DAG 125: last pictures and stories of Japan

And so after 125 days my travels comes to an end, and i am back home again. Its rainy and the sky is grey..so what can i say: i miss Asia allready. But still there are some pictures and photos left of my last days in Japan.


The conviencestore Lawson had an action.
You could save up point to get free Miffy Chopsticks
(Dick Brunas famous Rabbit, we call Nijntje.
Which is the last word of Ko-nijntje which means rabbit in dutch).
The shopassistents of Lawson were laughing when i bought
enough sushi and Onigiri to get those chopsticks.


Onigiri are typicall japanese riceballs covered in seaweed.
They make a good snack or breakfast. You also can get them in Korea
and they arevery tasty and spicy here, while in Japan the Onigidi is
nowadays covered in Mayonaise.
My friend Sunghee already put a story on her blog about the relationship
between the colors on the wrap and whats in it. Very helpfull if you dont
understand Japanese.
This time itdidnt matter i had to buy them all to get those miffy chopsticks.


When i was back in Tokyo i wanted to have last dinner in a
fancy restaurant. But i changed my plans because HIM played in town,
so i ended up in this place i call 'the lonely hearts club restaurant'
Its a very very very very really very cheap place to eat.
Tou can have dinner for 3 euros.
You buy a dinnerticket in a vendinmachine and within
30 seconds you got a plate of food in front of you.
You never see women in thess places. Its not the best place to
take your date to.
So you only see single dudes (even without friends) in these places.
I fitted in perfectly ;)


So what you do as a music geek on your last day in Tokyo.
Yes you g to a gig. This night the american bands
The Glorytellers (with ex karate members) adnd Him were playing.
Dont confuse HIM with the finish metalact with the same name.
This HIM is the project of drummer Doug Scharin
(of Tortoise, Miceparade and The eleventh daydream fame).
To be honest i think the HIM records are a little bit boring
(its souns like Tortoisebut not that good)
but live....extended with the Japanse band Ultra living, it was amazing.
I cant find the wright english words.
het was de meest rete-strakke-impro-jazz-postrock.


The whole trip was amazing.
I have been to these beautifull places and i have met
many friendly, helpfull, kind and beautifull people!
Some of them have become my best friends.
I was a little bit sad when i got home, but that changed when
i found a postcard of Sunghee in the mail
with a huge colorfull newspaperphoto of Korean nature at spring time
We hope to see you again? I AM SURE!


HIM + Ultra Living @ O-nest Tokyo

Dag 124: Yesterday was dramatic, today is ok

No....nothing wrong here. It is the beautifull title of one of my favorite albums of the islandic band Mum. I should have had a local dish "hitsumabushi" (an eel dish) with one of my favorite acts from Japan Lullatone. But i ended up with having dinner with band Mum instead.

Anyone tried to ring me lately? You will get a Lullatone song on my voicemail. Their music made me smile a lot this year. Lullatone describes their music as cute minimalism. For me it sounds like the perferct soundtrack of the Hello Kitty world. So when i flew back to Japan i was getting in their hometome: Nagoya (the 4th biggest city in Japan) and because they love food too, plans for dinner were easily made. But as it happens, plans were canceled because they got foodpoisoning (the dangers of loving food and want to try everything, i think).

Luckily the islandic band Mum was performing in Nagoya at the Quattro club. Quattro is a chain of venues located in Osaka, Fukuoka, Nagoya and Tokyo. And how convieniant they are located on top of a shopping mall. So you can combine Japans favorite hobby: shopping, with going out. Never in the world will you get a better dressed audience as in Japan. And no wonder there are more women in the audience then men. At 20:30 the gig is finished, so you still have half an hour to get a new wardrobe. The band felt sorry for me that i missed dinner and i could join them. The Hitsumibashi have to wait untill i am back in Japan next time.


Mum live at Quattro

Dinner with Mum.


This is a wonderfull song by Mum

Lullatone. the clip is so funny. There is another clip
in the first post i made. It would have been great
meeting them. But i"ll be back (for sure)

DAG 122: The other way round.....

I posted a new story and i left around midnight the internetcafe. Just a few hours to go and i am heading of back to Japan. So how to spend my last australians dollars. Well i could use a drink. I finally spotted this nice and quiet bar. No loud annoying discobeats and also no stupid drunken aussies (at this time enough of them). But when i tried to get in the 'black' security didnt let me in. 'cant let you in bro' he said. Why not , i replied, is the bar closed....No i think you had enough allready!!!! Whats that, I didnt had a drink for the last two weeks. Last beer i had was on new years eve. I feel 'white guy with hanging eyelids' dicrimination here. I didnt wear thongs or sportsshoes either. Did this guy got refused in Amsterdam and was he out for revenge?
And it also happened to me on the way to australia. Just wanted a beer in the plane, and i only had a little bit of wine with dinner. And to get a little bit relaxed (its still me on a plane you know), i asked for a beer. The steward looked at me, if i was going to harras the pretty stewards and passenger on the plane and give me an alcohol free beer! Well tomorrow i am back to the vending machines: can buy beer on the streets!

This is by the way the original posting:

Everything in australia is huge! Not only the country, the distances but also the food. Wanna get a coke? its more than half a liter. Everything here is just a little bit more. Cans of softdrinks? ....0,38l. I remember that Markus and me were glad to find a thick piece of chocolate in Seoul, instead of the thin 60 grams bars they got everywere else in Korea. But here in Australia its hard to get one under the 250grams. No wonder that the weight of Australians is getting an issue, not only on television (they report that 45% of the australians are overweighted) but also between travelers: do you think the australians are fat? It was even the first thing my friend Emily asked me when i met her. Well after two month traveling in Asia, it was one of the first things i noticed. But according to the canadians i have met its not that bad: the americans are fatter!

I think the general national weight is reduced due to the many asians that live here. Or as a korean guy stated to me: i don't like sydney, because it is like Korea, too many koreans! And they are indeed everywere. The streets of Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Cairns are crowded by korean people, most of the signs are even in two languages: korean and English.

I remembered this biting Mountain Goats song about dying love

'somebody else's parking lot in sata cruz'

it all starts here: at the opera house of Sydney!

When i see the first contours of the biulding. I shiver.

Its a masterpiece. It costed wat too much and it took over 16 years to built it.

Its a true orgasm for the eye! Got speechless.

over 1 milloin tiles are in the rooodtiles.

The tiles are not white, but creme, because

of the reflection of the sun

I visited a contemporary dance performance inside the opera building.

Called 'construct' The opening was not only funny, but

it was a battle between a automatic screwdriver and

impossible moves of the dancers.

I read later that the choreographer of this piece, Tanja Liedtke

recently died in a caraccident.


Visited a Sydney Nolan exhibition.

Nolan is the one of the most important artists of Australia.

His works of Ned Kelly are quit remarkable.

Kind of selfreflection of the artist inside the most famous villan of australia.

(see picture)

This is one of the things i will miss.

Auzzies excellent coffee.

Everywhere you go, they have real coffee.

Got addicted of the 'flat whites'

With a GPS system inside the botanique gardens

of Sydney. The GPS sends you to different places in the

garden and there a story of ghostly love was told.

It was a project of the Sydney Festival

DAG 119: On the streets of Brisbane

DAG 115: on a sailingtrip and movies of 2008

The second day of our sailingtrip i am walking on 'whitehaven beach' with my eyes closed. The bright sun is reflecting on the white sand and it hurts my eyes. I am asking myself how i am going to survive here without sunglases for the next hour. Whitehaven beach, postcardpicture perfect (it is one of the top 4 of most photographed point in australia. guess what is nr 1? that photo will pop up within a week on this blog), but Whitehaven beach is also triplesunburn perfect: by the sun, by the reflections of the water and by the reflections of the beach.

It was a wonderfull and relaxing trip. The stories come with the pictures. It was a beautiful trip with gorgeous islands and turtles popping up at the surface. And a lot of jellyfish! Big ones, small ones. There seems to be 600 types of jellyfish. Because of the dangerous ones we only could swim in a smelly and asexual stingersuit. It ruins the party in paradise a bit.

After this trip i took the nightbus to Brisbane. 20 hours in a crappy bus that showed a the horrible movie 'the cable guy'. No escaping that with full volume. I tried to read this moviemagazin and i really got excited about a lot of movies.

In Brisbane i went to the new film of Wes Anderson, the Darjeeling limited. How many movies can this man make about disrupted families? Although i think 'the life aquatic with Steve Zissou' is his masterpiece, this one is unbelievable funny again. And.......it stars Natalie Portman naked!
Talking about naked scenes. The new Ang Lee (brokeback mountain and director of my favorite movie about food 'eat drink man woman' ) 'Se Jie' seems to have some explicit sexscenes. The film has become a severe age rating in the USA. Luckily Ang Lee didnt want to make alterations so we still can see the balls of Tony Leung! (that must get your attention Ladies)
And 2008 got more big promises. The return of my heroes 'Batman' and 'Indiana Jones'. Being the only superhero who has an extreme darkside and didnt become superhero by radioactive bites or stupid medical experiments that has gone wrong, Batman is my favorite. Out of the hands of Joel Schumacher who almost killed Batman and in the hands of Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Prestige) Batman is the Darknight he should be again. This time the battle with my favorite supervillain The Joker begins.
There also a new flic of Michel Gondry (eternal sunshine of a spotless mind) coming up. 'Be kind rewind' is a comedy starring Jack Black and Mos Def(!). Its about two videostore workers that has erased all rentals by accident. The solution they come up with is to reshoot all the movies by themself. Sounds good doesnt it? Gondry is also filming a script of Daniel Clowes (the comicbook writer of Ghost world). And this is not the end of this commercial.....because i got really excited by the fact that that there will be a new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Being the writer and director of the classics 'Boogienights' and 'Magnolia' I think that Paul Thomas is one of the most talented man of this era.

And my favorite movie of 2007? I was struck by the amazing visuals of '300' it was true to the Frank Miller story. It was even better than Sin City.
What happened to the new Won Kar Wai movie? Everywhere i come it isn't released yet, but it also not in the list of 2008. I wanna see Norah!


Our salingboat sailing along the islands of whitsundays.


The Skipper



First stop. Whitsunday island. In the top 4 of most photographed places in Australia




Pics of Whitehaven beach.


All 24 people on board slept under the sky. Our reward a great starshow.
There were shooting stars gallore. Somebody asked what i wished for.
My mind was blank i told her. Nothing to wish for, I think i must be satisfied how things are going.
We also looked for the 'southern cross' the group of stars that is in the australian flag.
The boatcrew used a 'starfinders guide' but there were to many stars to find it.


The third day we stopped at this sany island, Langford.
On one site of this island there is a big reef, on the other side there are a lot of rocks.
We went snorkling at the reef. I was pleased to see a tiny reefshark,
but when i came out of the water and looked at the rocky site. I saw plenty of stingrays and blacktip reefsharks.
And even a shovelnose shark!


Although the clouds on the background dont promise anything good,
I meet a lot of people, traveling the same or oposite
directions, who are complaining about the 'shitty' weather.
But I am still traveling with the sun. Seems to be connected to my backpack.


Back in Airlie Beach i went for Sushi.
And i found this perfect east meets south product
A kangaroo-sushiroll. It was delicious. Took three plates ;)

DAG 110: Last day of the year.

So what do you do on the last day of the year? Well that thing that you enjoyed the most during the whole year: i went diving again. This time i dived the SS Yongala, one of the largest and most intact historic shipwrecks in Australian waters. It is also a mass gravesite.

Built in 1903 the SS Yongala was one of the biggest passenger and freightsteamers at that time. It routed from Melbourne (south east) to Cairns (southwest) and had room for 110 1st class and 120 2nd class passengers. At 1:40op on 23 March 1911, the Yongala left Mackay bound for Townsville on what would be its final voyage. Five hours later, the vessel passed the lighthouse keeper on Dent Island in the Whitsunday Passage, steaming into what was described as 'worsening wheater' With no radio onboard (the radio was to be installed in Cairns later on), the captain had little warning what lay ahead. This was the last sighting of the Yongala. All 122 people onboard lost their lives. The wreck was discovered in 1947 by the navy, but was first marked as a coralboomie until it was first dived in 1958. They discovered it was the Yongala by the serialnumber on a safe recovered from the wreck.

So at the end of 2007 i m floating above the Yongala and the view is amazing. Surrounded by sand the wreck has become a dynamic artificial reef that attracks a lot of small and big fish. The Yongala has become a real fishmagnet. I am surrounded by big groups of batfish, Mangrove jacks, sweetlips, trivallis and thousands of small fish. But the big winner this time is the leopardshark that is just resting in the sand outside the ship. A giant seaturttle (never have i seen such a bg one) and an enormous Queenland grouper, that has been nicknamed 'VW' by the divecrew. VW because the fish equals the size of a small Volkswagen .

Did i mention in my blog that snakes freak me out? Well where ever i look i spot the olive seasnake, the most poisonious snake in the world. Luckily he cant bite hard, or he must get to your earlob, otherwise you die in a sec. Nice to know. But i survived the last day of the year!

The Yongala dive was one of the most impressive dives i did so far. Floating around on a depth of 25m (never felt so bouyant in my life) looking through the holes of the wreck and spotting so much sealife. Not a bad way to end my year.

The next day i wake up at 09:00 excactly, midnight in the netherlands. They started celibrating New Year at that moment. Someone explained to me, that someone must have been thinking at me at that mioment :) Thank you!
TO EVERBODY: HAPPY NEW YEAR AND I HOPE THAT YOUR WISHES WILL COME TRUE IN 2008!!


The SS Yongala in better times


The Yongala has become a fishmagnet


And they arent small either!!! Olive seasnake