Ken's Travel Diary: December 2006

Sunburn and fun

I've got my traditional cruise sunburn...and I'm unable to go in the hot tub because it stings so much...nevermind though eh?

We've had a lot of ports in the last few days. We were in Tortola, then St Maarten, then St Barts, then today in Antigua...it's raining out, although it's just cleared a bit and we had a nice beach barbecue and swim earlier. Got stung by a jellyfish but it wasn't a particularly bad one - sting only lasted for about 20 mins.

We've done a great catamaran + snorkel trip, swimming with dolphins, ATV bike riding and the beach barbecue today...so it's been pretty good fun!

Pics below:

St Barts - one of the many nice views

Ginny and I on the ATV bike

Another nice St Barts view

St Barts airport - that's the runway...tiny and the planes have to drop over the hill behind us and onto the runway and stop before the water...

Lizard today

Some of the big yachts in St Barts

Ginny and I in St Barts

On the way back from the catamaran trip - Ginny finds what she thinks is a dodgy picture of one of the crew. Perfectly innocent I assure you.

At Tintamare island off St Maarten

At the dolphin swim place - not us, but you get the idea...

Parrots at the dolphin place

Another

And another

One of the dolphins

Merry Christmas proper

Merry christmas everyone - don't have time to type much because Ginny is looking impatient, so pics are below!

Christmas morning

Dinner this evening

Gingerbread house

Part of the buffet display

Christmas morning again

Gran looking at the presents

Ginny...

Merry Christmas! Almost...

Sorry for not having updated this in a while - we got off safely from London and are now on the cruise ship. We've been fairly busy the last few days and I'm really jetlagged so I've been sleeping a lot rather than getting online...We boarded the ship on the 22nd in Miami and then sailed for a day and got to Grand Turk today where Ginny and I did some "Power Snorkelling". Basically snorkelling with one of those electric motors that propels you along. It was pretty cool and let you dive down 20-30 feet without exhausting yourself...

Anyway - a few pics from the last few days. Merry Christmas to you all!

Ken

Cute doggy in Miami Beach

Christmas tree on the ship

Dinner!

Gran and I

Mum and gran

Ginny and I

Cruise ship

Ginny and I

The smallest bar I have ever had a drink in

Monday was my last night in Tokyo, and I met Mayumi for sushi and a few drinks...

We were around Shibuya and went to a conveyor belt sushi place which was nice - although me having my inherent distaste for wasabi meant we had to order specially for half of the sushi...still..they made it in about 30 seconds so it wasn't really that much of a chore.

We went to a few different bars afterwards, but the one that stood out is pictured below. Shibuya being a main station in Tokyo, there are train lines that go out in every direction, most below ground, but there's one which goes towards Harajuku. On the one side of the tracks there is a row of small houses which I hadn't walked by until then. Almost all of them are restaurants or tiny bars...there is (at a push) enough room for 5 or 6 people around the bar on the ground level, and they all have steep stairs up to a second level.

Anyway, back in London now - have a look at the two pics of the bar - first one is blurred I'm afraid, but you get the idea...

View from outside

Me at the bar...

Last day in Tokyo - a few pics

Today is my last day in the office - I'm leaving early tomorrow morning and flying back to London (13 hour flight!). I managed to do most of my packing last night, but I've got a bunch of stuff I was having cleaned being delivered back so I need to pack that tonight. I managed to see Amy on Saturday although I almost slept through my shopping opportunity after my all-nighter, so I only had an hour to buy stuff before I was to meet Amy. We decided to go for an all you can eat shabu-shabu and sushi place which was great fun - and good quality food too...

pics below:

The remains of the meal once we were done

Japanese couple having had too much to drink...

Amy and I with our handiwork

Well..they've got to do SOMETHING to compete with Starbucks...

Amy and some Wasabi

Some of the sushi - we tried crab brains, angler frog liver and other interesting stuff

Shark's fin, Abalone, sea eel, giant clam and scallop to name a few...

A graveyard near my flat

View of the site

Not sure what that building was...

K

Tsukiji Fish Market

I finished work around 4:45am and walked back to my flat. I got changed, watched a bit of TV and then went out at around 5:45, taking a taxi over to the Tsukiji fish market. It's in every guidebook as a place you should go, so I thought since I was up at the time when it is best, I should go. The taxi dropped me off opposite some shops and I crossed the road and walked around. There was a sort of grid system with shops selling all sorts of food, but surprisingly little fish. I was a bit confused, so I wandered into what seemed to be a car park and turned out to be a route down to the main part of the fish market.

All over the place are motorised buggies that the fish and other produce are transported on. They whizz around and it's pretty hard to avoid getting hit by them. I wandered around for a while before I found the main curving building of the Tsukiji market. I had been quite impressed by the seafood I had seen already, but nothing prepared me for the main market building. It is HUGE - if you know the Smithfield market buildings in London - about two and a half times the size of those buildings, and the area of the market itself is about twice as much as the New Covent Garden food market by Vauxhall station.

Every kind of fish, shellfish, and seaweed can be found in there. There's little point in trying to describe it - the pictures do a much better job. Every morning there are tuna auctions which unfortunately are no longer open to the public. You can see the tuna that have been bought being cut up and prepared around the market though.