Kyoto, Japan

Prior to the Meiji restoration in 1869, Kyoto was Japan's capital. Going much further back - to the period 710AD to 794AD - the capital was Nara. Me and Sean have been soaking up the scenery in both former capitals, taking day trips from our plush Hyatt Regency hotel in Osaka.

Such city-hopping has been made easy and pleasurable by using the Japan Rail Pass. This pass is only available to foreigners - it has to be purchased outside Japan. For about £160, at current exchange rates, you get unlimited travel on the Japan Rail network (including the bullet trains) for a week. It doesn't include subway travel within the cities, but separate day passes for the subway can be had for less than a fiver. All the trains in Japan are exactly as you'd expect: fast, quiet, totally clean, and punctual to within seconds.

I wonder what it would cost to get unlimited travel on the whole British rail network for a week? It makes me feel dizzy just thinking about it.

Japan is notable for being by far the most racially homogeneous of all big rich countries. Basically, everyone is Japanese and of Japanese descent. Immigration is negligible. (In 2014 they accepted the princely total of eleven asylum seekers. In 2013 it was just six.) The inevitable consequence of this nativism is that you lose the benefits of diversity - as a tourist, you don't have the variety of experiences and surprises (and cuisines) that you get in places like London or New York or Paris. I could add that you also lose the risk of being shot like dogs at the hands of medieval Arab death-cults. But I haven't got room in this blog to get into politics. Anyway, Japan continues to be wonderful and you should all brace yourselves to be lectured at length on this subject when I get home.

Temples and rock pools on the Path of Philosophy, Kyoto.

Five-storied pagoda at Kōfuku-ji, Nara

Nandaimon, the 12th-century Great South Gate of Todaiji Temple, Nara

In Nara Park, the deer are considered messengers from the Shinto gods.
Accordingly they're treated with reverence and allowed to roam freely.
Visitors are allowed to feed them - they're tame, hence the photo.
But if they see the food come from your pocket, they'll follow you and nibble at the pocket.

Todai-ji Temple Central Gate

Todai-ji Temple

Inside Todaiji:
a statue of Les Dawson.

Osaka, Japan

For the first time ever, I've let someone else decide what country I'm going to visit. I agreed to meet my Melbourne mate Sean for a week's drinking in an Asian country of his choice: he was keen to pay his first visit to Japan, and I was delighted to come back (see last time).

Sean is from Melbourne, so he starts to shiver any time the temperature dips below 25 degrees C. I'm from Sunderland and I start to sweat any time it goes above 12 degrees C. But Japan has very mild and temperate weather so we've both been mostly OK. The main bone of contention has been the blackout curtains in the hotel room, because Sean likes to have them closed but I like to be woken by the dawn. Stern words were exchanged, so we agreed to settle it like men. I lost the pillow fight and the curtains stayed closed.

In Tokyo things are relatively tourist-oriented, with English signs (or at least Latin characters) accompanying the Japanese squiggles. But Osaka doesn't have many tourists and in some places squiggles are all you see. It's not a problem in bars, because you can ignore the squiggles and just point at the bottle you want. With restaurants, we've had to restrict ourselves to those where the menu has photos accompanying the squiggles. Even then, it's a bit of a lottery. After all, what looks like chicken might actually be pork. Or octopus. Or God knows what.

In one restaurant, a Korean grill actually, there was an English-language menu which listed specific cuts and derivations of beef including 'rectum' and 'sausage'. Given that the Japanese word for 'one' is 'ichi' (pronounced 'itchy'), and given that we were sharing food from the same plate, you can easily see the comic potential of the situation. But obviously Sean and I are both far too mature to sit making crass jokes about itchy rectums all night. Obviously.

Japanese bars are mostly very small - no more than 10 to 15 seats at the bar, and few (if any) tables - but in this case size definitely doesn't matter. Every bar we found was pleasant, friendly and inexpensive, with all the bottled spirits you can think of and plenty more besides. Our favourite was Jack's Inn, where the solo barman doubled as a DJ, spinning vintage jazz LPs on a turntable at one end of the bar. He made my night by playing one of my personal favourite recordings: Ella Fitzgerald's unsurpassable 1960 rendition of 'Mack The Knife', sung live in Berlin, wherein she forgot the lyrics halfway through and started improvising Louis Armstrong impressions instead. All listened to in convivial surroundings through a Cuba Libre haze. We love Japan.

Downtown Osaka

View from Osaka hotel room, 20th floor

Osaka Castle

Jack's Inn (see text above).
What you see here is pretty much the whole bar, complete with on-bar turntable.

Osaka Aquarium (obviously)

The aquarium has a petting zoo...for manta rays and sharks.
We'll give those Asian 'tiger moms' the benefit of the doubt,
and assume that the kids are there of their own free will.

Edd vs Food #37
Sonamu
They don't have a website or any TripAdvisor reviews.
Me and Sean just wandered in off the street.
It's actually a Korean place. We were looking for Japanese food...
...but we didn't notice the subtly different-shaped squiggles until after we'd ordered.

George Town, Penang, Malaysia

And so I'm back in South East Asia for the first time in two and a half years. I'm reluctant to make generalisations about 'Asian efficiency', but I must record that when I ordered a McDonalds breakfast in Singapore Airport, and then walked about three yards from the till to the collection point, the food was already there waiting for me when I arrived. They'd served it up while I was pocketing my change. Now that's impressive. Sadly, religious demography being what it is, the sausage in my McMuffin was halal and therefore made out of chicken or tofu or whatever.

This is my first time in Penang, but it's strongly reminiscent of my travels elsewhere in this part of the world. Hairdryer heat and steam-room humidity, at all hours of the day; unnervingly large insects circling the toilet seats; lizards darting across walls; stray dogs by the roadside; monkeys scampering on balustrades above the streets. And then there are the smells: incense and jasmine; acrid, eye-watering smoke from the burnt offerings at the Chinese temples; sweet, mouth-watering wafts in the Little India quarter when the day's first pile of onions and spices gets tossed onto the pan. Of course, every now and then you also get a big silent belch of fresh sewage from a drainage system that's never quite big enough to cope.

And speaking of whiffs....When I went out shopping to stock up on underwear, a local vendor sold me some bamboo-fabric underpants with the sincere promise: 'no smell'. I thought this was throwing down a rather ambitious gauntlet. Because if there's one thing pretty much guaranteed to make something go a bit stinky, it's a full day tangled up in my nether regions at 85 degrees Fahrenheit, in 80% humidity. But I was pleasantly surprised with the results. Not so far as to start excitedly pressing those used bamboo underpants against the nostrils of passing strangers, but certainly enough to buy another couple of pairs before leaving.

For some reason George Town has lots of reggae-themed bars and hostels. One of those reggae bars is also nominally an 'Irish' bar and so they call it "O'Marley's". Jesus wept. In O'Marley's, the intoxicating sensations of the Orient are rigorously suppressed in favour of canned Carlsberg and the complete works of Katy Perry, playing non-stop on the video jukebox, and making my ears bleed. Beer-wise, the best I've been able to do in Penang is Tiger. You can buy Special Brew at the 7-11, but I'm not quite at that kind of place in my life. Not yet, anyway.

Down the road from O'Marleys is a hotel with an electronic sign outside proudly announcing that they are 'Tripadvisor #7'. It made me think of the scene in the 'Borat' movie where Borat introduces his sister: '...she is number four prostitute in all of Kazakhstan!'

Continuing on the TripAdvisor theme, I was pleased to see that their top-rated Penang restaurant was literally about 100 yards from my digs. So there I toddled for dinner. It was OK, but not great: rather pricey, with ungenerous portions and amateurishly obsequious waiters. There was a tone-deaf pianist tinkling away, at whom I ached to yell that J.S. Bach has been dead 265 years and doesn't need to be murdered again. As for the food, I've had better and cheaper Malaysian curries in Sunderland. (At Asiana, to be precise. Credit where credit's due.)

While out walking, I saw lots of signs for 'Jalan Sehala'. I wondered if maybe I should check out this place, whatever it was? I'm glad I googled it first rather than asking a local. It means 'one way street'.

Incense and burnt offerings at the Chinese temple

Penang Municipal Town Hall

In the background: the Queen Victoria Memorial Clock Tower (1897).
In the foreground: a roundabout, with some kind of modern art fountain thing (2000).

Industries old & new

Edd vs Food #36
Pork belly, mixed veg and rice at Kebaya.
See above for my review.

I do realise that at my advanced age...
...it's probably wrong to giggle at a photo of a man called Kok Sing.
But context is all. (Singapore Airport gents' toilets).

Melbourne, Australia

In all my foreign travels, ever, Melbourne is the first city in which I've stayed three times. I think they should put up a statue or something.

And for the third time in a row I'm staying with my good friends Sean and Sarah, now complemented by Abigail, a cheerful and assertive toddler who by the purest of coincidences was born almost exactly nine months after my previous visit. Perhaps this might have been expected to provoke a certain froideur on Sean's part when I arrived. But fortunately little Abby's hair contains not the slightest tinge of ginger, and so I think I'm off the hook.

Despite being not quite two years old, Abby has an impressive line in ballet dancing, and I have done my best to encourage her by joining in. You'll be relieved to know that there are no photographs of this.

Along with Abby's parents, I guiltily sneaked out of the house while she was sleeping in order to meet John, my other Melbourne homeboy, for some Korean food. There I made the mistake of letting John's mate Paddy pour the drinks for me. Each glass of lager was rounded off with a Korean rice liquor called soju. I barely remember leaving the restaurant, and the ensuing hangover lasted until the morning after the morning after. All good fun though. As always, my time in Melbourne has been mainly about stuffing my fat greedy face in the company of old friends. Pictorial evidence is below.

But now I'm leaving Australia in search of more exotic shores. After all, I'll need somewhere obscure to hide out if and when Abby's little brother appears.

Edd vs Food #33
Halloumi Brekky (v), with a side order of bacon and chorizo (not v).
At Einstein's Café, 251 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield, Melbourne.

Edd vs Food #34
Korean food. That's all I can tell you. See above.
At Toodouri, Victoria St, Melbourne.

Edd vs Food #35
Cajun chicken pie with wedges and salad....for breakfast. Hangovers need stodge.
At Our Kitchen Table, 134 Burke Road, Malvern East.
Apologies for the partial crotch shot. Sean took the photo.

Dangar Island, New South Wales, Australia

Having now visited all four of Australia's big cities in my travels to date, I thought it was time to sample a bit of rural Oz life for the first time. Kind of like Crocodile Dundee in reverse. (Although if you do that literally, it more or less starts with 'ed nude', so we'll let that one lie.)

Anyway, here I am, staying with a friend on a small island in the Hawkesbury River, far enough north of central Sydney that the property prices are almost within reach of your average ordinary surgeon. The population of Dangar Island is a shade over 250: and what toddler playgroups are to cough germs, small communities are to gossip. I went to the local bowling club to watch the Melbourne Cup - that's Australia's version of the Grand National - and before the froth had even settled on my first pint, I'd heard enough dirt for a new Jackie Collins novel (and someone new is needed to write them now, right? Whoops, bad taste). I was tempted to feed it all into a spreadsheet; and if an STD clinic ever sets up on Dangar Island, they could save a lot of time and money by just testing one person, because my spreadsheet could then give them everybody else's diagnosis by logical inference. I can almost hear a song playing: "Neighbours...everybody shags their neighbours..."

I'm just kidding. It's not like that really. There are plenty of normal people on the island. But they're all handcuffed and gagged in an underground bunker.

Incidentally, the word 'Dangar' is pronounced to rhyme with 'hanger', not with 'man car'. Another available rhyme is 'ranga' - short for orangutan - an Aussie slang term for 'ginger'. We gingers can also be referred to as 'Fanta pants'. Such are the bigoted depths of gingerphobia to which I find myself subjected. Am I not a man and a brother, etc?

I escaped the island for a day's tour of the wineries in the nearby Hunter Valley. McGuigan's and Lindemans are the best-known among them. I'm a bit of a wine philistine, admittedly, but free samples are always received gratefully. From a more informed perspective, I can salute the Hunter Beer Company for bucking the Australian trend with some decent ales. However the best beer I've had in Oz overall is a Fremantle brew called Little Creatures IPA. This deserves to be exported.

After Dangar I'll be returning to civilisation, assuming I make it off the island in one piece before they finish putting up the wicker cage...

Dangar Island, looking not at all ominous as dusk falls

Dangar Island by day

Edd vs Food #32
Random pile of Turkish grub at the Sultan's Table, 179 Enmore Road, Sydney.
Apologies for the rubbish photo.

Edd vs Fast Food #10
A chicken burrito at Mad Mex (see what they did?) in Sydney Airport.
I can forgive the fact that the wrapper looks a bit like a Hugh Hefner dressing gown.
But having guacamole as a $2 optional extra is simply unacceptable.
It's a burrito. Just put the guac in and hand it over. 

Brisbane, Australia

I'm staying at the Bunk Backpackers hostel, one of those big raucous military-style establishments, where the world's youth congregate to meet other nationalities and pool their cultural experiences. Ha ha, I'm kidding, of course they don't. They sit with earphones on and stare at iPads and ignore each other.

Unfortunately I've found no reason to revise my low opinion of Australian beer (see previous blog). Fortunately I chanced upon a bar near the hostel, called Bloodhound, which imports a few choice American brews, notably those from Rogue and Stone. I opted for a Stone beer called Arrogant Bastard, which I first tried in West Texas a couple of years ago (see blog), and which you can get at the better off-licences back in Blighty for £3 or £4 a go. Here in Brisbane I was mildly nonplussed to find myself charged $28 for one bottle; that's £12.95 at current exchange rates. Thirteen quid for one small bottle of beer.

I was tempted to say something along the lines of 'At least Dick Turpin wore a mask'; or perhaps some line from a film, say the one from Pulp Fiction where Tim Roth shouts 'Everybody be cool, this is a robbery!' But in the event I was too proud to risk appearing like a cheapskate, so I just went back to my seat, somewhat pale-faced. On my next visit to the bar I actually read the price list first, and then the Bloodhound Bar redeemed itself with cans of Sierra Nevada River Ryed - a new one for me - at a mere $10 (£4.62) a go.

Priciness is a recurring theme in much of Brisbane, especially in the riverside restaurants down on the South Bank, with their excruciatingly pretentious menus (it's practically a law that every single dish must contain at least one ingredient that you've never heard of). One important reason why Australia is quite an expensive place to visit is the relatively high minimum wage: whereas when you get things cheaply in Asia, or indeed in the USA, it generally reflects the fact that you're being provided for by people who are much poorer than you. As such, I don't mind shelling out a few extra quid in Oz. But I draw the line well below thirteen quid for a beer. Yellow card, mate.

Brisbane CBD from south of the river

Brisbane from Mount Coot-Tha a couple of miles away

Hostels...

Edd vs Food #31
Marinated chicken, pita, salad and tzatziki.
At the Lefkas Taverna, 170 Hardgrave Road, West End, Brisbane.
Not the most imaginative choice of dishes from me. But delicious all the same.

Did I mention the derby win the other day?
I don't want anyone to forget with undue haste.
Here's an apoplectic True Geordie on YouTube. He won't be forgetting any time soon.
Poor lad.

Perth, Australia

On my first visit to Oz, in 2008, I visited Sydney and Melbourne. On my second visit, in 2013, I visited...er...Sydney and Melbourne. Epic exploration fail. So, as with the New Zealand visit just ended, I'm putting that to rights by branching out a bit. When I say 'a bit', I mean 1695 miles, which is the distance between Melbourne and Perth. It's slightly more than the distance between London and Moscow.

My journey to the USA began pre-dawn with a 6am flight, and my journey to New Zealand began post-bedtime with an 11:55pm flight. So it was nice to get back to civilised hours with a 9.50am flight to Oz. Plenty of time for a McMuffin breakfast before heading to check-in (or "chicken", as the Kiwis call it).

If I'm being completely honest, I have found Perth ever so slightly underwhelming. It's a perfectly nice place, and nothing bad has happened here, but these round-the-world trips set the bar pretty high and I can't think of anything in particular that would make me want to come back to Perth. The one event of note for me here was of course watching the derby match, which, in case any of you don't already know, finished Sunderland 3 Newcastle 0. Glorious. And this was on the same day that I learned there was a chunky HMRC tax refund waiting for me back home...

However it was frustrating and slightly surreal to be watching the match on a silent TV screen in an almost entirely deserted pub. Also, all the pubs shut at 10pm on a Sunday, and the liquor stores likewise. Even when the pubs were open, I was stuck with drinking Australian beer, about which the kindest thing that can be said is that it's not quite as bad as New Zealand beer. Fortunately, whenever I'm travelling my backpack always contains a hip flask of single malt Scotch precisely for emergencies such as these. I came back to the hostel and sipped contentedly.

Perth CBD seen from King's Park

WW1 memorial in Kings' Park

Another angle of both the above pics

Hostel bathroom...

Edd vs Food #30
Vegemite
Like Marmite. Not quite as good, but better than nowt.