a specific store). Unfortunately for us the shop was closed for that day only so we had to come back at another time (which we did the day after). After that it was a case of finding some lunch while we wandered in direction of Shibuya to catch our train out to the Studio Ghibli Museum.

For those not familiar with the name of Studio Ghibli I suggest reading their wikipedia page. Basically they are the number one anime film makers in Japan with every film bar one or two being a smash hit. Some names you might possibly recognize are Howl’s Moving Castle, My Neighbour Totoro and the only foreign film to ever win the Oscar for best animated feature, Spirited Away.

Basically they have a huge museum which needs to be booked in advanced as it is very very popular so we got our tickets well before hand and headed on in to enjoy it. Inside the museum it is incredible (no pictures allowed of it though) showing how early animations were done using characters from the various movies. It also shows room after room and storyboarding and the initial drawing, inking and colouring and the process involved through each step. Also within the museum is a cinema which shows a Studio Ghibli production that can only be seen in the museum which changes on a yearly basis. The one we got to see was a sumo competition between mice and how an old couple helps the mice (really hard to explain in this short space).

To sum it up it was a fantastic experience and well worth it in every way. Other then that its been mostly shopping so far with plans still to go to the Tokyo Museum and the Government Building lookout before we head off to Mt Fuji on the 8th and Kyoto on the 9th. In the mean time here’s a bunch more pictures.

So the blog is back, its in a new look (still to be fixed up) and now on another host who shouldn’t shut it down without warning and not allow me to get backups… For all those that are returning, welcome back, for those that are new, Enjoy!

Now as you may have guessed by the title I am in the land of the rising sun, Japan. From the amount of temporary visas in my passport I’d say this is now my fifth time travelling into here, 3 times for work and once before for a holiday. So basically this trip is to visit my friend who is living over here and teaching English (lucky bugger) so it will be more a social catchup in a foreign country mixed in with some sight seeing so there wont be as many tourist photos as usual probably.

The flight here was a decent one, I took the QF21 direct flight from Sydney to Narita on the 1st of Jan. I had a good seat but an annoying passenger next to me (wont go into specifics) so I never got the good sleep I was hoping on for an overnight flight. Eventually though I did get to Tokyo, find my way to the hotel and get checked in. As it was still early morning and my friends were yet to arrive from Osaka I headed out onto the town to quickly buy the few things I missed, like the power cables I need over here since I didn’t get any adapaters and a new memory card for the camera so I don’t have to panic about filling it up.

Lucky for me the 2nd in Tokyo is one of two days in the year in which the Emperors Gardens are opened to the public and he appears for a speech to address the public. Not to miss out on the opportunity I headed out to witness all this. At the gardens entrance it was packed, hundreds upon thousands of people piling both into and out of the gardens and all in a calm manner which was nice. This made it easy to get in as I just followed the crowd through as we walked into the gardens. After some rigerous security checks and a nice walk through a usually closed off area we found ourselves in front of a glass podium attached to a giant building (if I can get my panorama program to work I’ll post up a photo of it). So in this giant square in front of the podium we stood and waited for the Emperor to show up. After over an hour he comes out with his whole family much to the glee of everyone around me and gave a quick speech while waving to the crowd (which had now packed out the entire area). It definitely was an experience and a half. Once the speech was done the swarm of people then proceeded to head out of the gardens and back in direction of the various train stations.

And that was basically it for the day, we headed out to Shibuya for drinks and dinner in the evening and now here is the next day and the plan is to go check out the end of the sales and try and get some bargains. For now here are some photos, they don’t have comments or notes on them as wordpress decided they weren’t worth saving for me…

Testing out the blog roller.

Lets see what happens when we add in an image. Or how the shit this works…

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