My Cairns – Port Douglas Trip – April 2025 – Blog 2

Waterfall Wanderers Tour – Blog 2

I was up at 5am to start my birthday celebrations & drive 55mins to Waterfall Wanderers at 36 O’Keefe St North Cairns for the tour bus @ 7.20am .. full bus of 24 people to pick up. Orion is our driver & guide. A young Greek but in Australia for quite some time. I was the first & only onboard & was privileged to have a great conversation learning about Orion’s young history & as a travelling person. After picking everyone up at various hostels, resorts, etc we headed west towards Mt Walsh monolith (one rock pyramid) along the highway. Annual foot races are held to the top. 1hr 35mins is the record from a European male. What a run!!!

Travelling Gillies Range Rd, Orion gives a full commentary of the upcoming range road where we will be experiencing Australia’s windiest roadway .. most bends/ corners in 20klm length towards Atherton (270 bends in all) going up the range. Motion sickness can happen. Beware.

1st Stop is .. Lake Eacham .. a 65m volcanic lake (Calderas). This will be the warmest water we encounter today so I braved it & had a quick dip after my first platform dive in decades. Still brrrr!!!!I Rated the dive as 3. Haha. This lake has 2 known small freshwater crocodiles, but they are timid & not a threat to humans. Yeah .. right .. Hope so. Sadly, we didn’t all swim together & share in the banter. Some chose to walk further around the lake & swim there. I must say, the swim was quite rewarding. With all that was around me I totally forgot to take photos. Argh!!!

Orion was very strict with the return to bus time & repeated how important it was to now keep to the timeframe to fit everything in & respect the lunch preparation. He wasn’t kidding either, so it was quite a shock to venture back & not see the bus. Some panic was starting to show on a few when right on time (within 2mins of the Orion deadline) the bus storms up the hill & parks at our stop. A full bus of people exit & Orion confirms the other Wanderer’s bus following us caught on fire some klms back. Therefore, Orion leapt at picking them up to keep to their timeline & for a lake swim while another bus would be sent out. One young passenger alighting was miffed & I wanted to remind him how good this company is in handling problems like this with hardly any impact on the passengers, but I guess you can never get through to ignorant self-serving people.

Orion was quick to get us onboard & off we went to the next rainforest stop keeping to our timeframe. My fellow, much younger passenger, James (ex-England, living in Sydney), was so relieved sitting next to me when he found all his wallet, phone, etc still intact in the seat pocket where we were told the bus would be locked while we swam. Lesson learnt I thought & so lucky having the other bus passengers onboard.

Not far away from the lake we stopped at Yungaburra, a rainforest where Orion showed us the ‘Wait a While’ plant vine with very fine strands hanging down. The Aboriginals used this fine vine for a fishing line & hook. Very strong too. With all the greenery surrounding us we even saw a set of car keys hanging down for hopefully the driver to see them.

Across the road (too dangerous to cross the road), Orion showed us the Red Berry- stinging tree with large heart shaped leaves & red Berry clumps. Orion said it would be less painful if a truck hit you, for this plant is very dangerous & painful .. commonly called the ‘suicide plant’ with its microscopic stinger fibres which can last for months or even years, hence people take their own lives to escape the ongoing pain. One story Orion told was an army soldier in a jungle training for Vietnam War used the large leaves for toilet paper. Some months later he committed suicide to escape the ongoing relentless pain.

The rainforest walk was amazing & you are led right up to the famous Curtain Fig Tree which had taken over 2 host trees & this formed the unusual curtain. A movie Director/ Producer, James Crawford saw this tree & another one at another near location, called The Cathedral Tree where he used both of them in his huge film, Avatar. This Curtain Fig Tree is estimated to be around 6-800years old.

This Daintree & Cairns region rainforests are the oldest rainforests in the World … dinosaur era old in fact. We are also on the lookout for the dinosaur bird (Orion’s name), the super impressive Cassowary (2nd largest flightless bird in the world behind the Ostrich). Unfortunately, no sightings eventuated today but Orion has seen a few cross the road while driving. Orion had lots of funny nicknames of favourite animals & birds. Sorry, far too many to remember.

From Yungaburra, we stayed a little while in the village of Eacham for a quick view of shops & then lunch .. a beautiful lasagne meal for me with a great chat with some travellers & some from other parts of the world. Anouk, a young lady was from Netherlands & she had a great personality & interaction with most on the tour. We just started a great conversation after eating when Orion rushed us to board the bus. Bummer!!! Two young ladies ate a few tables away, secluded from the rest of us & they sat behind James & I on the bus. One was an ‘exact’ match for one of my Netherlands friend of many years. Surely, she must be a relative or even the slightly younger sister. Very uncanny & I have learnt sometimes the world can be quite small.

Next was the Millaa Millaa falls from the Johnstone River located in the Wooroonooran National Park. A beautiful waterfall used in several tv adds, etc. Orion even did the ad performance by untying his long black hair & dipping it in the water & then throwing his hair in a backing stand up motion (hair flick). It went off like a treat & he really did it well. The TV ad used a blonde woman in a bikini though. In these falls you can swim here but not directly under the waterfall as there is a large tree stump lodged up & peering over the top edge.

After Orion’s show I cautiously went up to the young ladies to introduce myself & ask if one of them was from the Netherlands but to my surprise they were both Germans. I started with stating the uncanny similarity of my friend Ayla to one of them. She seemed awkward until I showed her Ayla’s photo & she was quite shocked to the accuracy of both their faces. The other German lady seemed quite shy & withdrawn, possibly my age was off putting. It is hard for me to learn that young people find it hard to interact with older people. I understand it .. but it’s hard to accept. Helen was my Ayla, while Dana was the cautious & slightly withdrawn one. Helen spoke fluent English & we hit it off quite quickly, then she told me she wanted to do this tour on her birthday. I was blown away, as I told Helen it was my birthday also, with the same tour date idea. We were both thrilled to be sharing our birthdays together, (28/04) but she is 20 & I’m so much older. LOL!! She was a blessing to me today, such a lovely young lady. Made my day. They were both keen to enter the water of Millaa Millaa Falls, so I dared not deter them from that. Upon returning to the bus, I managed a smile from Helen again to further make my day. Thank you Helen.

A few minutes up the road at Crawfords Lookout we stopped for a clearer view of the river back towards the Millaa Millaa Falls & further upstream. A very impressive outlook. With further driving we climb slightly, then towards Mt Bartle Frere, Queensland’s highest mountain at 1622m high, some 75Klms south of Cairns. This is the direct area for Josephine Falls, the most violent of waterfalls for public access.

At Josephine Falls you can walk down to a platform & enter through a gate to walk the boulders to a natural water slide down the rock face. Access to the top section of the falls is prohibited. Serious injuries and deaths have occurred here. Please observe the well signposted warning signs. Flash flooding (rapidly rising water) is common during wetter months. Rapid and unpredictable water level rises have isolated people on the far bank requiring their rescue. The rocks are also exceptionally slippery, the water cold and submerged objects may be in the creek.

Based on the above, Orion was clear in his safety directions and for those keen to slide down the rock formation which basically enticed the younger passengers. I think my maturity kicked in where I cannot afford an injury with what is ahead of me these coming months (building projects & a Europe trip). Some of the girls yelled out for me to take videos of their slides so I ventured out on the slippery boulders & found a safe perch to stand. I had trouble at times when a lady, not on our bus kept getting into my video space & she knew it too. Arghh!!!

All the sliders had so much fun & even Orion too despite probably doing this almost weekly or more often. He was brilliant!! Finally, back on the bus & keeping to the timeframe we head to the Babinda Boulders. Once the bus is parked you head along The Devil’s Pool Walk, a 1.3 kilometre return walk along the Babinda Creek downstream from the Babinda Boulders picnic area. Slightly undulating along a rough bitumen track, the walk leads through the rainforest to two viewing platforms where the creek cascades down a series of spectacular waterfalls, granite boulders and washpools. This is a most dangerous area & with the water churning into washpools cascading around these huge granite boulders it is quite easy to see how a body can be totally trapped underwater, never to escape. For more info & to read about the local aboriginal legend of these boulders please use this link Cairns Attractions | Babinda Boulders – Cairns Attractions There has been some 25 deaths since 1959 when records started, so don’t take this area lightly. The signposts definitely don’t miss informing you of this. The council rangers regularly screen these falls for stupid people as rescues are so demanding & risky. We came across a plaque some time later recognising the search & discovery of a lost USAAF – Mitchell Bomber, noting my birthday date in 1942. Back then, this search would have been beyond belief with the resources they had.

James (ex-England, living in Sydney) sat next to me the entire tour which proves young people can interact & accept us older folk. LOL!!! He showed me his proposed renovation plans for his unit in Sydney, knowing my construction & building background. From the Babinda Boulders it was the usual drive back to Cairns along the flat Bruce Highway but of course Orion remained full on with music & his DJ allowed song skip enforced & lots of commentary of fun. He really made the day for all but he forgot Helen’s name for her birthday song we all sang to.

It was sad to see my fav travellers be dropped off at their respective stays & not being able to catch up later on. Helen & Dana leaving for Fiji the next day & Anouk, Japan 2 days later, James back to Sydney. I used my bus time to write down all my contact details to Helen & Anouk so I can send them the waterslide videos, to which they were thrilled but there was no time to discuss further. I only hope they will contact me.

I was the last drop off seeing I was 1st on. Orion couldn’t believe I had kept my birthday secret all day denying him of further comedy. Haha. Saved. I told Orion I had been on many bus tours & he was by far the best I had ever experienced. He was most thankful, but I again reaffirmed it to ensure it was just not a throw away comment. I even did a full on praise review for Orion on the Viator platform & company website.

By the time I arrived back at my resort it was 7.15pm & with enough time to get down to the restaurant by the pool to get a great cooked meal with a scotch .. remember, it’s my birthday. One gentleman arrived at the counter the same second I did, so it was a bit of ‘who goes first’. He insisted I go first with my order & after my payment he asked how my day went. I told him I did the full day Waterfall Tour & what a great day to celebrate my birthday with great people I met. He congratulated me & then I found a table out to the rear with the footy on the TV. I had this whole area to myself.

As soon as my dinner & scotch was gone, some staff, the gentleman & his family (wife & 2 sons) sung from behind me with Happy Birthday!!! What a great surprise & they even bought me the x-large muffin with a candle lit. I was totally blown away & thanked everyone wholeheartedly. I was so blown away I forgot to get a group photo. Bummer!!! I saw the family the next day at brekky when walking through (I had brekky in my room prior), but only for 2mins when my tour bus arrived to pick me up. I thanked them again rushing off, sadly they were leaving the region after brekky. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get their contact details.

I returned to my room to upload my Polarsteps journal & photos of today & reminisced my wonderful day, albeit without my family with me. Yes, it is not the first birthday on my own & possibly more to come. My family (children) are so busy & independent and quite some hours away from my home. My daughter is planning a post birthday get together later in May.

Post Blog: After about a week or so Dana contacted me with sincere apologies for delays in contacting me. I uploaded the waterslide videos to her & she was thrilled. We exchanged a few messages & I hope to see her in my upcoming Europe tour. She is safely back in Germany & Helen went to Bali after their Fiji trip. Quite a few weeks later Helen contacted me too, now she is still in Bali. We had a great catchup & she will advise me of her travels ongoing.

Tomorrow, I have another big tour day so I’ll end my Blog #2 here & many thanks for reading them. I’ll be able to give you an update on Anouk as well .. it will surprise you.

My Cairns – Port Douglas Trip – April 2025 – Blog 1

Blog # 1

I am an owner within the Wyndham Resorts empire & to use some of my pending overdue holiday credits I became very lucky to engage a 2-bed apartment at the Wyndham Port Douglas Resort 1hour drive north of the North Queensland town of Cairns around my birthday timing. To gain such bookings in Australia since COVID is like winning a lottery, so one must take these opportunities when they show as some bookings become available 13months in advance or when a rare cancellation appears. The 2-bed apartment was also in the hope I could share it with someone or my family but as you will read on, sadly this wasn’t to be.

I spent the early time after my booking confirmation for the best available flights, hiring a car which was a nightmare, costly & full of ‘traps’ from supplier contracts & some adventure tours, etc.

I left my hometown, Yamba, NSW at 4.15am to leave my car at my son’s place at Banora Point (2hrs away) for him to wake early & drive me to Varsity Lakes Train Station (Gold Coast) to board the Airport train at 6.40am (train goes directly to the Brisbane Airport Terminals) @ $23 one way. After 90mins I arrived with plenty of time to handle the terminal construction redevelopment changes now in play. No problem through security & found my favourite eatery from last time .. The Aviary. It is so much nicer than the communal fast food outlet area. Table service too, great food & coffee.

2hr 10mins flight time to Cairns Airport via Boeing 737-800. Flew over the coastline going North & seeing a volume of popcorn looking clouds which I’ve never seen before. Saw the magic sea colours of The Whitsundays (mineral sands floating through the sea water gives out the glowing colours). Unfortunately, the photos are not doing it justice through the airplane’s porthole windows & at 36,000ft. I did the Airlie Beach/ Whitsunday stay in 2023 & the sands & water were beyond amazing. Reaching Mackay I counted 26 container & bulk ships anchored off the coast & there must be more, as the coastline was now on my western side. Must be a massive wait time to get into the port.

Not long after this I arrived at Cairns & was picked up by East Coast Car Hire shuttle bus for my MG car hire for 6days. They had the best deal & a breeze of a contract. From there I did the grocery shopping at Cairns Central (main shopping centre) but bought my fruit & vegies at nearby Ridleys (so cheap & fresh) & travelled further north (55mins) to my Ramada Wyndham Resort at Port Douglas where I settled into my apartment with great ease & had a well-earned sleep that night in of my upgraded apartment (2 Bed) of the Ramada Resort nestled in a melaleuca rainforest. Such a shame I couldn’t get anyone to come with me, so the 2nd bedroom & bathroom wasted, I guess.

The resort has a great nature looking Central Pool off the large timber boardwalks & the restaurant/ bar is adjacent to the unique ‘nature’ pool & within the structure they have kept the natural strangling figs taking over the host trees & these puncture through the dining roof. Quite huge specimens & creates a great atmosphere. The pool area is perfect for families. From the pool there are separate lounge areas, perfect for chatting, reading or card games, etc.

By mid-morning I had a Wyndham ownership update meeting, then headed 2klms down the road to the Port Douglas CBD (Macrosson St is the main street full of all types of pubs, eateries & boutique shops). Being Sunday, the huge markets are on in the park at the end of Macrosson St, along Wharf St.

From the markets I walked through the large park sighting the ANZAC Memorial full of wreaths from our annual commemoration of the landing of our ANZACs on 25^th April 1915 which is heavily placed in our history where our veterans went fay & beyond and gave us our lives we enjoy now. Next to the memorial is the restored Court House of yesteryear & now a museum, such a presentation of old building construction & techniques. On the southern side of the park, I came along a restored and relocated St Mary’s By the Sea Church. Again, beautifully restored but it wasn’t open this day. A cousin of mine lived her for some 30+ years & was heavily involved in raising funds to restore & relocate this wonderful community building. Next door to this church is the famous Tin Shed … a seaside tavern of sorts linked to the fishing community. They have a large deck overlooking the bay.

Leaving the Tin Shed I walked back up Wharf St to spend a bit of time at The Central Hotel for a beer or two & listening to a great guitar/ singer performer & as Aussie as they come. Great music!! After the pub I walked right along the nature thick shoreline on a nature path at the northern end of Wharf St until I took a shortcut to get me back onto the sealed road of Island Point Rd which eventually leads you to the end for the Trinity Bay Lookout. This is the highest point of Port Douglas so there is the restored signal mast for old shipping lines & the radio/ telecommunications tower.

I met a large travelling family from India looking out over the bay & then trying to get a family photo, so I jumped in to take the photo for them & not missing any family members. They were so surprised an old Aussie guy would do that for them. Surely, I can’t be the only one to do these simple but very important gestures? When I started to look out over the bay, I could see the ‘surf club’ far below with their structured swim pool area boarded off to the remaining sea & quickly spotted a large saltwater crocodile (4m, my guess) lying still just outside the border. The Indians were amazed they had not seen it & were thrilled to be shown how these crocodiles are so free & brazen. With a cheery good-bye I walked slowly back to my hire car & then headed back to my resort, now it’s quite late & time for a beer next to the pool.

Port Douglas was established in 1877 when gold was discovered & then forest logging took place. Back then, the population was around 27,000 & with 27 hotels. The population is now around 3,700 & expands to almost triple in the peak tourist season (Winter migration from southerners). This region cops the cyclones & a couple of nasty ones have devastated the region & some of the buildings in my photos took major restoration & relocating.

Pt Douglas is 1hr drive from Cairns & both these locations are the stepping areas for The Great Barrier Reef (largest coral reef in the world) & The Daintree Rainforest (oldest rainforest in the world). Tomorrow is my birthday & I have to get up at 5.15am to meet my pre-booked Waterfall Tour in Cairns towards Karanda & South, expecting it to be an extra special day so I’ll end my 1^st blog here & many thanks for reading them. Pls stay happy, healthy & safe.

My Sth Korea Tour – November 2024 – Blog 6

Blog 6 Days 15 & 16 21-22/11/24 Last Days

Woke up around 7.30am a little bit dusty & a very croaky voice from last night’s mini-binge outing but knowing I would be a lot better than some of my fellow drinkers (32 beers in total for us all). Sorted out my backpack & after a wake-up shower in the hope of repacking at the airport for when we leave at 6°C Max Seoul to 29°C for Sydney & Brisbane.

I sat with my favourite travellers, Maria & Ted (78 & 80) for brekky & I will truly miss them. They live in Sydney, Manly. Our check out was set for 10am so we had to log our suitcases into Reception until our bus arrives for the 5pm departure. I somehow missed the bus group after reception, so I didn’t know if anyone had something planned for their day.

Really, today is another wasted day with nothing to shop for or to really see without too much complication & walking so another wandering around to find a great cafe where I can add to my travel blog & watch the rain for 5mins. This is the only rain (drizzle) we have seen on our entire 16day trip to Japan & Korea, so we were truly blessed. Yay!!! However, Korea has been mostly freezing for me.

I walked down a few different streets but nothing to take a photo of and eventually found my way back to my normal main street & the Cheonggyecheon Stream Bridge where again, I found this area rather surprising & unique. This good stream of water ran through the city & for some reason in the 1950s, the city covered it over & built a major elevated highway over it.

Over time, the stream became a cesspit & an unsafe area, then a decision was made some decades later to demolish this highway & return the stream to some beauty for the city in a hard landscaping, construction theme (not natural edges of flora but stones, pavers, etc) & now it provides a great attraction for passive walking, city lunch gatherings & festive celebrations. At its western end is a constructed weir & waterfall that provides a good constant flow. Such imagination and ingenuity for this landmark.

With more meandering undertaken I eventually returned to the reception of AMID Hotel where everyone was securing their luggage & in doing so, no-one had any good stories to tell of their day. Mostly just window shopping & a couple of markets. Come 5pm we are all loaded on the bus & finally EVERYONE is on board on time & not lost. First time EVER!!! Looking at my phone I had undertaken 7.61klms of walking.

The traffic to Incheon Airport (2^nd largest port & 3^rd largest city) which services Seoul was insane directly from leaving the hotel being end of work time & with 4hwy lanes each way mostly choked will be a very slow 90klm trip & it was. The airport is massive & amazing & basically taking up the whole island off the coast of Incheon city & even with us reaching the airport at dark, it certainly became obvious when the skyline opened like the full sun just appeared with the airport’s lighting. What a light show!!!

Getting off the bus & saying goodbye to our driver, the airport is so large we had trouble finding the Qantas check-in counter. We eventually found it on Aisle H .. & trust me, there were a lot more letters following beyond your line of sight with such a large airport. With the check-in counter closed for another hour, it gave me time to exchange currency & sort out my duty-free Scotch shopping. I allowed myself to get 2 bottles of my fav scotches (Aberlour & Balvenie). Yummo & Cheers!!! Going through the security was OK however, one of our couples found quite a security emergency where the wife wore new sneakers she bought yesterday & the shoes tested positive for drugs & eventually was cleared with the new shoes intact. Her husband bought his new shoes at another store & those were OK after showing both purchase receipts. Whew!!

There is still enough time to review a good coffee outlet & notice a popular one down further with people lining up, but as it turned out, only 1 employee is taking the order & making the product. You’re kidding!!! Back to the start of my search & took the chance of the first option & was pleasantly surprised. A good coffee before I start the boarding circus.

Sitting at Gate 9, I was thankful for my bus friend, Ed (same age as my daughter), found me & we had our last catchup before he went to his gate to Melbourne. I’ll miss him & his humour, but he promised to call into my new hometown of Yamba when he comes up north next year. Looking at the boarding lines of both gates there were several people I will truly miss & a couple I certainly will NOT!!! Not group friendly or considerate the entire trip.

My QF88 flight is boarding 10pm, the same time as Ed’s & with a quick wave to him from a far I start to think being in a single seat, dreading sitting next to the bus horror passenger, DS from the G/Coast where I am also heading to .. I can’t print what this man did on the trip. Such disgusting, self-serving behaviour & I called him out on it the other day. He was horrid. With such relief, I had two spare seats between my other young Korean lady passenger (centre aisle of 4 seats). She was happy to take up these 3 seats & had a sleep for 95% of the 10hr flight. The flight gave us our dinner meal at 10.45pm & then lights out of course. The Korean lady had no dinner, nor breakfast & arose of course quite refreshed upon landing, but with bed hair extreme to which she was quickly rectifying.

22/11/24

No sleep, basically for me on the plane (10hrs is a long time) & was awake when the brekky trolley was pushed out around 6am. This was the time I could get to my backpack above to retrieve my pen to fill in the Australian Immigration & Customs Card provided to me when boarding.

Yikes!!!!! While sitting down to start writing, my pen leaked a ‘ton’ of blue ink out everywhere, narrowly missing my open passport, clothes & seats. Blue ink all over my hands. My opposite aisle passenger saw this & gave me a couple of fresh wipes & they were definitely blue when I finished but couldn’t get all the ink removed. That’s going to look suspect to Customs, I’m sure. Lol! I was so thankful for the young couple but now I have no pen.

Alighting from the plane & heading towards Customs/ Immigration, my favourite traveller, Maria was already waiting in line & I explained the pen ink situation & she instantly gave me her pen. Here I am trying to write, move my bag in the cattle grid line & keeping composed. Lol!! Suddenly, a line opens up & Maria & Ted were off like a shot!! I now have inherited her pen. Getting through Sydney Customs was a breeze, despite my fluoro blue hands & straight onto Gate 15, after another security check onto the Qantas inter-airport bus to the domestic terminal for Brisbane. Again, I’m dreading the thought of sitting next to DS & again the universe looked after me. Whew!!!

I again enjoyed the inter-bus trip across the airport adjacent to a taxiway I was heavily involved with in construction back in 1986 & to provide the beauty of Sydney I have uploaded some of my flight photos over the Sydney Domestic Airport, CBD & Harbour Bridge areas. The taxiway I spoke of is basically the centre of the below left photo.

Before long I was landing in Brisbane & was very thankful for my son in law, Jason to pick me up at Brisbane Domestic after his 14hr night work shift & drove me to their home in Canungra for a 2-night stay. The weather & traffic was so bad it took us 2hrs to do the drive. Jason was totally stuffed & went straight to bed after his shower & didn’t see him till later the next morning.

Such a relief to see my family & to chat about the trip & to chill out before heading home although I will spend one night with son, Matthew & his wife Ashlee at Banora Point before heading on a 2hr drive South to Yamba to review their large landscaping project they want me to undertake very soon. Reality starting to hit already.

Cheers to a great trip .. & my next one is Cairns/ Port Douglas (Nthrn Queensland, Australia) in late April. My next big trip will be Europe to catch up with some great friends in October 2025 for about 43days. Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. By scrolling down to other posts you can review my entire Japan & Sth Korea trip plus keep scrolling to see my numerous other travel blogs. Happy reading … or sleeping? LOL!!!

My Sth Korea Tour – November 2024 – Blog 5

Day 14 20/11/24

Brekky early & time to chill before the 9.30 bus start for the pre-paid $150AUD Seoul City Sightseeing Tour that was rescheduled due to the Gyeongbokgung Palace opening times, changed earlier in the week.

From my previous planned daily walks alone to the South, we head off from our AMID Hotel in the opposite direction (North) by bus, for our first stop just 10mins away where we view the Heungnyemun Gate (centre) from the side entry to the Gyeongbokgung Palace & the 15min rendition to the changing of the Royal Guards Ceremony. There is no royal family existing here in Sth Korea now so with tradition dating back through the last 500years the guard ceremony has been resurrected to keep their culture & history relevant. As per common practice, the young locals all get dressed in traditional costumes for free entry plus it really makes everything wonderful to enjoy. To hear the big drum over the other drums was amazing & strong & be good in a rock band. Lol. I had great difficulty in getting a good photo, such was the volume of onlookers. It was difficult to understand the ceremony of the procedure however, it was done in such precision you could only admire the exhibition & the participant’s dedication.

Photos of the middle right & lower right is the Heungnyemun Gate (Central to the palace grounds) & the lower left & middle bottom is the Gwanghwamun Gate (front street entrance).

The construction of the Royal Palace was completed in 1395 however all buildings in this estate were completely destroyed by fire from the invading Japanese in 1592-98. A secondary, or say a temporary palace was built after the invasion in 1610 not far away from these grounds but these palace grounds were left derelict for some 270yrs. Finally, restoration took place in 1867 to resurrect this amazing monument to past Korean Governance & this continued to again in 1990. This vast walled ‘fortress’ of some 692,000m2 also housed about 500 tiny homes of essential governing people but these were never restored.

Where the guard ceremony (parade) was carried out was the foundation for the Japanese to erect their own government headquarters during their invasion of governance & the Gwanghwamun Gate (rear of the photos) was removed. A concerted effort to restore the main factor buildings have been ongoing since 1990. The Japanese Govt building was removed in 1997 & the Heungnyemun Gate (middle gate of palace grounds) was restored to its original state too. You will note in some of the photos, the buildings & shrines are also protected by a group of baboon looking monkeys on each roof hip line.

The Gwanghwamun Gate (main front gate) was restored in 2010 along with the King’s & Queen’s separate living quarters. You can see in one of the photos, the King’s sleeping quarters has numerous hanging panels from the ceiling that can be drawn down to segment of different room designs and to provide further privacy, as the King had many maidens as well. The Shrine in the King’s Palace area is an amazing work of features, etc all under the 25m ceiling. The bottom right photo shows our travelling group with our guide, Jade in her full voice of commentary & some of the group showing readiness for more viewing.

The actual King’s Palace restoration even retained the original large mote which looks fantastic in the photo and unfortunately is not open to the public. Surely, it would be as magnificent as its outside aesthetics.

A short walk away was the National Folk Museum of Korea to learn more history & culture by being directed into the Permanent Exhibition #3 (Korean Life Passages) however upon entering, Jade, our guide, was in fine voice with no evidence of stopping & one could envisage this might take hours to get through this one floor of the museum so I headed off alone with the plan to meet up with the rest of the group who wanted respite & coffee in the foyer Cafe. Some of our travellers were limited in their walk lengths & stamina, so each to their own management. Exhibition #3 presents everyday items and culture from past to present and the growing education from child to adult & was quite detailed & well presented.

There were plenty of displays showing the various historical way of Korean life and how things progressively changed, and I was comfortable in studying these without the volume of speech from Jade. She was truly full on!! The last sight that really took my eye was the extremely colourful bier (Korean Hearse) which is carried by 12-24 pallbearers. This large bier is called a Daeyeo & a smaller one, Soyeo. This Daeyeo is in original condition & built for the funeral of Choi Pilju (1796-1856) making this bier constructed in 1856 & was a great donation to the museum from the family. One traveller who caught up with me said it was like a Noah’s Ark due to the shape & the 4 levels of animals on it with sculptures of human beasts, 12 zodiac animals on each level signifying the deceased to the afterlife.

The next & last exhibit was an interaction of photos projected onto a very large wall. One was a saying I aspire my later life to from my attendance in Landmark Forum, 2017 & a few books I read from Ekhart Tolle (The Power of Now & A New Earth). The saying here was “When I was young there were many tomorrows, but as I get older there are many yesterdays. As tomorrows must all become yesterdays, today is only a moment” by Han Jang-sok 1832-94. Landmark Forum is where I saw over 150 people change their outlook on life after the 3day forum & the outcome was “Stay in The Present” so you can understand “today is only a moment”. Turning left in the semi-darkness hallway was the Café where onlookers were smiling at me thinking the group was finally coming out. Sorry people, for it took another 30mins+ before Jade & the group resurfaced.

Next, we were to stop for a 10min quick photo of the ‘Blue House’, I believe is the President’s House which left me at the back of the bus out of the view from the side window. The bus only stopped for a mere 2 seconds then takes off leaving me with a partial blurred photo. Arghh!!! I was able to take a rapid shot of a similarly constructed neighbouring residence, obviously a Government Building also.

From there, we venture to the other side of the city (South) to view the Bukchon Hanok Village, a traditional housing estate dating back 600 or so years & still a private residential community. Today, there is only boundary access due to arriving here at the closing 5pm timeframe, so that’s disappointing. 15mins was our viewing time of basically nothingness, apart from some of the external building styles and some young Koreans in traditional costumes who have come to visit also.

We depart past the neo-fururism architecture styled monolith Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) designed by Zaha Hadid & Sameo & completed in 2011. Haha passed away during COVID. This building won the SEGD Merit Award in 2015 @ a construction cost of $451Million AUD. It resembles a large stainless-steel submarine at first glance & apologies in trying to get a good photo which really is a miracle to do so. The was no information to confirm what this building housed or was used for. Look hard into the RH photo below.

We were later granted 90mins of free time shopping at the large outlet store opposite but after scouring 6 levels of a Myer type store with same Australian prices I was back on the bus with no purchases worth getting. What a waste of time & others thought so too. One lady traveller bought a very expensive coat & that was all the bus purchases that happened.

Back at the hotel a few of us ‘lively’ ones decided on a group Korean bbq dinner for our last night out. Sally had found the other day an out of the way Korean bbq restaurant, but upon first glance, it was not inspiring. I was glad it was nearby to our AMID Hotel & surprisingly sat all 11 of us at the one table with 3 bbq plates (gas fired) along its centre. The staff were excited & very keen to see us, although taken aback first at us ‘barging in’ being an out of the busy shopping zone. They quickly arranged the pork, beef, brisket & vegetables & we started ordering the extra-large stubbie Cass beers prior to starting our own cooking.

We all did a bit of our own cooking (once I saw how it was meant to be done) & by the time the eating was done we had clocked up 23bottles & a $550 bill & that was well priced & worth it. Some of our ‘lively’ group went back to the hotel however, some of us (4) weren’t yet done so we went off searching for a bar or similar. We looked up at a 2^nd floor neon sign that indicated was a ‘party-type’ bar & ventured in. It was almost deserted, but we did a group order & found to have been ripped off at $70AUD for 4 beers!!! Marching out in disgust we found another place for 4 beers at $28, which by then left a couple walking back to the hotel a bit strange & wobbly however I managed to do the Qantas online checkin, pre-packing, Polarsteps journal, etc before falling into bed. Young people are so soft now!!!

Tomorrow is basically another free day (without Jade) & to finish brekky by 10am & checkout at 12noon. The bus picks us up at 5pm for Incheon Airport back to Sydney for the 10pm flight of 10hrs.

My day has ended with a walking trek of just 8.51klms which is a lot less than expected & yesterday’s walk. Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos.

My Sth Korea Tour – November 2024 – Blog 4

Day 12 18/11/24

Being in Jeonju with a brisk (near freezing) 0°C to 3°C for our first stop at Gyeonggijeon Shrine, Jeonji some 10mins from our hotel where we reluctantly exited the bus & for a very long time stood in the shade (sun was very weak with the cloud cover, but it was something) & felt the brisk 10klm/hr breeze cutting through us. Most of us were shivering even though we had layers of clothing. Today had a feeling it was going to be slower than normal where Jade (our guide) kept stopping at weird areas & talking for ridiculous amount of time of some details of history that no-one could even get their head around. When a few of us walked away we gained more information that gave our location more relevance & at the same time Jade got the message we wanted more movement plus the other Trip A Deal bus group was now ahead of us which then complicates things more.

These ancient village areas were always set up as forts to keep out the undesirables & enemies. This village dates back to 1410 where it was posthumously dedicated to King Taejo, where he reigned 1392 – 1398 & being the founder of the Josean Dynasty, 1392 – 1910.

The entire complex was totally destroyed, except the Main Hall during the Japanese invasion, 1597-98. The shrine was rebuilt in 1614. All other ancillary buildings & archives were rebuilt 1991 & 2004.

Jade then hurried us through this open area & then took the exit gate & walked around the boundary wall to the attached Hanok Village, a historical village with some very tiny houses originally set at 900 of them, but with renovations, etc, the quantity has been significantly reduced.

Entering from the other side of the village we enter a house & small garden dedicated to the making of the historical Korean Paper which is the traditional Mulberry mulch paper by Hanji Industry Centre. It is Korea’s first centre specialising in paper & an extensive collection of artifacts & database of the very long history. Korean paper is superior & stronger. The mulberry mixture is much like a fluid milky porridge and is easy to use the sifting process.

When the workers had everything set up they showed how each of us have a turn of using the timber tray sifting pan through the mulberry liquid in a sideways & back & forth motion for about 15seconds like a gentle sieving action. Then the lady & man take out the wet white sheet & place it on the table where we each decorate our own paper with fine leaves, & miniature cut out art pieces as we see fit. The man then uses a paint roller to remove (force) the excess liquid out. Another man picks up the smooth page sheet & puts it through a slot fan dryer for 2 seconds & then places it on a long, heated steel tabletop for final drying. It was special seeing how everyone had different ideas of decorating their paper.

Later, we were all given our respective art sheets to take home but it will take a slight miracle to get it home undamaged or crimped in our luggage for there were no protective tubes for each of them (later, I spent hours in Seoul looking for such tubes with no luck). Each of us were very impressed with our free gift & was well worth the time & to get out of the chilled weather!! Just when we were almost all receiving our paper the other Trip A Deal bus travellers turned up & the melee started trying to exit peacefully & with decorum. Lol!!!

Walking back to our starting point and given a further 15mins of free time which was a waste for most of us but understood Jade was setting up a Korean lunch for the group. It was too cold to sit around really, but I found the steel park bench seats in the open spaces delightfully heated.

At our starting point adjacent to the Shrine, Jade has organised a group meal of a traditional Korean buffet. There were so many varieties & typical me, could not figure out what was what but there was so much food & it kept coming!!! I did wonders using stainless chop sticks for a change.

Back on the bus with everyone full we took to Hwy 25 again @ 100klms/hr for another 15mins till Jade announced we should be ready for another pit stop. At this transit stop I encountered my first squat toilet. Yikes!!! Not impressed!! Luckily, I had Googled in how best to use them. Not my favourite toilet .. LOL!!!

Hwy25 evolves into Hwy1 at some point & this takes us all the way into Insadong (centre Seoul CBD) for our 3night stay at the Amid Hotel. Location was excellent.

Seoul has 31 bridge crossings of its rivers & has 10Million people living directly in Seoul with another 3million in the outer fringes. When you include the outer Seoul region the population increases to 25Million, just short of the entire Australian population of 27Million. Korea has 25million cars too & it seems buses have the highest priority on the road network going by the access provided by other motorists.

Settling into our Amid Hotel, the room isn’t as good as the last lot of rooms we have had & that’s disappointing due to staying 3 nights but certainly comfortable & a decent standard.

Tomorrow, I have a Seoul Free Day as most of the bus are going to do the optional DMZ Day tour (1hr drive away) & I have seen enough of DMZs in these recent years. Also, I get an overdue sleep in and an easy, lazy breakfast too before I seek out the immediate city area around my hotel. My walk muscles will enjoy the added peace too seeing I walked 5.33klms today.

Day 13 19/10/24

Yay!! No alarm!!! Finally got a decent sleep-in but I’m talking in total hrs, bed @ 10.15pm & awake @ 7am. Sorted out my stuff as hotel staff come in while you’re at brekky & do up your room whether you like it or not or have the Do Not Disturb sign up. Most hotels do it, so be aware this does happen.

Was able to catchup with my favourite couple Maria & Ted & eventually Ed turns up too, so it was great to see them off to the DMZ tour leaving me & a few others do some city roaming. With none of the stayers coming up with a group plan I made sure I went to the areas we won’t see tomorrow on the city tour & obviously, found myself alone to explore. Our guide, Jade said the hotel rooms will be without power from 10am – 4pm for a scheduled electrical check so that reconfirms my full adventure day out.

Walking the city streets, I wanted to find a small cylinder storage tube, as discussed, the day before so I don’t damage the Korean paper design I did yesterday in my backpack. I was going to get more for the group, too, but wasted so many hours with no luck. For something so normal is weird that I had no result.

Leaving my AMID Hotel I wandered along Ujeongguk-ro (street) to the Lotte Hotel where at street level & below is the very upmarket Lotte Department Store which is like no other I have seen. Another 100 or so metres further there is another Lotte shop dedicated to young children, if kids aren’t expensive enough. LOL!!! With constant, yet free flowing traffic I had to work out the underground street crossings on my way up to the area of the Hoelyeon Underground Markets (little subway-type mini shops under the main roadway), Namdeamun 24hr Market, The Sungnyemun Gate which is Korea’s first national treasure & is one of eight boundary gates to the original city size of Seoul & is the largest gate, The Korean Post Office (who even they could not help me with small tubes for my Korean paper & Level 5 of The National Museum of Korean History.

Just outside the museum there was a full block along the extra wide footpath of war photos displayed on about 50 easels for public viewing on this wide Sejong Daero street with about 30 country allied flags behind them. It was a great presentation and obviously well respected by everyone. These photos gave you a clear insight of accurate portrayals of the war & well worth taking your time to peruse. One surprising aspect was that Seoul is only 45mins drive from the North Korea border, so that explains how quickly Seoul collapsed when the war started. A very quick invasion.

This Sejong-daero street had many important buildings, such as the Seoul City Council & City Hall, US Embassy, banks, museums, etc & obviously a very political area where across the street was a loudspeaker of an obvious protest but unclear to what purpose, however the police were around in very large numbers attending through volumes of police buses parked in special locations.

A number of streets had rows of concertina barriers locked into permanent storage positions that could be expanded in seconds. Police are very well prepared. The location of this protest was at the Gwanghwamun Square with the statue of King Sejong, The Great. Certainly, it is an important place in the city. By 2pm I had chalked up 12.27klms & was in need of body fuel.

From those easel photo displays there were a group of Korean men standing under a banner they erected. The banner had “Evil HAMAS release hostages now’. Such a great thing to see for the humanely release of the Israeli hostages from the vile attack on Oct 7^th, 2023, unlike we see in our Socialist Australia under our worst ever Labor Government where antisemitism is escalating in trying to appease local Muslim votes.

Getting famished, I found a great Cafe to catchup on my notes, have coffee & a roll with sweet pastries after. The Cafe was Queens Bakery & after I sat down the whole bakery had about 60 tables occupied by about 98% women to men. Go figure!!! I had to check to see if it was a women’s only café. LOL! On the way out, I bought Maria (a fav older couple on tour) her fav custard tart for when she gets back from the DMZ tour.

With an extra long walk back to the AMID Hotel, my left calf muscle was tightening up & feeling a limp coming on which I can’t remember ever experiencing that before. Must be getting low on my Magnesium levels. Tomorrow is also a big walk day, so that’s not going to be fun. I walked across the Cheonggyecheon Stream Bridge & found this area rather surprising & unique. This stream of water ran through the city & for some reason in the 1950s, the city covered it over & built an elevated major highway over it.

Upon returning to my hotel there was still no power to my room so I sat at the Level 1 (Ground floor in Japan & Korea) Cafe for a Hazelnut Latte (most cafe’s call that normal coffee) & watched my tired bus troops saunter in looking for a most needed respite.

Not a chance I’m going out tonight. The weather has been cloudy all day with temps 0°C to 6°C & with me wearing 4layers above waist & my jeans, cold & damp from the breezes I’ll use my time to do my own respite for the bus departs 9.30am tomorrow for the last day of our guided tour with Jade so we also must get our required tips ready for her & the driver. Our bus driver will take us to the airport when we are due without Jade, so tips have to be ready.

My day has ended with a walking trek of 14.66klms .. no wonder I have muscle stiffness in my calf. Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos.

My Sth Korea Tour – November 2024 – Blog 3

Blog 3 Day 11 17/11/24

Checking out at 8.30am to leave Busan (Korea’s 2nd largest city & #1 seaport) on the Southern coast for our journey north to Seoul (near the North Korea border) with an overall total of 400klms the trip is broken into 2 parts, hence 2or 3 blogs considering the number of photos included in each blog (trying to cut down the size & length of these blogs with the appreciation of you guys reading them). Hope you enjoy the photos & understand a few are through the bus window at 100+klms/hr.

Our bus heads towards Gyeongju as our first stop & looking out the bus we see every available valley & flat land into farming, hot houses & rice paddocks as far as you can see. The infrastructure continues as we are on Hwy 25 for most of our trip & there is a 3lane south & 3lanes north & that includes tunnels too & we are motoring along at speed. Coming out of a tunnel & out of the blue when we get to a mini city (unknown) you can see about 20-30 massive 20storey apartment buildings both sides of the hwy. Just too many to count & remembering 65% of Koreans now live in apartment units.

The road infrastructure is amazing & lots more tunnels. We come across some cities with hideous wind turbines on top of mountain ridges. These are vile in so many ways & my hatred of them is boiling over. Heading further north the winter colours of trees are not as vivid now due to winter being well on the way with daily temps 0°C – 8°C.

The bus stops just 75klms out of Busan to reach Gyeongju Bulguksa Temple constructed in the 1st stage by Prime Minister Gim-Dae-Seong in 751AD & completed in 774AD. This temple was a religious sanctuary for protection from foreign invaders. This entire temple was burnt down by Japanese invaders in 1593. Some buildings were rebuilt after & until 1969-73 when full restoration was completed. The rock walls, stone stairs (2) & the stone pegodas (Seokgatap & Dabotap), 2 x bridges & gate are of the original construction. In 1995 the temple was registered under World Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. We do not have the time to venture the entire temple estate, and some areas are cordoned off as well.

Again, the entrance is guarded by the 4 fierce warriors. I was able to get some great photos and to take in the amazing construction techniques, remembering the stone stairs & rock walls were constructed before the Angkor Wat Temple in Cambodia (900AD). The photos show more than my words can described so I hope you like them.

From this site we go over to the other side of Gyeongju town to Daereungwon (known as Tumuli Park) which has more than 20 large & small ground mounds (tombs) from the Silla Period.

There is a double mound (tomb) of a King & Queen (King dying a short while before the Queen) & it was listed as the major one to be excavated for confirmed history but first, the powers to be, settled on doing a trial excavation so they chose the smaller one close by of King Michu 262-284AD (13^th ruler) which took a thousand workers & many hundreds of trucks to take away the soil & rocks that covered the timber tomb & to reconstruct it in its present museum & media mound. The trial decision was made, based upon not knowing the construction details of these mounds.

In this tomb they found an enormous collection of gold artifacts resembling the Egyptian mummies to a degree. Some of these artifacts are beyond comprehension, for they are intricate & the sheer volume of gold and of many centuries ago. In addition, this mound construction process was an amazing series of engineering as shown by the media section of this tomb just inside the entrance remembering these mounds are about 20m in diameter & some 6m high to fully encapsulate the timber tomb with all sizes of rock & place soil on top accordingly.

Jade, our guide, gave instructions to do a quick walk around the crowded side streets of cafes & pop-up stalls for a ‘rushed’ lunch to head off to Jeonju (255klms). The same scenery continues with more mini cities of huge apartment blocks, agriculture & massive road networks. On the way we have another pitstop of course for 15mins then back on to complete our journey to our hotel at dark & a limited time to get dinner before restaurants start to close.

With a quick evacuation of our bus, finding our rooms & evacuating again, a small group of us (5) found a beef bbq restaurant with mini gas stoves on each table. Thankfully we had a passenger that is Korean & she sorted everything out for us. The food was awesome & very filling, where you place the cooked food onto a lettuce leaf & a larger leaf vegetable (unknown, like Kale), fold it up with some salad & try & place the whole lot into your mouth. That really takes some doing. Lol! The meal only cost us $12AUD ea & well worth it & very timely in getting a proper meal.

Today I took 10,940 steps or 8.14klms so it was a quick shower (room ensuite), bleary eyed & finished my journal & then off to bed asap for a 9am start continuing towards Seoul.

Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. I trust the stories and photos will get better.

My Sth Korea Tour – November 2024 – Blog 2

Blog 2 Day 10 16/11/24

There’s a few photos here to hopefully admire. Enjoy. After ‘surviving’ my full day canvassing Busan, Sth Korea yesterday, 15/11/24 I was gearing up for another full Busan day undertaking the optional sightseeing tour $150AUD I paid for back in Australia at the time of booking this trip. Brekky was again superb on the sky floor, 21st floor where the city & harbour views are worthwhile & not many of our Japan stays had such views. Our bus started at 9.30am for 20 passengers, not the full bus of 30people with the 1^st stop the UN Memorial Cemetery, crossing over the amazing 7.42klm bi-level Gwangandaegyo Bridge (Diamond Bridge) again from yesterday. What a structure!!

On the roadway underneath the overhead road network, we came across a roundabout which identified the UN Forces in a memorial not far from the cemetery. I hastened a bus window photo as it was such an amazing memorial with soldiers around the upper rim, surrounded by country flags.

The United Nations Memorial Cemetery is an absolute peaceful & pristine landscape memorial to the UN aligned soldiers from 22 countries incl Australia. There are 2,328 graves here but growing due to the approval of allowing family loved ones to be buried together (by cremation ashes).

It is mandatory to enter the Memorial Hall (Chapel) before walking the grounds to see an excellent heart-warming film of the war history, the dedication ceremony & the making of this cemetery. If you weren’t moved by this, you have no soul. Many of us had tears & not ashamed to do so.

There were 41,000 UN troops killed in this war from 22 countries & all but the 2,328 soldiers were returned to their respective countries. Australia has 281 graves here, with the youngest just 18yrs of age. On the walls of the chapel are numerous displays, with the prominent one for me was to see the actual faces (photos) of the soldiers per country buried here.

All country flags are flown here & the grounds, layout are exceptional. Emotions really get to you to see the love & dedication of care for these troops. Such a moving tribute and quite some time can be spent here. Spending time here is certainly respectful and never a rush to get through it.

From this great memorial place we are diverted to more amazing elevated roadways, Diamond Bridge (Gwanga for short), high rises & stop on the Dongback Island headland near the Haeundae Beach where the impressive concrete & glass building was built for the 2005 APEC Summit involving 22 top countries, incl our Prime Minister, John Howard attended (far left in the photo).

Immediately at the entrance you cannot miss the incredible 6mx2.2m laquerwork inlaid with Mother of Pearl created by Kim Gyu-Jang, a master craftsman of Korea showing the 12 peaceful elements of longevity which includes the sun, cloud, mountain, rock, water, crane, deer, turtle, pine tree, herb of eternal youth, bamboo & the mythical peach. Such intense detail.

The circular conference meeting room is super impressive & below an equally impressive dome ceiling. Just below this ceiling line you can see the dark windows where the interpreters were doing their communication from. The work alone in the ceiling had me mesmerized no end. Incredible workmanship & design.

Scouring the walkway of the headland you can look back at the Apec Building and see this great structure, surrounding gardens & the 7.42klm bi-level Diamond Bridge and more of Busan in the distance. Sth Korea certainly excelled in presenting this area & view for the world leaders.

We were directed by our guide, Jade to walk further downhill, away from the APEC building to enjoy one of Busan’s selected & elite area’s Haeundae Beach as part of our free time before alighting onto the bus. Again, we had to be extra careful not to return to the bus with wet or sandy feet .. or else!!!!

Back on the bus, we head near our hotel area for the walk through of the Busan International Film Festival precinct where the celebration is held annually. Korean stars place their handprints in metal trays, much like in Hollywood & then set into the pavement. Jade pushed us towards the adjacent markets of Bupyeong, Khangtong & the largest Nampodong Int Market but most of us skipped these to sample the fun street stalls for pleasant food tasting. I had a meat pancake (crepe), followed by an apple & cream waffle with a Starbucks coffee. Very healthy, I’m sure!!

From there, we went West on a short bus ride to the cable car at Songdo Beach built in 2015. It is 365m long & each car holds 8 people & has a glass bottom floor (didn’t worry me, but others did). I sat opposite my favourite bus couple Ted & Maria who are absolutely wonderful to travel with. Reaching the top is a weird ‘theme’ of anything for children & family photo ops, much like a miniature Disney theme area. Most of us didn’t take to this poorer attempt of a tourist attraction, as it was purely for young families & headed down to the walkway bridge having open grilles walking over the ocean below for a photo opportunity too.

Glad to be back on the bus for our last stop & the late afternoon creeping in for the ‘ancient’ village of Huinnyeol Cultural Village built along the cliff face of Yeongdo. From Dec 2011 the houses were reborn for culture & art with the pathway of cafes & cultural places. The pathway is labelled A-L, so you know your place points & the view back towards the cable car. Jade said we have just enough time to do half the walk but 6 of us proved her wrong by doing the entire walk & return, right on sunset. The last 50m was a bit of a run, but I won. LOL!!

Today took 15,157 steps or 11.17klms so it was a bit of a day for us all. Being quite dark now with our bus returning to the hotel, most of us went in search for a late dinner & to be ready for our 8.30am departure towards Seoul in the morning which didn’t give me much time for this blog.

Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. I trust the stories and photos will get better.

My South Korea Tour – November 2024

Blog 1 – Day 9 15/11/24

Before I jump into our first day in Sth Korea, I wish to somehow portray how magnificent Japan was for most of us on the tour the previous week on Blogs 1 – 4 (7 – 14/11/24). We were blessed with I’d say perfect Autumn weather over the 7 days with no rain & as much sun Autumn could provide. We received the best guide in Trend & certainly, the bus driver, Takanashi-son .. (spelling?) with their attention to detail, full professionalism & overall skill in dealing with so many personalities and safe driving.

Japan is a country that prides itself on the above personal traits without question as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs. Their culture is wonderful & most pleasing where we are warmly embraced. Criminal actions, like theft is extremely rare and the consequences of monumental shame, etc would be very harsh for the offender plus their family. As I walked the streets of Tokyo & Osaka, etc hundreds of bicycles are stored along the footpaths overnight & not one was locked. Going to a phone shop & the phones on display are not cabled locked like in Australia. Some of our passengers accidentally left their phones on tables & park benches & were still there when we searched for them quite some time after. Travellers were quickly advised at the checkout if they left money in machines or forgot their change. So honest.

The townships & cities are so clean, and every vehicle we saw was spotless to a fault and there are so many other examples that reflect the examples of the world’s crown jewel of Japan. I found Tokyo slightly cleaner than Osaka for some reason. I dread, the tourists & the increasing world influences might divert the teaching of their youth and their culture, professional & morals become compromised. P.s. Upon my return to Australia Japan had released a bulletin stating they are concerned now of the massive increase of say, Australian visitors, breaking records. So that confirmed my original thoughts when arriving in Busan, Sth Korea.

*************************************

From the horrors of the day prior in Japan from my last blog I hardly slept and constantly thought how I would confront our passenger from hell, .. DS that morning, for his actions and behaviours to date were beyond belief. I was happy we are staying in the Asti Hotel in Busan for a few nights, so I had no push to repack my bags, etc & get somewhat more settled.

The next day, a big touring day was planned with a bus departure for 9.30am but brekky first. Being somewhat early I found myself the only person in the brekky room apart from another couple on our tour, but I respected their privacy as they had paperwork on their table, etc & eating their breakfast & found another table some distance away.

Some minutes later, DS came from behind & put his hand on my shoulder & makes a joke “have you got my brekky ready”? I immediately stood up & faced him & said “you’re fkn kidding, unacceptable & inexcusable DS. Very poor form” in reference to his selfish stupidity act of yesterday & possibly I’m still venting from his past demeanours. Before I could say another word to continue my venting, he responded “I wanted to do it & I did it”!!! & he immediately walked away & forced a seat at the other couple’s table which again confirms his arrogance. What a vile piece he is!! I made sure he never entered my circle again or even sat in the bus seat next to me from that moment on. I later found a great seat at the rear left of the bus, close to my favourite travellers Ted & Maria & that’s where I stayed the entire Sth Korea bus journeys. From my last blog, DS had left the hotel in Osaka after breakfast on his own accord, flew to Busan, Sth Korea & checked into our nominated hotel without notifying anyone or Trend, our guide which enforced a formal missing person police report. A despicable act & not his first on this tour that involved the police & severe stress to us all on our bus.

Back to the tour @ 9.30am, where we headed off to the East, to Yongdusan Dragonhead Park but first we are in awe of Busan’s infrastructure for 3mil people, such as the elevated road highway network over a very large port moving 20+mil containers/ year & the sheer volume of residential apartment skyscrapers. 65% of residents of Busan live in these apartment setups. We pass over the amazing 7.2klm Gwangandaegyo Bridge (Diamond Bridge) which is the longest bi-level Bridge in Korea. What a structure!! Traffic flows one way South under & North on top. To get to the bridge from the North the traffic spirals up a corkscrew of elevated roadway. I can’t type what one traveller said when he noticed the window view .. & the height we were to travel. LOL!!! Much of the seaport, etc is on reclaimed land. We are so far behind in Australia regarding infrastructure. Obviously, these photos below were taken from the side bus windows.

Yongdusan means Dragon head emerging from the sea which is the shape of the peninsula. The temple is China influenced so you are met with 12 stone statues of the year you were born. My year was of the monkey. Haedong Yonggungsa Temple on the coastline. Most temples are in the mountain areas where in historical times was far safer from intruders & foes. The bell is used here for special occasions, like ringing in the new year. There is not much to write about this location so it really is basically a viewing one.

On the bus we head to the 120m high Busan Tower for a 360° view of the vast city but not the rest of the city hidden behind the mountains. I took the photos in a clockwise sequence hoping you will get some idea of the city layout that is in view. The last photo is from the ground looking up to the tower.

From there we venture into Korea’s largest fish market. From the photos off the tower, you can see a roof line like the Sydney Opera House (white shells). That is the fish market & is full of tanks with all kinds of fish & sea creatures and a massive market to scale. Only 1 couple stayed for a fish lunch where you can arrange for the vendor to organise the cooking of your purchase, the rest of us found cafes, etc for our hour break. No-one seemed keen to do the fish cuisine today.

Back on the bus, we headed towards the ancient village of Gamcheon Cultural Village set into a mountain face. This area was formed straight after the Korean War ending in 1953 by shanties (poor people, refugees, etc) being a safer place to be, away from the open plains. Over the years, the shanties were replaced by brick & concrete & then painted in whatever colour was available. This new area is nicknamed ‘Machu Picchu of Busan’. You can get lost in the mazes of alleys in this precinct & Ed (a favourite traveller) almost did. I would love to provide a photo of the site map but unfortunately, it is copyright, therefore I can’t. The site map was purchased for around $2AUD at the Village Information Centre & was a real help & if you do the designated safer circuits (to prevent getting lost) you can apply certain location stickers. The full circuit can take around 2hrs. We are constantly reminded we are entering private areas, therefore to be extra quiet & respectful of their privacy when taking photos, etc. Looking from the Little Prince viewpoint you get the best view of the village like my photo looking south. There is so much art & photo zones to enjoy. Of course, when we are all done & on the bus, the same lady I spoke about in previous blogs was again very late or lost finally came to the bus escorted by fellow searchers, making us very late to our hotel, arriving quite late in the afternoon. Arghh!!!

The below photos are more of Gamcheon Cultural Village looking firstly, South & the North showing the expansive size & vibrant colours.

Today I encountered 10,577 steps or 7.61klms so I was keen for some energy food … & a beer or two but first I took a photo of the Busan Main Railway Station adjacent to our Asti Hotel & the street of Chinatown for the best takes on a good meal. Several streets have different themes, like Texas Street, etc.

Another big day tomorrow with a 9.30am start for the optional sightseeing tour I paid in advance back in Australia. Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. I trust the stories and photos will get better.

My Japan Tour – November 2024 – Blog 4

Highlights of Japan

13 -14/11/24 – Days 7 & 8

Happy birthday to my son-in law, Jason back home in Australia!!!

Day 7 13/11/24

The day I had been expecting so much on this tour has finally arrived, and it is the full day optional tour to Hiroshima via the famous bullet train, well worth the 550,000yen price ($550AUD/ person) but in saying that I’m feeling so many emotions with the tragedy of Hiroshima to be so called ‘excited’. I hope my 32 or so photos show you the day I experienced. My Polarsteps app map shows the journey as a plane flight, but it was the bullet train & I can’t change it .. probably this operator’s error. The group partaking this optional journey was told well in advance the night prior to be in full timing mode, for the timeframes are really tight.

Of course, the best of plans fail with our booked 7am brekky in true bedlam with another bus tour cramming in & we had to fight to get anything or to get some respectable order in play. Most of us even gave up on getting to the coffee due to the timing & congestion. A complete shamble.

Secondly, our bus departure was set at 7.30am sharp & low & behold, the same married couple as previously described in my last blog were extremely late & with no apologies. They have been consistently late or lost nearly every day!! Trend, our diligent guide is now stressed, so in conjunction with our bus driver it was now absolute we must now go straight to the bullet train station on the other side of Osaka & not take the standard connecting train close by to our hotel to that station. Trend had made all the booking & payments the other day in advance as part of the requirements so there can’t be any changes.

With our new peak hour road trip, the traffic was horrendous and lots of alternate side streets were used to get around these bottlenecks. You could tell our bus driver was in a race. Japan’s trains are precisely on time so there will be no waiting for our arrival. Trend repeatedly warns us that there is no time to dawdle off the bus & we must almost run to the #3 platform to meet the bullet train. Trend is very direct with this instruction & now it is every ‘man for himself’ in making it to Platform #3 & seek out carriage 15. Trend provides our tickets just when the bus pulls into the kerb. We are off!!!!!

Somehow, we successfully crossed the road in the one group & most of the travellers scrambled up the 2 floors of escalators, whilst I shot up the stairs adjacent which made me one of the first onto the platform. Most train stations in the cities are well above the street line of shops below. Now I am behind Trend & she darts off along the platform bearing in mind ‘every man for himself’ plus the train has already stopped on the platform. By this the train signals were sounding (escalating beeps) for doors closing & finally Carriage 15 appeared & when I ‘jumped’ in after checking on the group I believe the doors brushed behind me. We are in!!! Can’t believe everyone got on in time but quite a few minutes later Nicole & Anne finally appeared. They had to enter the nearest carriage & walk through seeing they were so far behind us. Now we are all together. Whew!!! Insane timing.

The inside of the bullet train is so similar to that of an aircraft & I guess we are travelling in considerable speed. You can get a plane from Osaka to Hiroshima, but the airport is considerably east of the city and more road transport needed upon arrival. By plane is a much slower process & cheaper than the train but certainly not convenient. We are on the fastest bullet train @ 300klms/hr & it’s so smooth & fast!!!

We had 2 very quick stops, Yokohama & then Fukujima then all the way to Hiroshima. Alighting from the train I looked at the Platform #12 indicator board out of curiosity & it said Hakata which is the next major stop beyond Hiroshima. I was pleased I quickly understood this indicator board & wasn’t challenged like I was in Blog 1. With everyone abuzz from our most unusual & exciting train travel (no bullet trains in Australia) we quickly escorted ourselves down the escalators to our new awaiting bus & driver for the day. You have no idea how clean these buses are (inside & out). Immaculate. From my previous blogs we still haven’t found a dirty vehicle of any description in Japan. No kidding!!

Hiroshima is blessed with many river tributories and many bridges to cross making this a very attractive city with transport options like water cruising. Trend provides us with some handouts showing where we are headed to next. We first visited the Miyajimaguchi Ferry Terminal to take a toilet break & a 15mins cruise directly across to a nearby island (Itsukushima Is) to see World Cultural Heritage of Miyajima Island, also known as Itsukushima Is & Itsukushima Shrines plus the 16^th century replica of the O-Torii Gate set in the ocean waters.

This massive O-Torii Gate, the ninth since the Heian Period was built in 1875 of some 16.6m high & weighing close to 60 tons is exposed to the elements and even withstood the atomic blast being possibly just outside the 2 or so klms blast range. Pls note in the photo the size of the people at low tide nearing the gate to see its enormous size. The gate’s roof structure is 24.2m in length of Japanese Cypress. The post structures are formed to accommodate approx. 4tons of fist sized stones for its own weight bearing.

After taking the range of photos of this magnificent gate we strolled over to the shrine location, again dodging the free roaming deer & avoiding the deer shit of course for the ferry & bus entry.

We went through the ancient shrines, market stalls & stood around for ages eating what food we could buy until the required time set by Trend to return to the ferry terminal. This time lapse proved most wasteful when we got to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park & Museum. We were all glad to be back on the ferry & ultimately the bus where it kindly let us off at the bridge road entry near the Atomic Bomb Dome building eastern location & will meet us at the far western end of the Peace Park after. For those visiting Hiroshima you can get a ferry cruise from the Peace Park to Itsukushima Is & visa versa as the best way to travel to these major locations.

The Peace Park has on its eastern boundary a very large T shaped traffic bridge that replicated the original T shaped bridge. This Aioi Bridge was originally built in 1932 (the same year as our famous Sydney Harbour Bridge & my hometown heritage listed bascule truss Grafton Bridge). The original Aioi Bridge was pressurised by the atomic blast at 7tons per m2, 15 times more than normal. Under this sudden pressure the bridge thrashed like a leaf spring being snapped back & forth with the bridge platform up in the air. Fortunately, the bridge remained intact & was used for a further 35yrs until the age & damage took its toll. The current replica bridge was commissioned in October 1983 & still forms an integral part of the city’s transport system.

This unique T shaped bridge obviously provided an accurate landmark for the US B29 bombers of the morning of August 6^th, 1945, at 8.15am, as there were no other existing prominent landmarks. Hiroshima was bombed primarily due to its extensive gunpowder industry & not say, Tokyo (major populated city). Next to the bridge is the 1964 Red Bird Monument from the novelist Miekichi Suzuki (1882 -1936) who with his famous children’s books, etc was dedicated to recognising Hiroshima’s recovery & to seek for world peace again.

Adjacent to the monument you are left daunted by the only remaining building structure (Atomic Bomb Dome) left from the atomic blast & it requires constant engineering to keep it safe. It was built in 1915 & to be demolished like all the other structures but there was a public outcry due to its unique design & domed roof & that proved significant for Hiroshima’s future. The bomb blasted very close to this bridge & building some 600m above ground & some 160m S/East of the building where there was a circular catastrophic effect of more than 2.5klms away. Being almost below the bomb detonation a lot of the building structure survived but all occupants obviously didn’t.

We then crossed the smaller river bridge to the Children’s Peace Monument which the community petitioned the government to construct a memorial to the children lost, still suffering & for future generations all from the starting wishes of a young dying 12yr old girl victim, Sadako Sasaki who was 2yrs old at the time of the blast & later died of Leukemia. This monument evolved through some 3,200 schools in Japan and other countries who contributed for its commissioning on 5^th May 1958.

Most of our group singularly & respectably bowed silently at the monument & rang the bell hanging down from within. On top of the monument there is a young girl holding a steel art form of a bird Crane of Peace & from each side of the structure is a young boy & a young girl statue.

Turning around we walked past the eternal flame at one end of the Pond of Peace where it symbolically held by ‘hands of concrete’. At the other end of the pond an arch monument stands where dignitaries from around the world come & place wreaths here.

We then walked down the long path to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum & Trend tried hard to get us into the packed museum. Once in, you were almost trapped by the sheer volume of people & most were not continually moving forward as they should. Far too many people & by the time I squeezed through I had missed about 50% of the museum & almost the last person to meet the group ready for the bus. After another 15mins of frustratingly waiting the same lady of the couple was late again & Trend had to go back in to find her. No apologies again forthcoming. The museum had so many tragic photos, fils and synchronised AI video of how the blast took place over the city & the blast circumference detailed. There was just too much to see & very little time and ‘seeing’ through the walls of people. I felt like I was being relieved in not seeing all the horrors on show as it is always difficult when you see what humans do to other humans, particularly in war. When I visited the Killing Fields in Cambodia it took me some 3 days before I could see the world better again.

Based upon the debacle of meeting the bullet train this morning, Trend allowed more time to arrive at the station where we had some 15mins to spare before the bullet train came in which allowed myself a quick video of its arrival.

For some reason it seemed an even quicker return back to Osaka, but I think the darkness of night helped & we reached our hotel at 7.45pm. The only food outlet area was back into Dontobori precinct, another 15min walk & quite a few of the travellers couldn’t be bothered, so I headed off alone … again. I found a nice little restaurant filled with young people, great music & was given an English menu.

I picked the Pork Stew viewed by the picture & bamb!!! It came out in a very hot cast iron bowl filled with enough food for 3men. Yikes!!! It had a lot of chilli in it & the extra-large beer stubbie clearly wasn’t enough to douse the invisible flame of the chilli!! I was starting to cry with the chilli .. & sweating .. Lol!! I translated (text) to the young waiter why I couldn’t finish it & expressed I didn’t want to offend, as it is unJapanese to withdraw early from your meal. He took it well, smiled, almost laughed really & bowed graciously, as did I.

Walking back to the hotel my stomach was gaining more inner warmth, so I found a Lawson convenience store & bought a ‘cornetto’ ice cream & that did the trick. Can’t remember when I last had a cornetto ice cream.

Tomorrow we all get a sleep-in, but checkout is 10am & the hotel will store our bags till the 2pm bus departure to Osaka airport (1hr 10mins bus) for our flight to Busan Sth Korea.

14/11/24 Day 8

I awoke the next morning fully refreshed & with all my washing dry & plenty of time to properly pack my backpacks for flying and a casual trip in the elevator for brekky & a 10am check out. Our bags were stored for our 2pm bus departure to Osaka airport making sure our bags didn’t mix with the other bus tour.

Trend (our amazing guide) directed me to a local park some 30mins walk away so I headed off there but didn’t see a great deal there or along the way, but on the park is The Museum of Fine Arts & this was now temporarily closed. I was hoping to see that for my daughter, Kate who is an artist & would love what I would find inside. Such a shame.

Upon my return to the hotel, I found my favourite older fun couple Ted & Maria sitting in the brekky area having a few beers so I joined them for 2 soothing beers ($5.50ea) of good value until everyone starting rolling in after 1pm in readiness for the 2pm pickup. Ted & Maria are a fantastic couple from Manly in Sydney & they certainly made my trip wonderful. I do truly miss them now.

Trend was of course early (Japanese professionalism) & sorting out our bags & the hotel & most of us had our tour survey paper & tip monies with envelopes provided ready to hand to Trend when she was free.

We are all on the bus prior to 2pm, Yay!!! … but wait!!!! DS (70 yr old painful passenger from my previous blogs) hasn’t showed & no-one had seen him or knew where he would have gone too. 20mins has gone & now Trend is reviewing hotel’s ctv footage & that showed DS at his bags at 8.20am that morning & nothing else.

Trend is severely stressed & passengers have become angry as DS has had previous bad form of this & put Trend in a previous disastrous position with her manager & the local police a couple of days prior. With no alternative the bus had to leave for the airport on a 1hr 15mins journey. At the airport, still no word from DS or him taking Trend’s repeated calls. We are now starting to worry, not anger as much & DS not within the airport as first thought.

Trend says a hurried good-bye to us all but graciously allows me a photo with her for now she will head off to another airport terminal in case DS arrived there by mistake. Deb, a fellow passenger will now be the sole contact with Trend to avoid more stress to Trend. Due to this extended time lapse Trend had to reluctantly inform her manager & the decision made to formally report a missing person to police. This is a very bad thing for a guide to report this in Japan. Heavily frowned upon if you read my 1^st Japan blog & Day 4 blog.

Trend was booked to go home to Tokyo after us, relax for just one day & start another tour. She absolutely loves her job & in showing tourists her wonderful Japan but now that is all lost, plus her pending tour income. Time is now getting away & we even board our plane 20mins late & still no further news.

Our flight is more like a domestic flight of 90mins & once through customs & immigration we are met by our new Korean guide, Jade who does a quick roll call. Deb, being quite stressed notifies Jade of DS’s disappearance & not making the flight. Jade shows some confusion & states DS is at our hotel & waiting for us from arriving that morning. WOW!!! .. the tour people became instantly furious & vocal, but I was even angrier than that!!! Typical self-centred, obnoxious DS!!! He had taken a taxi to the airport, took a different flight, then another taxi. Massive unnecessary expenditure, so selfish & never told anyone what he was doing. Absolute contempt for anyone else.

We then found out Jade had not notified Trend or Trip a Deal either with her 30yrs experience, so it was left for Deb to notify Trend who was so relieved but still in trouble with her manager. Some of us travellers, including Deb will make our own independent report of DS’s antics on this trip to Trip a Deal directly in support of Trend for all his antics was never a failure of Trend. Post blog: I submitted my 3-page report of DS to Trip a Deal upon the 2^nd day of my return to Australia as promised to the group & was well received. I later texted Trend to check on her & even at Christmas she sent me a Happy Christmas & some of her Tokyo Disneyland photos of her time away confirming she is doing fine & still smiling.

Before I finish this day’s blog, I wish to somehow portray how magnificent Japan was for most of us on the tour. We were blessed with I’d say perfect weather over the 7 days with no rain & as much sun Autumn could provide. We received the best guide in Trend & certainly, the bus driver, Takanashi-son .. (spelling?) with their attention to detail, full professionalism & overall skill in dealing with so many personalities and safe driving.

Japan is a country that prides itself on the above personal traits without question as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs. Their culture is wonderful & most pleasing where we are warmly embraced. Criminal actions, like theft is extremely rare and the consequences of monumental shame, etc would be very harsh for the offender plus their family. As I walked the streets of Tokyo, Osaka, etc hundreds of bicycles are stored along the footpaths & not one was locked. Going to a phone shop & the phones on display are not cabled locked like in Australia. Some of our passengers left their phones on tables & park benches & were still there when we searched for them. Travellers were quickly advised if they left money in machines or forgot their change. So honest. The townships & cities are so clean, and every vehicle we saw was spotless to a fault and there are so many other examples that reflect the examples of the world’s crown jewel of Japan. I hope you can understand the magnificance of Japan just through my few blogs?

I was far too angry to sleep that night, even though I was in the best hotel so far (Asti Hotel, next to Busan Railway Station). Today I walked 11,329 steps or 8.51klms. Tomorrow is set for 9.30am bus departure & to run into DS … Literally!!! .. Stay tuned for my next blog for this welcoming occasion (sarcasm).

Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. I trust the stories and photos will get better.

My Japan Tour – November 2024 – Blog 3

Highlights of Japan & Sth Korea – 16day Tour 2024

Days 5 & 6 11 & 12th November 2024

Happiest of birthdays to my eldest son, Scott this 11^th November & Remembrance Day for our WW1 veterans. “At the going down of the sun .. we will remember them” .. “Lest we forget”.

Lots of photos in this blog. Getting accustomed to brekky and sorting out everything, it is almost automatic with the only issue to mind is what clothes to wear to suit the perceived weather. The bus departed at 8.30am & on time. Go figure! We are heading South to Kyoto, some 184klms & 4hrs incl 1 toilet stop. We passed a lot of typical small villages surrounded by mountain ranges which is like a never-ending story travelling down the centre of Honshu Island including the very impressive infrastructure and the road network. Every now & then some landmarks or infrastructure stands out like in this photo. My working life included a lot of civil & engineering projects, so I am seeing far more than most of the passengers on the bus & when I point out a couple of things there seems to be elements of misunderstanding or a vacuum of real thought of what was involved. Anyway, I’m bloody impressed!!

You can see how vital these road tunnels are for getting to the other side of these mountain ranges & for villages to be connected. My last blog advised it would take about a week for someone to transverse between each village in past times. This bus journey had the least amount of places worthy of a photo being in a different region with more landscape of farming areas & extensive hot houses .

Today is an optional tour day in the afternoon but I won’t be partaking in it as per my Blog 1. Our first morning stop on the way is Kinkaku-ji Temple on the NW boundary of Kyoto encompassing some 132,000 square metres or 13.2hectares. This site would have to be one of the most recognisable landmarks in Japan & a must do visit. Entrance fee is just 500yen ($5AUD) & included in our tour. It’s a bit of a challenge to get an uninterrupted shot with the volume of people at the vantage spots so you must use a lot of patience … many travellers have none. This landmark is an absolute gem for your eyes

This is a Zen temple of Shokoku-ji School of Rinzai Buddhist Denomination. It was originally the home of the Saionji family. In 1397 Yoshimitsu, 3rd Shogun of Ashikaga Shogunate took it over & built the Kitayama Palace centring around the Golden Stupa, Kinkaku. This stupa has burnt down a few times (previous wars) with the latest fire being 1950 by a zealot monk but rebuilt & opened from 1955. It became the centrepiece of politics & culture for welcoming Emperors of Japan & trade with China (Ming period).

After Yoshimitsu passed away it became a temple & a very special religious place. It was ultimately registered as a World Cultural Herutafe site in 1994. It was a beautiful day to see this amazing place but a bit more sunshine would have seen the Kinkaku more glowing of gold. Notice the gold phoenix on its roof crest.

There are 3 floor levels in the Kinkaku & they are off limits to the public & all built of differing architecture. On the Ground floor (Japan always call this level, 1st floor) The Yoshimitsu statue. 2nd floor has the statue of Shitenno with its 4 protective warriors. The 3rd floor Chinese Zenshu butsudan style of cremation vault as per the below left photo.

The top centre Japanese sign was translated using my Google Translate app with a screenshot when entering the Tori gate. This vertical sign informs us of the 5 Precautions or Precepts (Title). First line #1 Do not deliberately kill anyone or anything #2 Do not take what is not given to you. #3 Do not engage in immoral desires. #4 Do not utter false words. #5 Do not become intoxicated with alcohol and neglect your daily activities. I pretty well align with the first 4 out of five with #5 not truly aligning myself with to be honest. How many do you align with? My life has always been centred around the Ten Commandments & that has kept me in good stead.

The gardens in Autumn are a mixture of colours & even with snow white cover in Winter the area is amazing when looking at the range of wall photos available. Unfortunately, our tour time does not allow for us to walk the loop pathway that extends up above the flat area of the Kinkaku. What a shame, for it would be worth the viewing even if one crawled up there.

Sadly, the commercial side is now partaking these sacred grounds up near the Observatory Platform with street stalls & vending machines along the pathways, but I hope it contributes to keeping the landmark’s operational & entry costs to a minimum.

Boarding the bus we quickly arrive at another great hotel, La’gent Hotel Kyoto – Nijo with another superb room but as usual we can only store our bags there till the 3pm check-in time however we managed a 2pm entry while the other half of the bus was on the optional tour. DS (another sole traveller from Blog 1 & 2) & I bought a beer or 2 at the 7/11 shop opposite & wandered around a few streets till we found a planter box to sit on. There are virtually no bench seats along the streets in Japan. Seems people are always moving, never sitting. The hotel would not allow us to drink in their waiting area & foyer. Japan has rules that must be followed.

We walked a few streets & found a quiet laneway & just as we sat down & took a few tastes of beer we heard police sirens & DS started panicking thinking a resident has seen some strange men sitting on a pathway drinking in the open. LOL!! The sirens were getting louder and even I started thinking that may be the case. We had better hide the drinking a bit more. Haha!

Come 5.30pm DS (getting increasingly frustrated in finding a good food place) & I finally found a place to eat & low & behold my favourite bus couple, Ted & Maria had a booth & so did Fay & Dean. It was such a relief to have a conversation with others besides DS’s constant verbal most of the time on the bus & being by my side like a clinging twin. Really enjoyed having dinner respectfully in a restaurant & with great people, unlike eating consumables from our pit stops in my room alone. Today I did 6,623 steps or 4.97klms so it’s helping my fitness & my daily eating of processed foods I usually don’t consume like sweets & pastries.

Time for an early bed for a 6am brekky & another timely checkout & bus adventure. Seeing I stuffed up on Day 3 departure I am quite diligent now in handing in my room key into reception. Don’t wish to be another passenger failure. Once is enough; however, my failure was only a 5mins delay after much banter from fellow travellers.

Day 6 12/11

Out the front of the La’gent Hotel Kyoto – Nijo we are pressed to load & board the bus, for the bus driver can be fined taking up the outer lane of a busy road. With that in mind, we speed packed within the required 20mins allowance much to my amazement. We then headed further into Kyoto due to the time mix up from yesterday to visit the Fushimi Inari Shrine not far from the Golden temple of Kinkaku-ji of yesterday.

This Shrine has a thousand plus vermilion painted Torii gates which straddle a network of trails in this vast park. I would have loved to do the full loop trail but again, frustratingly not enough time (2hrs). Apart from the vermillion gates we could not help but see the volume of schoolchildren at this temple on school outings. The youngest were by far the cutest & followed a strict 2lane walking & holding hands, boys to girls. So different than what you see now in Australia. Even the older students were impeccably dressed in high quality school clothing and displaying good manners & respect.

This temple has a religious activity and first, you must wash your hands in a bamboo stream trough for cleansing, then line up in turn & do a respectful bow & lift one of the 2 round stones. The scripture says if the stone is too heavy the person has a lot of burden & if you lift easy then you are unburdened & happy in life. I was thankful the stone was quite light for me. Some of our passengers couldn’t lift them & said they were heavy, so that confirms a few things for me. Now our hands are cleansed we can then enter the Shrine from the left (leave by the right). One MUST NEVER enter via the middle as this is for religious elders, etc but unfortunately, a lot of tourists have never been advised of this type of respect. Trend, our guide, is very conscious of many religious procedures & etiquettes & she explains it very well & we all feel better knowing we are doing the respectful etiquette.

With a quick walk through the ‘tunnels’ of the Torii gates (left photo above), basically doing a U turn at the end Y junction back to the exit gate for the bus after we are recommended to buy food in these street stalls with a bit of free time. I had a noodle dish of sorts & it filled the stomach gap.

We left the Kyoto region & drove for about 1hr southwards to Nara Park where there are about a thousand roaming deer (Japan refers to deers as Messengers of Gods) all looking for anyone with food .. they can smell it & will follow you until they get their reward. Most of the deer have even learnt to bow for food from the volume of Japanese & tourists that bow to them out of respect. You can buy the crackers feed for 200yen ($2AUD).

Within Nara Park is the Todaiji Temple, one of Japan’s most famous & historically significant temples built in various stages since 752AD. The photo above is the Shrine Entry Gate & even that is huge!!! I asked Trend & others how such an enormous structure could be built back then, plus do more extensions & enhancements to it, but no answer was forthcoming. I can’t get my head around how this building could be constructed back in those ages. This building still reigns as the largest timber building structure in the world, thereby giving you some idea of the size including the size of the people in the photos.

When walking up to this huge structure you encounter a very large Chinese bronze octagonal lantern (one of two ever built, but only one here at this temple & can be seen in centre of top right photo in front of the temple). On very special religious events this lantern is lit and would be done a few times in a year especially in their religious lantern festival.

This structure is amazing with a 25m high ceiling & yet to get the giant 15m high Buddha transported through the back elevation at a later date is still doing my head in. The entrance is guarded as usual by fierce warriors & again, never walk through the middle.

The 15m high Buddha (left above photo) takes centre stage but the photo doesn’t show the clear larger scale to the smaller idol on the right, accompanied by other large religious beings & they appear to be some 8-9m high under this 25m ceiling. To see the structural engineering of this building it is best to look at the corners of the ceiling and see how there are no mechanical fixings in the beams & columns. A truly amazing structure.

The temple entrance has enormous lockable doors that can be closed & about 4m high x 1.8m wide each with huge hinges that are surprisingly from ancient times. Everything here is massive in scale but again, I feel like I’m the only one seeing this side of the landmark. Most people are viewing the Buddha.

Behind the large Buddha there are scaled models of some stages of construction to the temple of 300 & 800 yrs ago. Also at the rear is a large cedar tree structural column with a small square hole chamber cut through it near the floor & children are encouraged to crawl through it as a test of courage & belief & a sign for a good future & education. It was fun to watch & see their happiness & thankful I could get a couple of photos in between their teacher taking the prime spot for photos & to see the children so happy when they completed this test.

It was a 15mins walk back to the bus & had a great chat with Trend after I bought her a sweet snack to which she was extremely thankful & surprised by my offering. She enjoyed the company and to talk about other things other than tourist stuff. Off on the bus again eventually, when everyone arrived (very late as usual for the main offenders) for an hour’s drive to Osaka & our Hotel Crystal where we stored our bags till the 4pm check-in. Our hotel location wasn’t too bad considering it is heavily recommended for tourists & tours to do the walk through to Dotonbori & Shinzabashi where there must be over a thousand of shops, stalls, etc you can imagine. Of course, every tourist in Osaka must be here. So many people.

Our bus group had the option to wander around as free time to shop & eat or follow Trend as she had kindly donated her free time to take anyone or all to visit the Osaka Castle for the sunset & night viewing in the opposite direction well past our hotel, but I chose to eat & shop & return on my own to the hotel, knowing I cannot get lost & also more free time from DS who appeared to be walking straight back to the hotel (more on this in my next blog). Quickly, everyone scattered so I found myself absolutely on my own but with about 5.000 people around me, if that makes sense. I had a great Tapanyaki dinner for $22AUD (my first opportunity in Japan to date) & lucky there was a table for 2 ready. Some places you must book or arrive extra early due to the volume of people here. In the above photos can you pick me out in the crowd. Hint … I’m on the big screen from a wall way above the street. I’m the old guy in the blue jacket.

I wandered around for ages, bought a few small gifts for my 3 grandchildren that would fit in my backpack. In my 2^nd store of purchasing, I was helped by a young lady with a strange accent unbeknown to me. She was my first Ukrainian I had met & when I asked about her family (Russia/ Ukraine War), she became quite reserved & troubled, so I quickly offered my prayers, and she began to smile again. She was a most beautiful caring person & so helpful.

I easily found my way back to the hotel for check-in & to my Room 1312 & what a room!! Ultra-modern & new with even its own laundry & clothes drying fan room built into the ensuite. King bed, refrigerator, gas stove & room electronics everywhere. I’m very comfortable for this 2-night stay. I’ll get the 200yen laundry detergent tomorrow from reception for my well-needed laundry of clothes.

Today took 15,801 steps or 11.83klms & with my room being so comfortable I will no doubt recover quickly. Early to bed for 7am brekky & a big optional day touring Hiroshima via the much-awaited bullet train (55,000yen or $550AUD) for the full day tour. Bullet train is expensive to use & will form the bulk of the money involved.

Stay happy, healthy & safe for my next blog & thank you immensely for reading & hope you like the photos. I trust the stories and photos will get better.

BH Life Travels

Travelling as a mature male, noticing life & leaving miniature footprints on Earth

Author: brianhenwood0730

My Cairns – Port Douglas Trip – April 2025 – Blog 2

Waterfall Wanderers Tour – Blog 2

My Cairns – Port Douglas Trip – April 2025 – Blog 1

My Sth Korea Tour – November 2024 – Blog 6

My Sth Korea Tour – November 2024 – Blog 5

My Sth Korea Tour – November 2024 – Blog 4

My Sth Korea Tour – November 2024 – Blog 3

My Sth Korea Tour – November 2024 – Blog 2

Blog 2 Day 10 16/11/24

My South Korea Tour – November 2024

Blog 1 – Day 9 15/11/24

My Japan Tour – November 2024 – Blog 4

Highlights of Japan

13 -14/11/24 – Days 7 & 8

My Japan Tour – November 2024 – Blog 3