Is the world crazy or am I?

Having lived in the UK for all of my 23 years I had never visited Scotland until last week. There was no reason for avoiding the country in particular, aside from just how far away it was. I know people (especially those from the US) will be quick to point out that the British Isles are tiny compared to most countries, but 400 miles is a long way to go for a weekend. As a result I flew. It felt exciting yet strange to be travelling again, and despite the fact I wasn’t leaving the country and I was travelling using very dull familiar transport (aka the local bus and train) it was fun to be on the road again. It was stranger still to return to an airport nearly a year since I was last in one when I had flown home from Japan. Being on a flight (albeit a short one) is quite similar to life itself I’ve discovered. You just want to ride it out as quietly and as effortlessly as possible, and you might set yourself little goals to achieve along the way to keep yourself active (like reading...

At last reality has finally caught up with me and I have recently joined the droves of people who go off to work for 8 hours every day for the rest of their lives. There is a lot to get used to in this time as things rapidly change and the carefree life once known becomes but a distant memory. One such challenge that I have come up against is the commute. Like many people I need to commute to my office and the journey from home to central London takes about an hour door-to-door. Now what I have learned thus far is that if the commute goes well, then it is but a blip on your consciousness and passes quickly. However, if things go wrong then it can be frustrating and horrifying, with every draining second of it becomes a battle against for your very sanity. I have already encountered a number of irritating challenges that crop up in the commute, see if you recognise these nightmares: Delays –  When these happen (and I guarantee you THEY WILL) you are powerless to resist. ...

It’s odd when you return from travelling and then hear months later of a disaster striking one of the cities you’ve visited. I’ve already encountered this once with Bangkok, after the Red shirt and Yellow Shirt riots ripped through the Siam district; fundamentally changing what was there when I saw it myself. I suppose I was able to get past this fact easily as I had little love for Bangkok. Therefore I found it very sad to discover this morning that an Earthquake, rated seven on the Richter scale, had hit New Zealand and caused quite a bit of damage. New Zealand was easily one of my favourite locations, so to hear of such devastation was miserable news indeed. Much of the damage seemed to be centred on Christchurch, which was closest to the epicentre, although I know through my contacts that it was felt as far away as Wellington. So it’s fair to say this was one hell of a quake, especially compared to the many other hundreds that hit the islands each year, which are quite weedy...

So did all that just happen? That's a question I've been considering this past week, as I slowly readapt to life in the UK. Because not a lot seems to have changed in my hometown (except for maybe one or two shops and bars morphing into new identities), it's very easy to wonder if the last three months were a kind of freaky dream. Jet lag of course doesn't help the matter. It was a nice dream that would be the overarching feel of it. As with any dream it was a bit odd at times (like seeing a dog wearing glasses and a Boston Red Sox jersey, but then that's just Japan for you I feel); there were moments of panic and worry occasionally, but then to wake up back where I started again is naturally an anti-climax. My home is very nice to be fair, we get a relative balance on weather; there is no threat of earthquakes, tidal waves and tornados etc. Well, aside from the odd Icelandic Volcanic fuck up, but that's just Iceland causing trouble for Europe again, the s...

It's odd as after spending several weeks back in the 1990s (seriously at times in NZ; despite them keeping up with several modern developments, I felt like it was 1995 there), I have now been accelerated into the future as I arrive in Tokyo Japan. The final stop on the trip. Tokyo is quite a shock to the senses when you first arrive, and this certainly wasn't helped by the long haul flight overnight, and the watching of two rather discombobulating films under these circumstances. These films were The Lovely Bones, which is both depressing and trippy in equal measure; like watching Silent Hill on acid, and The Road, which is drab and depressing; to the point that a night spent listening to Leonard Cohen reading the dictionary would seem an enthralling high by comparison. And then there was the usual immigration to be done with, and bag collection, which I will not miss once this is all finished. As soon as I got out of the airport I could tell I was very much back in Asia ag...

Right, so to finish off with New Zealand I arrived in Auckland. I don't know whether it's because I know the end is nigh, or that this place really is just another - albeit slightly bigger than Wellington - city I'm not all that in love with it. It's distinctly average on first impressions, and in some ways it's quite a wannabe city. For example it's got a Harbour bridge and Sky tower like Sydney. Both of which are slightly less impressive from the monuments they seem to be ripping off, despite the latter being the tallest structure in the Southern hemisphere, although I wonder if that's to do with the fact it has a very high spire, whilst the viewing deck is lower down on the structure. Besides which it's a difference of only a few meters compared between this and Sydney's attempt. I did however go up the tower, and the views are pretty good though saying that. Despite being a bit unimpressed with Auckland on the surface of it, I don't hate ...

I've now made my way from Wellington and into the sulperous smelling Volcano town of Rotorua, which is in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island. The journey from Wellington was long and, for the first hour or so, it was pretty dull as the landscape between Wellington and Palmerston North is a little underwhelming - at least compared to some of the sights I'd seen thus far on my travels in New Zealand. After leaving Palmerston it started getting better as I was able to see hills and valleys which reminded me a little of my years spent in Cardiff and South Wales. I suppose the abundance of sheep on said hills added to this. Then after a while some huge mountains rolled into view. These were different to the ones I'd seen in the Southern Alps, as they sat on their own rather than in huge ranges as I'd seen on the South Island. Amongst them was a small range of mountains which stood out immediately as the ones that were used as Mordor in the Lord of the Rings tri...

So here I was in the capital of New Zealand, which can only be described as a really small big city. Sure, Wellington is a lot larger than any other towns here in New Zealand, but it really isn't that big at all. Also this city sits atop a major fault line in the Pacific plate so a big earthquake could potentially be an issue here. It certainly makes you question the logic of building a capital city here. Also it's noticeably less crowded than any other capital (perhaps due to the reason above) I've ever visited. When I arrived I put this down to it being a Sunday evening, so naturally no one would really be out and about. However, come Monday morning when I hit the town properly, it was not much busier. I guess this is a relief to the horrible crush that I see in London, but it doesn't feel like a capital city as a result. Still, this was still a city and as a result it has your usual city-ish things to do, such as museums, botanical gardens and odd historical foll...

So for the tail-end of the Easter weekend I came to Wanaka; which is south of Twizel, and then went on to Queenstown; which is another 150km further south of Wanaka, before hitting the South Island's west coast in Franz Josef. It was a real relief to get to Wanaka, after being in the middle of nowhere that is Twizel, as there actually seemed to be a lot more happening round here; not least because there was an airshow here over the weekend. As a result I got to see a few old planes lingering around the sky before they were shipped back to their respective locations. So what to say about Wanaka? Basically it's beautiful. The town is situated on the lakes of Lake Wanaka, and has great views of Mount Aspiring, which sits across the water. I didn't have a great deal of time here, only about a day and a bit, but you don't need a great deal of time here though. It's very small, despite being bigger than Twizel, and you've pretty much exhausted the activities (unless y...

Because of Easter I found myself in a fairly small backwater town called Twizel. It's a nice enough place but there's not a lot going on here, not least because of Easter. But still after the mad rush I faced when I arrived in New Zealand, I was relieved to have somewhere to stay. The place I was staying at was a little difference as it's a motel-cum-backpackers. What does this mean? Well firstly the rooms are smaller, and two are allocated to a room. Also it means that it's not exclusively backpackers here. I found this out when I walked into the shared kitchen and found that it had unexpectedly turned into a family living room during games night. I was a little taken aback by this but went about my business cooking anyway. Meanwhile family fun was well abound. This may be my only experience of Kiwi family dynamics, and wow, it's a world a way from my family. The whole family was there for a start. Mum; dad; the kids; and grandma and grandpa. It became amusing afte...

It's strange to think about this time next month I will be going home. It's not a thought I'm particularly relishing as firstly, I will have to decide what to do with my life for the next couple of years, and secondly I will probably have no money at all. I've also really enjoyed my time away and for it to end at any time would probably feel too premature. I'm now in the second-to-last country on my trip, which is New Zealand. I didn't know much about this land before arriving, except for what I'd learned from watching rugby; films such as Lord of the Rings (for the record there is a distinct lack of hobbits here), Once were Warriors, and from TV like Flight of the Conchords. So from that creates an image of New Zealand as Middle Earth which is full of drunken violent maoris, who play rugby and indulged in novelty music once in a while. Of course the reality is totally different What is true is that the landscape is epic, and to that extent New Zealand is Mi...

For my final stop in Australia, I was able to indulge in a few home comforts. For this stop I was staying with relatives, so for the first time in 7 weeks I had a room to myself, and a night without being juddered around by the person on the bunk above or below. Also it was nice to be in a foreign city and knowing someone from the off. It's not too bad going it alone, but it's a nice novelty to have a contact in an unfamiliar city. But anyway I was in Sydney, one of Australia's premier cities, although it's another place which is very similar to London; not least considering there are several places named after locations I know in London, such as: Hyde Park, Paddington, Lewisham, Dulwich, and even Croydon. Thankfully the Croydon of Sydney is not the knife ridden grey place I've frequented on nights out, although I am told it's a little dull. Maybe better dull than stabby. One of the first things I went to see was the Blue Mountains. Believe it or not they are ac...

So it's been another week, and I've made it to another city. This time it's Brisbane on the east central coast of Australia. To be honest when I landed here, my first impression was: "hang on this looks a bit like England," perhaps reinforced by the overcast weather overhead. Then as I was driven to my hostel my opinion changed. In some ways Brisbane stylistically seems like a mix of English, Australian, and American cities. Theres a blend of old world colonial style buildings and ultra-modern sky scrapers and it's rather hilly and steep. One strange thing I've noticed, is that there a few sights which are similar to London. First of all they have an area by the river called South Bank, and - weirdly - it looks distinctly similar to our South Bank from certain points; complete with London Eye style big wheel (though not as big), and buildings that look like the old IBM building, and the London South Bank center. What I also noticed out the corner of my eye...

So I'm now in Australia, which is as far round the world as it is really possible to go from my home in England. It also marks my first time into the Southern Hemisphere (the water draining in the opposite direction is really not that remarkable or noticeable) and my return - to my relief - to a predominantly English speaking country. There are lots of little novelties to enjoy about being here, aside from the English language alone. For one thing I can drink from the tap again without fear of some kind of sickness or death, there are no tuk tuks or mototaxis, or people trying to pester me into buying gimmicky crap. On the downside however, Australia is pretty expensive. Not just by South East Asian standards - which I knew was always going to be hard to adjust back to expensive western prices - but even by English standards on some items. Also as with much of the rest of the world, the keyboards don't have the pound key! So my first port of call was to Cairns in the northernmo...

So for the final leg of my tour of South East Asia, I found myself in sunny Phuket (the sunny weather is scarcely a defining feature, as most places I've been here have been sunny too). It's a good tonic for the hectic pace of life you get in Bangkok, and also is near the beach so it's a good place to relax before I get started on my Australian adventure. As a result I didn't do a lot of sightseeing here at first, and instead just flopped down for the most of the day, either at the beach, or watching the hostels extensive film collection. Thanks to the latter I've had a good chance to catch up with some films I'd been meaning to watch. Just before heading here I have also had the chance to observe a strange local custom I had otherwise missed before. It happened first at the bus station, where I was waiting for my Bus to Phuket. Suddenly a whistle sounded, everyone stood, and some music began. I looked at my watch and realized it was 6pm precisely, and gath...

Right so having had enough of Cambodia, I made my way to Bangkok. This was not the easiest of journey's as crossing the Cambodia/Thailand border is quite a protracted affair. You have to queue up for ages just for them to stamp and check your passport. Thankfully - and contrary to rumors I've heard - this didn't require me to part with any cash, although I think if I'd been coming from Thailand it would have been a different story altogether. After the long wait at the Thai border, I then was faced with a long bus ride to Bangkok, and then another fairly drawn out journey to find the hostel (which isn't very near the center of town). All of this in 35 degree heat did try my patience a little, but thankfully the hostel wasn't terrible so I took some comfort from that. So what to say about Bangkok itself? Firstly it's very different to what I was expecting. It's quite a modern city and unlike any other cities I've been to in South East Asia, the locals...