Everybody wants Kung-Fu Fighting!

Day 125:



What to spend your last English pounds on at the air port?.......an awesome serve of scrambled eggs, bacon, grilled tomato and spinach sounds pretty good!!! We then went to the convenience store in Heathrow and bought some reading material and snacks for the flight. During a particular intense process of deciding wether or not to buy a Sudoku book or a cross word book, I very intelligently exclaimed (rather more loudly than anticipated) “Well, I don’t fucking get it (Sudoku) anyway, so lets get the other one” the store cleaner overheard and absolutely wet himself laughing, he seemed to agree with that statement lol. Awkward! Guess you had to be there.


From there we made our way to our terminal and we were boarding our flight to Tokyo. As far as all our plane rides have been concerned, we would have to say that this one was probably one of the most hassle free. No stinky people, no screaming children, just a normal flight. Ahhh. Sleepy time!


Day 126:


Miho had informed us that she had organised for us to climb Mt. Fuji tomorrow. Once we dumped our baggage at the hostel, we decided to go exploring and prepare ourselves for our climbing adventure. We went out to explore Ueno and Shibuya. In Ueno, which we aptly named "Uno", we got lost in an area that looked suspiciously like the porn district lol. We tried to look as innocent as possible and find the quickest way out of there :p We found a man with a hat stall and bought a beanie each - success, we would at least have warm heads. Our luck was running out however, it didn't look like this place had anything that would keep us warm enough to climb the mountain. We caught the metro to Shibuya and ended up in a ridiculously large department store. We eventually found the appropriate section of the building and each bought a jacket that would hopefully keep up warm enough for the hike.


By this stage we were well pooped and hungry. We made our way back to the hostel, dropped off our shopping and stepped out to try and find something to eat........we walked for a while trying to find this Thai place that the hostel recommended, but the only thing that happened was that we couldn't seem to find it. We took a random turn down some street that looked promising and ended up at a little Italian place that made fresh wood fired pizzas. SOLD! it took a grand total of ten minutes. We were so hungry we didn't even make it back to the hostel, we literally demolished it - ate it under an awning on the street in about three minutes flat. We are two classy ladies! Once we got back to the hostel we packed our small back packs, showered and turned in for the night. It was going to be a FML early start to the day!!


Day 127/8:


Two jetlagged travellers with burning, puffy, bloodshot eyes is what a 4am start looks like! It’s attractive! We dressed with extra layers in anticipation for the hike, with our new jackets and beanies – rather exciting! Totti topped off our very fashionable attire by tucking her pants into a pair of long socks I let her borrow – it really is a good look LOL! We collected our small backpacks and walked the deserted Tokyo streets to the metro station in the semi darkness. The skies looked clear to far, so we kept our fingers and toes crossed for some clear weather over the next couple of days.


Once at the metro station we caught the train to Shinjuku and met up with two friends of Miho’s – Shim and Steph. They would be coming on the hike with us (thank god, as it was all Japanese speaking people with the exception of ourselves and two ladies from America. Shim and Steph, you save lives! Lol). From the station we headed to our bus and commenced our journey to Mt. Fuji. The Japanese scenery is absolutely awesome, we spent most of the bus ride looking out the window. We would say the coolest thing, besides the actual mountain was the fact that there was a theme park at the base of it. We were tempted to forego climbing just to ride that rollercoaster, it was pretty friggan awesome! Somewhere along the way, Totti passed out; at times like these priceless photographic opportunities present themselves, and because I am such a good friend, I just couldn’t bare the thought of not documenting such a sight. Wide open mouth with slight drooling symptoms makes a pretty amusing photo :p


When we got to 5th station we had some lunch before setting off on the first leg of the hike. The terrain wasn’t too bad, so we were optimistic that with any luck, the rest of the climb would be similar... Not so much. We climbed for two hrs before stopping at 6th station, by this stage the tracks had already started getting steeper and rougher. As there was no loo, our only option was to “pop a squat” (very eloquently put, isn’t it?) – so we had to try and find the most concealed area behind a random water tank and enjoy the serenity while going to the loo al fresco.


It was still a nice day by about 3.30/4pm but the wind was getting colder and the dirt tracks started to turn into rocks. The incline was getting worse and the climb between 5th and 6th station was by far the longest, it was literally like rock climbing, it didn’t even feel like we were walking any more. The oxygen began to get thinner and all you could hear was everyone panting. Our tour guide stopped regularly and shared some of his breathing techniques with us, we all looked pretty funny stretching our arms out as if giving someone a hug and then breathing deeply in and out about 6 times. It did however help!


By this stage the sun had begun to set and long shadows were cast over the giant mountain; quite a sight to behold, the mountain itself cast a giant shadow over the cities below. Very fatigued, sore and hungry by this stage, the climb became still more challenging. Besides being physically exhausted, it became harder and harder to stay positive and to encourage ourselves on a mental level. All we wanted was somewhere warm, something to eat, to sit down, and go to sleep. 7th station was a welcome relief, as it meant we were only about an hour away from taking a well earned rest!


By the time we reached 8th station, night had fallen and it was starting to get COLD!!! Grateful for a place to sit down and thaw out, we watched the last of the setting sun and inhaled our curry rice. Still starving we bought a cup of noodles and a cup of hot chocolate – yumo! While at dinner Shim was sitting with his legs crossed, like when people meditate. We attempted it and failed, we acheived balance for about thirty seconds and then sort of rolled over onto our sides. Totti stated “Shim, I don’t know how you can sit like that!”, the funny thing was, Shim looked completely shocked and responded with “Oh, sorry!!!” and immediately uncrossed his legs. We absolutely wet ourselves laughing, Totti was like “No no!! That’s not what I meant, I just mean I don’t know how you can sit like that ‘cause it’s really uncomfortable!”. Bless. So funny! Soon after eating and just sitting around in the warmth, our tiredness had caught up with us and we were keen to get to bed as soon as possible. The prospect of being woken up at 2.30am and setting out into the freezing cold was going to be a killer!


Our sleeping quarters were just one big room with three levels in it. On each level there were about 20 sleeping bags on matts, so we all spent a rather cosy evening sleeping with 40 complete strangers. It wasn’t hard to fall asleep, we were so exhausted and sore that we literally just passed out.


2:30am came around all too quickly; getting out of the toasty sleeping bags was definitely a struggle. We put on all our extra layers, tucked our pants into our socks, bought two pairs of gloves each and rugged up, ready to brave the cold outside. Cold is an understatement. It. Was. FREEZING. We began our ascent to the summit, when the wind picked up our faces became frost bitten and numb, as did all our extremities. Despite our tiredness we were very much awake, the cold made sure of that. The climb was much the same as the previous leg – the incline was so steep and it was like rock climbing again. As we crept higher and higher the greenish tinge on the horizon slowly grew redder and redder. The sun still hadn’t risen but it was getting closer. This went on for a good two hours before we FINALLY made it to the top. Crossing that final threshold was the most enormous sense of relief I think we have ever felt. We made it. Take that, Mt. Fuji! Did we mention it was freeeeeezzzzzzinnngg! It didn’t take long for the sun to start rising now, there is nothing we can say to possibly describe this view, in this case we just have to let the images speak for themselves. Despite the amazing view, our body temperatures were falling fast and the wind was not helping!!! Totti started to feel unwell and almost passed out – don’t you just love altitude sickness! It was definitely a sign that it was time to go, so we began our descent. On the way down the sun was still rising, we stopped along the way to take one final action shot, definitely in the top 5 for the entire trip. As we got lower the sun continued to rise and proceeded to thaw us out nicely. It was a rather entertaining few hrs, we witnessed some first class stacks, where instead of helping people back up, we opted to point and laugh instead. Mature. This however came back to bite us in the arse, as we then proceeded to fall flat on our bums several times each.


The feeling we got when we finally made it off the mountain was almost as good as making it to the top. Because we like to talk about our feelings, we felt that climbing Mt. Fuji was a rather symbolic way to end our trip. It was now time to head to the Japanese hot springs. We were told that everyone was to bathe naked. I was hesitant but Totti was keen, so once we got there, I passed out in the lobby and Totti went off to get naked. When she returned squeaky clean it was time to go and eat!


It had been such a long couple of days that we were keen to get to our hostel and just get a solid, uninterrupted sleep. Once we got back into Tokyo we went back to our first hostel and collected our bags. The thought of having to drag all of our luggage and ourselves back through the metro was a no go. We opted for a cab instead *praises lord*. Such a relief! We checked into the Ace Inn, and went up to our dorm. Our beds were really cool, they were like little rectangular caves in the walls with mattresses, a shelf and a lamp inside them and a curtain for a door. Totti got the top bunk and I was happy that I could simply just roll into my bed lol. So after a hot shower, for the first time on our trip we didn't even think about eating, we relished the fact that there would be no alarm to wake us up the next morning, and we were asleep as soon as we hit the pillow.


ZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZ!!!!!


Day 129:


Sooooooooooooo sleepy!!! We slept in till 11.FML, excruciating physical pain. Mt fuji had dominated. Stiff and sore, we complained all the way down to the showers where we just stood under the hot water without actually doing anything lol. We decided that we needed to do something fun that didn’t really require much thinking or effort, so we thought that spending the day at Tokyo Dome City would be the perfect remedy. The Dome is just a stadium and home to the Giants, the baseball team, but what we were interested in was the giant theme park that the Dome city lived in. It was time for rollercoaster domination! We were already overwhelmed by all the options, but the second thing we noticed was that all the people there were dressed as cartoon characters of some kind and were taking photos of each other. We found this strange yet amusing at the same time. Boys dressed as girls, girls dressed as boys, other's you couldn't really tell apart lol. Some  outrageous costumes! The colour of their hair, the hairstyles, different coloured contact lenses. It was insane! Wow, we just used a crap load of exclamation points! - A thankyou :p We later found out that this thing that they do is called Cos Play; in a nutshell they do it to escape the codes and conventions of normal everyday life. We spotted a group of girls dressed as soccer players so we approached them and asked for a photograph. We burst out laughing when all of them lifted their hands and made peace signs, it was so very Asian lol. Naturally we joined in :p When in Rome!


From here on the hardest choices we had to make were which ride to go on first!! They all had names like “Thunder Dolphin” and “Death Drop”, definitely a ride we wanted to go on! The first one was like a rollercoaster/waterslide, it was A-Mazing. First the ride takes you along a small length of river, then it goes onto the rollercoaster bit and for the grand finale there’s like a 50m drop down into the pool and there’s lots of splashing/screaming and raised hands. Yaaaaayyyy! From there it was all about spinning, rotating rides full of craziness. But the best ride we went on was by far the Thunder Dolphin. It was the biggest rollercoaster we have ever seen. It went through a ferris wheel, went upside down, twirled around all at 130 km per hr. The best part about it was the beginning. You are pulled up an almost vertical incline of about 70m and then it stops at the top of this HUGE drop. It lingers and lingers and all of a sudden it feels like you’re falling without being attached to anything. Crazy! So with our guts still back on the platform and the gale force winds in our hair, we threw up our hands and screamed like little girls as we were thrown up, down, around and everything in between. Seriously awesome fun! We did it twice :p We even bought a copy of the automatic photos they take of you; one is taken at the start, we are looking super confident and excited, as if this was going to be a walk in the park. The other is taken at the beginning of a huge drop, our facial expressions change to pure terror lol. HILARIOUS!


We had a super action packed day and were hoping to go to one of the nice spa’s located, conveniently enough, inside the Dome City mall. It was super fancy and looked absolutely awesome. It would have worked a treat as we were so sore!! Unfortunately though, in Japan, tattoos are frowned upon and we were refused entry into the spa. Fail! The reason for this is that in Japan, only the Mafia used to get tattoos, so for this reason, they are seen as a sign of disrespect and they basically think you’re a criminal :p So with that, we decided to call it a day and headed back to our hostel for another good night’s rest. Tomorrow it was time to dominate Tokyo Disney Sea, yeah-yuh!!!


Day 130:


We have come to the realisation that we are in fact a pair of theme park whores. First Disney Land and Universal studios, now Tokyo Dome and Tokyo Disney Sea. It really is like stepping into a Disney film. Tokyo Disney Sea definitely delivers. On the way in we saw the Monsters Inc life size factory and the Peter Pan tree. Once we got into the gates of the theme park we had to catch the resort train line into Disney Sea. The train windows were in the shape of Mickey Mouse faces and the seats inside were big squishy couch type things. Anyway, as we got closer, the more excited we were. This place is definitely awesome – the bay in the middle is constructed to look like a combination of Venice/Florence and in the background you can see a giant volcano with a rollercoaster going through it, the city of Agrabah from Aladdin and the Temple of Doom where the Indiana Jones ride is. Among other cool things to see, there was a giant Haunted house and the Tower of Terror. It was going to be a good day :p


We quickly noticed that people were enjoying icy poles in the shapes of Mickey/Mini mouse faces. Naturally we hunted down the nearest ice cream stall and opted for the apple juice flavour! Yumo!


There isn’t really much more to say except for the fact that we were probably more excited about being here than the 5 year old children :p We did most of the rides and tried to do some of the activities – at one stage we were given little palm computers which had sub titles on them, we were the token tourists once again, but we thought we looked really cool :p


Overall it was an awesome day and well worth it. We might have to pay Dreamworld a visit this summer to avoid getting any theme park withdrawal :p


Day 131:


Did someone say Sumo? YUP! We had finally arrived in a country at the right time! We missed Shaggy and Snoop Dog in Vegas by one day, we missed the grand opening of the Harry Potter theme park in Orlando by ONE DAY, we missed the August festival in Italy by ONE DAY, we missed the Tomato throwing and the bullfights in Spain by ONE DAY! But today, we finally caught a break – we were in Japan at the RIGHT TIME.


Ela: Dude!! I’m really excited about seeing the Sumo’s!!!!


Totti: Yeah me too!! I just wanna hear them slap together!!!


Clearly we’ve both got our priorities right lol. We took photos of each other pinching the Sumo’s nipples on the mural outside the stadium and made our way inside. Just a little background info – a Sumo makes a base salary of roughly 100,000k annually. This is without the 4 bonuses they receive from the government per annum. I think becoming Sumo’s is probably the wisest career moves for both of us – all we have been doing is eating! Even if we lose, we still make 100 grand a year and we get to eat our little hearts out. Lol. As soon as we saw the first Sumo lumber out of the change rooms we instantly just recalled all the Fat Bastard quotes we could remember. These guys are MASSIVE! Their Sumo undies literally look like g-bangers because their butt cheeks and muffin tops overwhelm them. It looks like they just have massive wedgies! Besides that, and what boggled out minds even more, was the fact that they could lift their legs higher than their heads......WTF!!!! We can’t even do that and we are1/4 of the size of these blokes. Life is hard. Wah.


Watching them hit each other just looked like two semi trailers crashing. It was pretty intense even though each fight only lasted 45 seconds maximum. Still harping on about their ridiculous salaries, conversations such as the following crop up:


Ela: Dude....every other professional athlete can actually enjoy their winnings....these guys couldn’t even buy a Ferrari if they wanted, cause they wouldn’t be able to fit in it!!! I bet they have really hot girlfriends too. Vomit.


Totti (laughing) : Nar, they probably have their Grand Jeep Cherokee waiting in the car park. And gross – how would they have sex?! Wait! Don’t answer that!


And so you get the idea :p Once we’d had enough of half naked/ morbidly obese men slapping against each other, it was time to head to Miho’s house for our home stay!! We were really excited about this because we would finally get to try some traditional Japanese home cooking! Miho and her father picked us up from the train station and took us to their kick ass house in the burbs. We sat down to a delicious dinner which had raw fish (yes, we ate it!!) a beef and potato salad, egg salad and sushi. It was YUMMY!! Miho’s parents were so kind and very cute – they took photos of us all together as a family – awwwww. And while discussing random topics at the table, Miho’s dad would whip out his translator on the occasion just to make sure he had the right word. Too cute! We exchanged a high five over the fact that his favourite actress is Angelina Jolie. It was so nice to be able to sit down at a real dinner table with a family and just talk about our day. Quote of the evening - Miho "I hate Sydney, there's too many Asians!" LOL! It's funny.......cause she's Asian :p A-Thankyou!


After dinner we were heading to one of our most anticipated activities yet – yes, that’s right, Karaoke in Japan!!! WOO!. We have now seriously considered opening our own business. This place was AWESOME! It’s sort of like a miniature hotel, there are about 4 floors and each room is a private booth with a huge plasma screen, couches, a table and an awesome sound system. You have a phone in there to place your drink orders and basically just sing the night away. On the way up to our room we collected maracas and a tambourine – heaven help the people in the lobby, we were about to sing up a storm. We spent two hours singing and dancing around with Miho and her boyfriend – the song selection was incredible, you could choose from a book that was about the size of our yellow pages!! The endless possibilities!!


A night of great food, good company and fun times!


Day 132:


It was nice to ease into the day. We woke up to a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast and fresh fruit. Bless you Mrs Tabata, you’re a legend! It was delicious! Today we were heading in to Harajuku, one of Tokyo’s more well known cultural hubs. Everything from high end fashion to alternative markets and your usual H&M type stuff. We enjoyed a huge crepe each and began our journey into this crazy, busy place. One of the more amusing streets we walked down was probably the highlight of the day. It was called “Takeshita Street” – how we laughed. It has been photographically documented for proof lol. We were also thoroughly amused by a sign outside the barber shop. It had a price list for cuts, colour, etc. It also had the price for an “Aflo” LOL!!!! Yes, Miho, it is actually pronounced Af- RO!!! Priceless!


We headed back to Shinjuku for some dinner – yes we know we get excited about food, but tonight was going to be extra exciting, as we would get to cook it ourselves! We went to a restaurant where you have your own little grill as a table. Your order the ingredients fresh and you cook your own meal on the spot! We had fun imitating the tepenyaki chefs, flipping the food and throwing it up in the air for each other to catch. We enjoy interactive cooking lol.


After dinner we headed to a gig; Miho’s friend was performing and we had been invited as VIP guests – woo! He sang mostly soul, but it was cool as it was all sung in Japanese. Of course we were right up the front of the stage, dancing like complete idiots. The entire bar was giving us strange looks – we were the only ones cheering him on and clapping. No, for once we weren’t the strange ones! The crowd just wouldn’t get into it. Either way, we still had fun, and performed all our best dance moves in order to keep the party alive. At least Miho and Steph thought we were funny!


Day 133:


What to do on your last day overseas?......Buy new external hard drives in electric city. YUP. Buy new Asics sneakers. YUP. Get caught in a torrential down pour. YUP. Go and eat lunch at the same place as the night before. YUP! Once we’d shopped and eaten we made our way back to the hostel to collect our bags and headed to the air port one last time. It was an odd feeling, to think that our huge adventure was finally coming to a close. The positives being that we would no longer have to lug our lives around with us on our backs any more, sleeping in our own beds, eating normal food again, normal showers. The prospect of returning to reality was sobering yet exciting at the same time.


And so we caught the train to the air port and checked in our baggage. It felt like our last couple of hours in Tokyo had just melted away and we were buckling our seatbelts, preparing for take-off. We watched the flight attendants do their safety demonstration, something we had become so accustomed to. The turbines flared up and the plane streaked down the runway; we began to ascend and Japan became a grid of street lights and cars, thousands of feet below. We were finally heading home.


The wait in Sydney airport was an agitated one – we were so close now! The first thing we did once in the terminal was switch on our phones and ring everyone we could think of to let them know we were back. Hearing familiar voices made us more keen than ever to hop on our little plane back into Canberra. After a two hour wait, it was finally time to make the last leg of our trip. We walked out onto the tarmac with all the other passengers and took our seats at the rear of the plane. To commemorate the occasion, Totti farted one last time, in that small confined space, and prompted me to smell it. Something that I will and won’t miss equally! As the familiar surroundings started to come into view, we were keen to get off the plane and finally, after four and a half incredible months, say hi to our Mums and Dads.


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89 Microsoft Word pages later and we have come to the bittersweet ending of Ela & Kate’s AMAZING adventure of 2010. We’d like to say a huge “thankyou” to everyone for being a faithful Flogger and Bogger for the past 5 or so months, and to all of the new followers we have collected along the way. You have read about the endless fart jokes and that in itself is an achievement – now you’re going to have to deal with the real thing :p An even bigger “thankyou” to all the amazing people we have crossed paths with – none of this would have been half as memorable if we didn’t have you to experience it with. You have created some unforgettable memories with us and we will be looking back on these with smiles on our faces for many years to come. The added bonus being that you now give us more reasons to leave The Berra and come for road trips ; yeah-yuh!!!


There isn’t one word to possibly be able to describe this entire experience, so here are a select few to try and encompass it; Smiles, laughs, farts, food, new friends, super cool activities, dancing (only like we know how, it’s a sight to see), poo, more laughs, locating Jamaican Princes, Totti acheived her long luscious hairs, we dominated with our soccer skills with the little amigos in mexico, more food, too many cocktails & rum+coke, roller-coasters, farts, and just total global domination; take that, Ellen DeGeneres!


It’s with a heavy heart that, for the last time, we sign off with “Say hi to your dad for us”. We have had an absolute ball and we can truly say that we did indeed “Fuck shit up!”.


Much love, farts, and everything in between!!


Sayonara!


Ela & Kate x x x