Finally made it home. Damn tired.. and have a damn sore butt. Too much time left sitting on planes around the place I think. Hmm. Now what do I want to get done before heading back to work? Piercing? Thesis preparation? Umm.. heaps more.

About 5am, the JAL flight attendants started to serve the breakfast snack. Way too early to be woken up by that sort of clutter.. so I tried to stay asleep as long as I could.

The plane winged its way into Brisbane at about 7.15am. From here we had to go through the transit security check. Security Check No.1 for today. It took some time, because they are being extremely careful – makes you wonder what made it through previously. I went up to Downtown Duty Free office and asked about the Chanel to make sure that it wasn’t just a Sydney excuse – but no.. the same logical applied here. Damnit.

Back on the plane about 8am.. and in the air soon after. I had this sumo wrestler next to me. He was pouring out of his seat. Overflowing onto me. I wondered how I was going to get out at Sydney (since I had to get off before the transit passengers). Luckily, the Senior Cabin Attendant came and moved him and his travelling companion to a seat with more room for him (and me). She smiled at me as if she had done me a huge favour. Did I look that scared?

The plane actually arrived in Sydney early. Off the plane quickly and my luggage was actually one of the earliest off. I took my incoming passenger declaration to the Customs counter and must admit I was amazed at how relaxed it was. They didn’t want to see my receipts.. just asked me how much the camera was – and sent me on my way. Ended up paying $96 in duty. Pretty good.

Walked around to the domestic transfer gates. It was a mile away. Couldn’t possibly have been any further away. I stood waiting at the Qantas Club line, while a bunch of Indonesian tourists pushed in front of me. Was damn rude. Eventually got through, and had to go through yet another security barrier. No.2 for the day. This time, the x-ray wasn’t working, so they were searching everyones bags by hand. Took forever, but luckily they got it fixed before I reached the head of the queue. Onto the bus and driven around the tarmac to the domestic terminal. Off the bus.. and we had to go through another security checkpoint. No. 3 for the day.

Into the Qantas Club for about 40 minutes while I waited for Flight QF429 to Melbourne. Gave Cris a ring while I waited. Pretty soon was back on the plane – which was delayed again – and I fell asleep pretty quickly. Woke up just in time for the two male flight attendants to be fighting over which meal I was supposed to be getting. Damn queens.

Arrived in Melbourne.. again.. luggage out quick and straight into a taxi. Home in short order and basically had a little nap. I also had a heap of mail to go through, and wanted to invite Anto over to give him his present.

Umm.. I’m so tired.

OK.. this will be a half journal until I can finish it off tomorrow when I arrive back in Melbourne (or maybe in transit in either Brisbane or Sydney). I think we are all ready to head off to Kansai Airport now – and gets things on the road.

This is of course the last day in Japan. I got up reasonably late.. did yesterdays pics and then packed up my bag. Was quite a squeeze to get it all into the suitcase, and I am really crossing my fingers that Customs don’t ask me to open it.. because we might never get it closed again.

We then headed out on a bit of a goose chase. First up, down to Sunshine Wharf so that Alex could buy some tools so that he could be Mr DIY and fix things. Then onto the train and looking for this suburb that we had gone through the other day.. and I had said I wanted to come back and take pictures there. The only problem – the fact I had just seen it out a train window.. and couldn’t remember the name of the station.

We did eventually find it.. and I walked around taking pics.. including some of these great temples and shrines that are just hidden away in the suburb. Turns out that the suburb (albeit on the other sides of the tracks) is one of the real sleazy districts.

Headed back to Oji, and did up todays pics and finished up the packing.

We have just worked out how much I owe Alex – and now that he has decided to buy my old Olympus 1400XL and accessories – turns out that he owes me about ¥13000 ($A210). Cool deal.

Must remember to buy Mardi’s Chanel tonight. Or I will be in big trouble.

Additions made tomorrow after the flight.

21:58 AEST: Now in the Sakura Lounge at Kansai Airport.. Hmm. Interesting.. self-serve, no staff. Customs was odd. I didn’t have to hand in my export papers. Oops. Time to be off. More later.

00:24 AEST: Well.. on board the plane now.. and thought that I should finish off the diary entry for today. When I checked in.. the girl seemed highly concerned with trying to get me into a seat where there was noone sitting next to me. Sounded great to me. She tried.. and tried.. and tried.. and each time she described a new seat to me, someone else at check-in (they were using both Qantas and JAL counters) took the seat. She felt so defeated at each time. Eventually she said the original seat that I was allocated was the best one available, but there would be someone sitting next to me. Now I felt a little defeated – but what could I do? I told her it was OK. She gave me my Australian inbound passenger card, my boarding pass and directions of how to get into the Sakura Lounge.

Then went and paid my ¥2650 in departure tax (at a vending machine of course!) and headed into the immigration checkpoint. The first visible desk was Customs, which I walked past, and straight up to the one (and only) immigration desk open. Pretty much a formality, but the immigration officer didn’t say anything about all the forms stuck into my passport about my duty free purchases. It wasn’t until I got past the checkpoint that I realised that I should have gone up to the Customs counter to hand them in (even more obvious now that I read the back of them). Oops. I ripped them out of my passport and then checked out the duty free stores in the tax-free zone. Asked the girl at the first store about the Chanel and was told that a sprayless bottle was not available in Japan, and refills are not sold at duty free stores. Oops. Dunno what to do now. Will probably have to ring work and see if Paula has Mardi’s number tomorrow – when I am in Brisbane, and ask her what she wants me to do.

Headed into Sakura, and then at boarding time headed down to gate 48 to join the crowd. A really cheap way to get from the UK to Australia must be through Japan on JAL. There were so many British tourists transitting through Osaka. In fact, when I got on the plane, the person next to me was this young British guy. And.. luckily he was actually not in the seat next to me.. but one over. I can’t believe the girl at check-in was actually working so hard to get me a row of three to myself. Such service. I was actually in row 24.. which is only two inside the door. So nice and easy.

Not long after taking off, food was served (huge servings on JAL).. and I even tried a Japanese beer. Too bubbly for me I think. I then got out the laptop and finished off this journal entry and cleaned up all of my photos from the trip (including importing the ones that I took this afternoon on the way to the airport – just to finalise the whole thing).

The appear to be just about to start the movie – I cannot believe that they are showing Dr Dolittle 2! I haven’t seen it.. but the question is.. do I really want to see it? Ah well.. I have nothing better to do for the next nine hours.. might as well kill 88 minutes with Eddie Murphy.

Night.

The day is not off to a good start. Huge fight last night. Slept on the floor and currently looking for a hotel to stay for my last night. Two head strong personalities in the one room for 14 days obviously isn’t the trick – particularly when emotions are charged already.

Do you ever get the feeling that you are the perfect target for being pushed around? I have a little on this trip. Whether it is the commuter pushing in the back to get off the train quicker.. or something else.. it all comes down to the one thing – being a target.

Last night I hit a point I didn’t enjoy and I snapped. Well and truly. Not a pretty sight.. but inevitable I guess. Was wrong of me.. but provocation was there.. and had been building for ages. I ended up sleeping (or not) on the floor. Better for all concerned. This morning I have been checking out the website of Hotel Nikko Kansai Airport where I might move later in the day after I discuss it with Alex.

Later… decided against that… and got up and headed into town to do a spot of shopping. I had been looking for a Japanese CD single of Kylie to give to John when we got back to Australia – but alas.. couldn’t find one – despite checking out several big stores including Tower Records.

Ended up buying a third rechargeable battery and some gorgeous Hugo Boss sunglasses from Daimaru. Walked around perving on the guys.. and pointing out ones we liked and didn’t like.

Back to Alex’s train stop on the JR line and a quick walk around the area that he works in, followed by a stop at this fantastic stationary store – where I bought about ¥3500 worth of pens and stuff. Oops.

Stopped at the supermarket on the way home to get some stuff for dinner and we decided to dye my hair. Bit of a mistake. It bleached my hair.. except for the bits that previously had a colour on them. I looked like a tiger. Alex made a mercy dash back to the supermarket to get some black dye and we tried again. Only drawback this time was too much on my skin, and I spent ages trying to rub it off.

Would look good trying to get through customs with obviously dyed hair tomorrow when I am trying to sneak all this duty free stuff in.

Ended up having an earlyish night.. was damn tired from the night before.

A day to get in touch with our spiritual side. Alex is going to put together this diary entry (I’m busy working on the photos for today). So… over to him for his account of a trip to Kyoto to visit heaps of temples, the squishy bus ride and the yummy sushi for dinner.

Alex: Woke up moderately early today feeling tired as usual. Morning is not really the best time of the day for me. The plan was to get out of the house early so that we could go to Kyoto and visit a couple of the famous temples there.

Left the house around 10-ish and walked to the local JR station. The weather forecast predicted rain later in the day, and the sky looked pretty grey so we were ready and armed with umbrellas to face what the day was going to throw at us.

Finally arrived in Kyoto, although we were not as fortunate as on the previous visit as the train was not so express and stopped at all stations on the final stretch of the trip.

The Lonely Planet told us that to get to both of the temples required us to take buses from Kyoto station, so we went to the bus ticket office to buy a ticket for our first destination, which was a very smart thing to do. [I had to have a laugh at the name of the loop bus in Kyoto.. it is called the Chin-Chin Bus.. which literally translates to Penis Bus - Bentley].

The lady behind the counter asked me what my destination was, and when I told her we wanted to go to Kiyomizu-dera she went in to a long spiel which I didn’t really understand much about, and she gave us a bus map of the inner Kyoto area. Then she explained that we could buy a day pass for ¥500, which could be used for the entire inner city area. This covered both Kiyomizu-dera as well as Kinkaku-ji. The two main temples we had planned to see.

We stood in line for the bus to Kiyomizu-dera. When it arrived I was shocked to see how fully packed the bus actually was. We somehow managed to squeeze in to the bus, and off we went.

Kiyomizu-dera lies at the top of a hill. After about a 10 minute walk from the bus stop to the top of the hill we arrived at the entrance to the temple. We passed many shops along the way including some shops I was rather surprised to see so close to a temple. Including a McDonalds restaurant and another shop selling movie memorabilia such as a t-shirt featuring Audrey Hepburn.

I was rather dismayed when i saw that the entrance of the temple was covered up with sheets, so I thought that it was under construction. But once past the main gates, the temple was there in all its glory, in brightly hued colours, especially orange and gold.

It was very crowded there, with busloads of tourists clamouring in to see the famed temple, and I think it was also a bit capitalising as well, because you couldn’t walk three steps, and not be close to a shop selling charms and other souvenir type objects. I bought a couple of charms for my sister, including a charm for a successful marriage and for wealth. Bentley also bought several charms, as souvenirs for his friends.

In one section of the temple there are two stones placed about 18 metres apart. The interesting thing about these stones is that if you could walk in a straight line from one stone to the other, with your eyes closed, then you will be ensured success in love. If you miss the stone however your desire for love won’t be fulfilled. I was rather curious about these stones, and if not for the crowds and worrying about being seen as helplessly romantic as a giggling schoolgirl, I would have tried walking that path from one stone to the other. I was quite amused to see that several giggling schoolgirls were indeed trying to walk from one stone to the other with their eyes closed. Good for them and the spirit of youth.

Next we caught the bus to Kinkaku-ji. We decided to have lunch in a small Japanese restaurant which I thought was a really nice experience. The restaurant provided quite a nice Japanese experience, although thankfully the waitress supplied us with an English menu as I could make no sense out of the Japanese menu whatsoever. The food was tasty, and I noticed that Bentley’s skills with chopsticks have improved immensely since he has been here [You bitch! - Bentley].

Kinkaku-ji was very beautiful. Not as crowded as the famed Kiyomizu-dera. The pond just at the entrance was entrancing, and the golden pavilion itself, sitting right next to the pond with its reflection shining back at us from the still waters of the pond was just spectacular. Really worth a Kodak moment or two. I was also glad that the rain had stopped at that point, as the ripples in the water would have spoiled the effect. Started again though as soon as we turned the corner in the path, which was good as I could take some pictures of the temple with the distorted reflection caused by the rain.

The entire area of Kinkaku-ji has a very different feel from Kiyomizu-dera, because it has a much more tranquil feel about it. Less temple, and more garden and nature. So once you walk past the golden pavilion you can explore the the area and marvel at the beauty of Japanese gardens.

We decided after Kinkaku-ji that we had some time remaining so we decided to visit one more temple. We decided on Ryoan-ji. This temple is famous in its own way although not as reknowned as Kinkaku-ji or Kiyomizu-dera. This temple is famous for its rock garden. The grounds surrounding the temple itself is rather amazing, featuring the Kyoyochi pond, full of lillies and some mandarin ducks.

The rock garden itself was rather simple. 15 rocks, and no trees. I didn’t think it was very remarkable myself, but I suppose it was pretty in its own way. Bentley was more fascinated by the way the rainwater was dripping in to the gutter than the actual rock garden too. This temple is worth a visit though.

Kyoto is packed full of shrines and temples. You could never see them all in a day, and you would probably not want to, as many of them are small and not very outstanding. I was glad we could see three of the famous temples of Kyoto today, to get an idea of the traditional nature of Japanese culture.

After the temples, we walked around Kyoto looking in several souvenir shops so that we could buy some Japanese type souvenirs. We bought several things, and spent a little bit of money, and the sales ladies surprised me by their skill and speed at wrapping up the gifts.

After returning from Kyoto we decided to finish the day off by having sushi for dinner at the local sushi restaurant. I also invited my friend Masayo along with us. It was her birthday last week and I haven’t had a chance to see her. Anyway we enjoyed dinner together and altogether we had over 30 dishes. Thats an average of 10 plates of sushi each… more than I have had in a very long time.

It was a very enjoyable Japanese day. Full of temples, Japanese food and Japanese gifts. To top it all off, ice cream for dessert. Yay!