Due to a fortunate happenstance I gained another chance to visit Japan through my job in Sydney. This was an unexpected but pleasant surprise as I settled back into Sydney life after spending two years overseas. I was lucky to get a job in an oil exploration company thanks to a friend, and it was a great feeling to get back on my feet financially after my travels. Life certainly takes many interesting twists and turns as the years roll by. My job in the company, dear reader, started in the print room but the manager asked if I would consider a job as a Technical Assistant, despite the fact I didn't possess a science background unlike the rest of…

Paris is the most beautiful city in the world, dear reader; a city full of culture and tradition, and blessed with magnificent architecture. This journal tells the intensely personal story of six months spent living in this glorious city, where despite the beauty of the surroundings the personal signs were ominous from the beginning. Leading on from the previous journal, I caught the ferry from Dover to Calais and then boarded a train on to Paris where I checked into a hostel in the heart of the city. I was young and adventurous which is a plus, but impulsive with a tendency not to think things through, which for a traveller is definitely not a plus! I originally applied for…

The thrill of returning home after spending a year and a half overseas was almost overwhelming. Although I was only visiting Sydney for Christmas and the New Year before catching another flight to London, it was great to catch up with family and friends even for a short time and I had so much fun. I revelled in simply being an Aussie again, nondescript and one of the crowd as opposed to standing out in a crowd which was the normal state of affairs while I was living in Japan. I went to a take away shop on the beach to be greeted with "Are you right?" Yes, there's no place like home, but my thoughts quickly turned to Europe…

This journal summarises travel highlights from the year 1987, which I spent living and working in Japan. The great Japanese adventure began with my arrival in Shimononseki after a day and a night on the ferry which set sail from Pusan in South Korea. It was good to be back in Japan after spending three months here during 1986, and my cunning plan involved hitchhiking from Shimonoseki north to Tokyo with local truck drivers. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and a Japanese man at the terminal wrote Tokyo in kanji on a large cardboard sign which I held out at the truck stops. Winter had set in, and in the dead of night I was hopping…

The demilitarized zone forms the heavily guarded border between North and South Korea, and it is the most dangerous and volatile border in the world. In fact the DMZ is often referred to as the most dangerous place on earth. An uneasy truce prevails between the soldiers of the North and the South, who are assisted by 60,000 US troops. Although the Korean war ended in 1953 a peace treaty has never been signed and the official status of the two armies is still classified as a ceasefire. As you can imagine, this is a very serious hot spot in the world, and it was with some trepidation that I signed up for a tour of the DMZ from Seoul…

The flight from Hong Kong's Kai Tak airport to Gimpo international in Seoul turned out to be a breeze, and all the terrifying things I heard about China Airways prior to the flight amounted to nothing in the end. On arrival I made my way to a hostel in downtown Seoul and checked in to commence a memorable week in the capital of South Korea. The city is blessed with great culture, superb food, high quality tailors at very affordable prices, exciting nightlife and incredibly beautiful women. What a combination, and to top it off I met a fantastic group of people at the hostel that made this visit even more enjoyable, in one of my favourite travel destinations. The…

An exciting aspect of overseas travel, dear reader, comes from grasping new opportunities that are presented on the road. I was learning to keep an open mind as a traveller and trying to make every post a winner when it comes to new travel adventures. I mean to say, how could I resist a visit to Macau when it is only sixty kilometres south west of Hong Kong, and can be reached in just over an hour on a high speed ferry out of Victoria Harbour? This proved to be an irresistible lure for me, and I climbed aboard the ferry for a weekend trip to Macau full of anticipation. It was exciting to have the chance to visit this…

Hong Kong roars along as one of the four Asian tigers, dear reader; along with Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. The territory is an Asian powerhouse in the region, and excels by operating as a financial centre with a deregulated economy committed to low taxes and a philosophy of small government. The services economy accounts for 90% of GDP in the territory, with Kowloon peninsula attached to the Chinese mainland and sharing a border with Guangdong province. Hong Kong is also one of the most densely populated places on earth, with a population of six million people packed into a small group of islands. Leading on from the previous journal, my travel companions and I continued our journey south from…

Next stop China. Yes, dear reader, that's the plan and this travelling caper is starting to get real interesting. An American girl from our Tokyo guest house was keen to head out with me, and we caught a bus south to Osaka to link with the ferry voyage to China. Strategic planning wasn't a top priority for a pair of impulsive young travellers, and we only sensed trouble when the bus arrived in Japan's second largest city after midnight. Winter was setting in and we had no idea where to find a hotel that was still open late at night. Eventually we found ourselves walking the streets of Osaka for the night in an increasingly desperate search for warmth, amidst…

Shinjuku station is in the heart of downtown Tokyo, and the busiest train station in the world. Up until my arrival there I thought I was doing OK, having farewelled my friends in San Francisco and boarded a flight to Japan before arriving at Tokyo's Narita airport. From there I caught the airport train to Shinjuku and was nervous alright, but arriving at the station really freaked me out. There are several floors, train lines in every direction and more people rushing around than I'd ever seen in my life. For a time I just stood at the station paralysed with inaction and feeling completely overwhelmed. But things tend to work out and with some assistance I eventually found the…