日本 二 / 二 = Japan 2/2 (Florian)

Japan, a country which was full of  different impressions and feelings for me.
I have never been to a country which was so different from my own culture and the way of thinking.
At my last blog update, I was just posting pictures with out any comments or details.
So let's start with the story at the beginning.
The story starts with: I met a girl in Mexico.
Her name was Ayumi and she was travelling for one week with her friends. We liked each other and travelled
for two days togehther, until the ladys had to go back to wok to Japan.
So that was the reason why I went to Japan and is a reason for me to go back...
So now what did I do in Japan.
The country which is by the way full of beautiful mountains and volcanos has a lot of culture and really
delicious dishes :)
I went to Tokio, Yokohama, Hakone area, Kamakura, Nagoya, Matsumoto and the japanese Alps, Takayama, Osaka,
Kyoto, Himeji, Hiroshima, Bepu, Kumamoto, Kagoshima and to a lot of mountains and volcanos...

On this trip I was travelling for two weeks with the Japanes Railpass. It was quiet expensive, but the ticket
 allows you to use nearly all trains in Japan. And I guess Japan has the best train system in the world.
The Shinkansen trains can go up to 300 km/h, which makes travelling very convinient and efficient.
On my trip I went to a lot of museums, like the Mazda museum, Hiroshimas history, arts museums....
Learned a little bit of Kendo, Kyūdō and Aikidō and how to enjoy the beautiful onsen - especially the sand onsen /
hot springs. I appreciate the japanese way of thinking, acting and especially the kindness and endurance for tourist :)
But pictures say more than thousand words can do, so enjoy :)

                                       

Koh Phangan and Marine Park, Thailand (Daniel)

So here i go again on my own.

The last weeks we spent in Thailand were actually in rain-season and most of the time we were really lucky with the weather! But with the end of October the rain season definitely began in the south-east of the country.

So the last days in Koh Samui and almost every day of the week in Koh Phangan:  heavy rain! :/

My plan was to stay in Phangan for 2 days and then go to Koh Tao for the rest of the week for more diving. I already did my open water course on the Gili Islands (next to Bali with awesome dive spots!) and i was ready for more.

But i ended up staying in Phangan for the whole week, since the price for the ferry to koh tao was kinda expensive and nothing over there could beat the 90 bath (2,25€) that i payed here in the ringside hostel.

So what can you do if it is raining all day long? Right! Scuba diving!! :)

I did my Advanced Open Water course at the Sail rock, a really nice dive spot!

 

 

 

 

  

 

The Island is known for its legandary partys, like Fullmoon Party, Halfmoon Party and Blackmoon Party.

Its very famous since the movie -the beach- with leonardo di caprio.

Ang thong Marine Park

I was very lucky, the day i choose for the trip was a sunny one :)

our captain ;)

So i had enough of sitting on an island without being able to enjoy the sun and the beach..
Also my visa was running out, so i had to leave thailand.
Actually my original plan was to head to Philippines next (which we know now, would have been a bad decision)
but when i heard about the Loy Krathong Festival i really didn't want to miss this beautiful scenery. And flying there and back again in just to weeks, no not worth it.
So I decided to go to a smaller country were i could easily travel there and back again to be back in Thailand (in Chiang Mai) for the festival.
A country known for its beautiful temples.. Cambodia! :)

So i took a ferry from Phangan to Samui, further to Don Sak Pier on the mainland, with a mini-bus to the Railway station in Suratthani, with the train back to bangkok, into the next bus to the cambodian boarder and finally after almost two days of traveling ending up in the beautiful   ..Siem Reap!