sarah babes & steve-o RTW!

ok, starting this thread with a pic of me, not for reasons of vanity, but because it kinda captures the scene fairly succinctly (is that spelt right?). let me tell you it does however not quite capture the extreme fear of eating what was in front of me...ha ha! yes, we both decided to take the plunge and hit a fugu joint (pufferfish - google it)!! first time we've sat down to a meal knowing quite realistically theres a chance it'll kill you (paul, i believe it's the same feeling you get before the mother in laws sunday roast..ha ha!)...so heres us laughing in the face of death-

whaa haa haaaaaaa!!! take that the grim reaper! just remember when you ask the concierge in an establishment such as the park hyatt to sort you out with the restaurant (nakamura, roppongi, if anyone interested), you aint gonna see much change outta 300quid..i kid you not! mind you (i would show the pics but ive just caned the upload limit), you get your own private tatami room, with the chef preparing the fugu, and the hostess sitting right at the table cooking it. we ate it raw, ate it tempura, ate the skin, the eggs, oh yeah and my favourite, the lips! got to suck the dangerous little buggers lips right off the jaw bone! mmm... un_fekkin_believable! (only to be topped by actually waking up the following morning!).

then we hit the town:

btw, thats the crossing from 'lost in translation' (shibuya), taken from a taxi on way to the womb club.

ok, no more pics. but a quick japan round up (sitting right now in a dingy little net joint, downtown bangkok- arrived last night, just getting my bearings). we spent 2 weeks in total in japan, the majority split between south kansai places kyoto and shirahama. shirahama a beach and natural spa place right on the pacific. 27degrees c and the locals though we were crazy for swimming in the ocean! both of us burnt tae fek, and the ryokan owner asked us were we not feeling the cold?! wtf?! natural spas overlooking the ocean, getting naked with complete strangers...man the craic was 90! so essentially japan rocked! we will be back as soon as we can for sure! in fact wish i was there right now...(outside is one of the most congested cities in the world, just trying to move in bangkok is enough to make you lose the will to live, and i aint even been here 24hrs!).

so, moving on. the wedding is a week today, sat 3rd november. for those that dont know, its at the sarojin, phuket. was gonna try and hook up some kinda link-up via skype, buts thats too much hassle now. so we'll get the pics and video contact sent back on disc the following week. also, we got so much to do (i need to go get a suit made here somewhere asap, then the legalities start on monday) that contact will probably be sporadic (nothing personal if any emails dont get answered until after the day btw), and there will def be no more blogging.

talking of losing the will to live, my fingers are bleeding, so from both of sayonara (not sure what the hell that is in thai yet), and love to ya's all. check back after next sat for the wedding thread!

just realised the next thread gonna be posted when im a married man...

s&s

EDIT:

cant believe i forgot to mention this, but we actually saw a real-life, done up to the nines geisha walking down the ponto-cho (kyoto- the famous geisha street) on her way from a 'job'. it took 3 days of hunting (we were like a coupla steve erwin's tryin' to track 'em down), but man it was def one of the high-lights of the japan leg for real!

oh yeah, and tokyo is the most stylish place i think we ever visited. totally owns paris. i mean, you gotta see the tony and guy mullets the guys rock there! off the scale! lmao...

been rocking the ryokan accomodation last few days. gettin real used to these tatami mats, but like i said in the last blog (editorial control got the better of that one, no more drunken bloggin` for me..he he!), you gotta keep yer best kelly le`brocks on in this country! (don`t think the last hostess has forgiven me for my nikes hittin` her upside the head..lol!). anyways, our new home (sarah in best buddhist pose)-

...so we`re off to shirahama in the a.m. - beach resort, south of kyoto. 27degrees, first proper rays of the year, yee-haa! and 3rd week in october too! not like this in norn iron..

booked a little private guest house with its own onsen (natural hot spring), 3 mins from beach, with pacific views. cannae wait pal! so more bloggin drivel to follow when we can be bothered (prob when we drag ourselves back to tokyo). i think there`s a wedding on sometime soon too...mmm, not sure....

oh yeah, its ours! wtf?!! bubba, can you get me them fekkin suit pix asap ffs?!! lmao..

best, and love to all,

s & s

x

oh yes people, life is goood! when you used one of these rude-boys you know there aint no going back. gotta find a distributor back home...

..control panel on this thing rocks. seat temp, shower strength etc etc.

then theres the akihabara district tokyo - or electric town as its known. tech junkies paradise, and where youll find the steek-o in its natural environment..

then theres just the randomness on the streets. man these cosplay - costume play - chicks are crazy..

anyway, trying to sort out the bullet train to kyoto online here. gonna try and find some traditional japan before coming back to tokyo for a few more days madness. btw, we booked the park hyatt - from lost in translation film fans - so we gonna lord it! so prob wont be any more updates until bangkok then, plus ive nearly caned the ol bandwidth limit here, so for now some more random pix.

boo-yaa!

pudong district, across from the bund in the good ol whore of the east, shanghai.

partay like its 1999 hong kong stylee! lychee martinis and whisy sours, on at least the 25th floor, overlooking this..

btw, that pic took from the famous star ferry, crossing over to hong kong island - hence crapola quality!

some more mongo madness-

no trumpets pal or its porridge!

mmm...nips.

on a serious tip i forgot to mention this place. gandan, central ulaan bataar. main temple. inside is a 26/27m tall buddhist statue/idol that essentially left us speechless. cant remember which one right now btw - female, compassion, four arms doing that little cool thing with her fingers, third eye on forehead, anyone any ideas? - anyway, i mean the whole thing is covered in gold, with a shedload of precious stones making up the 3rd eye. unfekkinbelievable. couldnt take any pictures of it though. couldnt find a ladder either...ahem! he he... seriously cool and a massively potent symbol of mongolian independence. unforgettable.

right, better book that train. see yall in a few weeks...

steve.

ahh..to be free of the p.r.c. !

kickin back in tokyo right now, so we can finish what we started in previous post. apologies for earlier entries descending into a an incoherent mess. you gotta be in the mood, and have at least a slight plan of action, before you start this blog nonsense, otherwise you lose the will to live pretty quickly. the pain we are putting ourselves through for you people..jeez! he he..

(just realised we cant upload any pix on pc we`re using right now..aarrrgghh! mmm, right i`ll type for a bit then next post will be a pic fest. hows that sound?)

so hong kong marked the end of the road for the epic rail journey. still cant quite believe we did it. st. petersberg to hong kong by rail, over the space of a month. we tried to kind of work it out and it must be around 10,000km (?) (between a third/halfway round the globe? tried to put route in a straight line across my pocket global map and it crossed 10 time zones..wtf?!). can anybody confirm this? if so, you can win the bootleg copy of lonely planet we bought in china, and we`ll throw in the 25 upside down pages too..lol!

hong kong itself was ace. very cosmopolitan (a hangover of its past obviously) and a very tangible difference to mainland china. was amazing just getting to eat a bacon sandwich again after a month (with fekkin white bread and heinz ketchup...get in my son!). shopping to die for too, prob the cheapest place on earth to pick up electronic/photo equipment. man if this wasn`t a backpacking trip...grr.. oh yeah, managed to get a good pint of guinness too here (in a salsa bar of all places..eh?!).

had the best street food experience there too, totally made up for the pain we suffered at the hands of the street chefs in xi`an! total juxtoposition between that (real hongkong), and the bar we ended up drinking in later the same night (big banking/business hongkong). lychee martinis and whisky sours outta this world, on at least the 25th floor, overlooking hongkong island skyline, trust us it doesn`t get much better (though at 7quid a drink you better have the reserve visa card ready..he he!). seems a lifetime ago now we were listening to traditional throat singing in mongolia! oh yeah, and another thing, you know you`ve been away from wee norn iron for a while when a city of 7 million feels small!

ok, next!

shanghai...whore of the orient...culture vaccuum...the p.r.c.`s financial capital...built by the british on the back of the drugs business...consumed with trying to surpass hong kong - believe us this place (and inparticular the nanjing road, off the bund) will suck you dry! on it`s supersonic way up over the last few years something just feels like it`s missing. something between the lines. we just let the place slip by and counted down the days to hong kong. the one thing that blew our minds however we cant really show y`all. it`s a 3 minute video we took of a journey under the haungpu river. little capsules that travel through an audio/visual experience thats straight outta total recall (with comedy pidgin english, and so bad theyre mind blowing effects & props). best 4quid each we spent in shanghai for sure! (felt a bit bad actually `cause a guy i kinda elbowed outta the way after (to get a good shot of the bund at night) was one of the czech special olympics team...ooops!) in fact just one other thing that was new to us, a karaoke-hooker bar. you get to sing with her before you pay...funny as fek!

before that:

xi`an...ancient capital...my my my. if it wasn`t for the terracotta warriors, the qin mausoleum (and the other quality cultural sights), etc etc around this city we would have gave it the slip. dirty, crowded, people coughin up a lung everywhere...in fact words can`t express the filth, or how happy we were to ditch the place. `nuff said!

...well you guys got the picture previously about beijing. we loved it. one other fact just picked up, the municipal area of the city is the size of belgium. belgium! (btw the biggest city in this country has a population of over 30million... getting used to the scale over here is hard work!). was concious of the fact that the government in the prc employ around 30,000 people (alledgedly) to monitor internet content. eg bbc site is blocked, wikipedia etc. so we feel we can more accurately describe the place now (man, that sounds paranoid, doesnt it?!). officially the most polluted place on earth (i started smoking again here to give my lungs a break...plus it was 32pence for a 20pack!), so god help the olympic athletes. the venues may be real cool, but there gonna be a lotta cardiac arrests around the place! but we had a real blast, walking tianenmen sq, the forbidden palace (forbidden? heres me whaa...theres only a fekkin starbucks in it ffs!) etc etc, and overall we would be back in shot! gonna miss the little hutong streets and bars...ahhh...memories! lmao.

so that was the p.r.c. ...if the black devil dont get ya the golden monkey will! (the 2 brands of cigarettes i was smoking there). the one thing that will stay with us though is everybody asleep on the job. receptionists, waiters everybody. even saw someone asleep on a bike! this country might be pulling itself up by the bootstraps at an almighty pace, but surely a few hours kip wouldn`t go amiss people..

so now we`re sat in the net cafe of our tokyo hotel. about to hit the streets. can`t wait. love the place already, used the can there and it had a control panel on it from the future! we need to get these toilets to norn iron pronto! and the guy in reception just said ok boss to me..he he!

so if you made it this far you deserve a jim`l fix it badge. give yerself a pat on the back! and we`l try and update the land of the rising sun leg (and put up some kinda pic overload post) before we leave for bangkok (2 weeks). so before we sign off here, just aone more thing:

...it`s 20 days to the wedding!

so bubba if your reading this, can you get those suit　pix emailed over asap so i can get a dodgy copy knocked up in bangkok? ta mate.

soon,

s&s

x

food snobs listen up. we tried, we really tried. we sought the finest (legendary) peking duck restaurant in beijing (therefore the world!):

we ate off the streets:

and you know what? after 24 hours on the can the first thing i did was head straight to the nearest mc d's... and believe me it was AMAZZZZZINNNGG!!!!

so there!