Barny's World Dash

I crossed the International Date line a few hours ago and have moved from the far West to the Far East, I am now in the Land of the Rising Sun. I have negociated the transport system and arrived at my hotel in Tokyo without trouble, indeed I took an hour train journey for just 5 GBP and then a tube train for 75p, try doing that in England... so I'm not yet bowled over by the cost of the country. The cleanliness is however outstanding; this impression was certainly kickstarted by the most shiney urinals I have ever had the opportunity to use, at the airport. It continues even to this area of town which I think is far from the nicesest the city has to offer.

The cash machine was however a bit bizarre since the minimum dispence was Y10,000 (about 45 quid) and when selected provided be with a single note to this value, however the shop in the airport sold me a packet of biscuits for 50p and had no hesitation in changing the huge note.

My last few days in Hawaii were good. I went snorkelling again at Lahaina since it was so nice, and I met somebody equally nice who wanted to go... then I went surfing which was not so good since the waves were really big, so I went to a different beach where the rocks were not so friendly :-(

The last day I headed off to the airport (to go from Maui to Oahu) got there 2.5 hrs before take off and they moved me to a flight leaving just 40mins after I arrived... that's service! This is the beach next to the airport where I wasted some time before going to check in:

Then in the evening sat on Waikiki on the main island of Oahu as the sunset on my last day in the worlds most isolated archipelago and it turned out to be the most stunning of all! Shall also be going to the ancient city of Kyoto while I am here in Japan (later this week), but this evening shall mostly be trying to stay awake so that I sleep through the night.

Barny