After a two week spell as lifestyle and documentary photographer for Aston Martin, I was joined by David for a week long holiday in the region of Catalonia where we based ourselves in the beautiful medieval village of Begur.

Begur is a stunning hilside village, it’s steep on the way in and steep on the way out and is surrounded by luscious landscape, mountains and the sea. Long gone were the Aston Martin Rapide’s and soon we were settled into the lazy days of the Catalonian way of life! Although this wouldn’t be a Notworkrealted post without some kind of activities going on.

Based on the wonderful world of Trip Advisor we found our lovely guesthouse; The Aiguaclara, which is located in the heart of Begur. Thanks to all the raving reviews we had no question as to whether this would be the right place for us to base ourselves during our stay. Straight away there was a warm welcome by the hosts Clara and Joan who rennovated this colonial-style built in 1866, and they’re personality is all over the place with vintage decor, quirky objects and antiques scattered throughout. It’s a considered design across 4 stories, with each room unique from the other.

Happy with our choice of accommodation we then went on to explore the village, which in 1 evening is easy enough to do. We ate in the restaurant at the hotel “Fet Amb Love” which basically sums this place up and then walked up to the Castle. Which at night with a full moon is very rewarding.

On our first day as tourists we ventured out on a coastal walk thanks to a walking trails map provided by the hotel. From Begur we took the downhill route to Sa Tuna, greeted by many locals enjoying the escape of the city, we explored a path off to the right and up to a viewing point at Mirador de St Josep, before turning back down to the bay and taking the coastal path along to Sas Vaques and before long Aguafreda. At this point it was a little unlcear as to where the path was leading us but we cut inland on the road and then found the path again a little higher up en-route to Sa Reira. Eventually the signs re-appeared and so it wasn’t difficult to navigate. We continued the walk to Sa Riera, at which point we stopped for lunch in a local Tavern before enjoying a quiet moment on the beach. From Sa Riera we took a pleasant forest trial leading back up to Begur by which point it was 4pm and we’d hiked about 11km. It was a lovely walk lots of steep ups and downs but on a clear day some beautiful bays to take in.

For days 2 and 3 of our time in the area we hired a car through the hotel from a local car-hire company based in Palafrugell. It cost us 101 Euros for 2 days including insurance and 2 drivers. Fuel is pretty cheap in Spain so we only spent 40 Euros in 2 days.

We drove up to Figueres once we had received our little Chevrolet Matiz which from Begur took about an hour. Once in Figueres we managed to find free parking a little away from the Dali museum and we joined the ever-growing queue to get into the museum, it took a further hour before we were paid the 12 Euro entrance fee and were inside!

We hadn’t really anticipated the Easter vacationers coming into the area from Barcelona. The Dali Theatre Museum cost 12 Euros each to get in but this is like no other museum either of us have visited before! Described as being the largest surrealist object in the world, the theatre is home to ideas, dreams, sketches, objects and just about everything Dali ever imagined brought into real life. It’s really interesting, fun and engaging. A little bit like stepping into a circus allowing for the imagination to gather and grow. The only problem for us were the hundreds of other visitors muscling their way in and out of each space, oh and not to mention those using flash on their cameras to document it all! Why?!
We were on a Dali-fueled mission and drove out to Cadaques and Portlligat, which is a lovely drive over the hills and down to the coast. Portlligat is where Dali lived and his home is now a museum, the only problem being that we didn’t have tickets to get in and it was fully booked until Easter Monday. So we wandered around the quiet bay, enjoyed some patatas bravas and then drove to Cadaques. This place is definitely worth a visit on a sunny day. Again it was packed full or visitors but it really is a stunning coastal town. Much bigger than Begur, oozing character and every corner holding a link to Dali.

We found a small gallery ran by local legend and photographer Joan Vehi who houses hundreds of photographs taken during his lifetime. Draws listing from the 1960′s through to modern day and famous reportage shots of Dali in the area. Really worth a peek if you are ever there. We finished our evening with a walk up to the castle and Paella at one of the local restaurants in the village.

On our second day with the Matiz we ventured further afield, I wanted to share a few places with Dave that I had taken in on launch with the Rapides. Although the Matiz isn’t quite up to scratch with an Aston Martin we managed to get to Besalu where lots of Easter celebrations were taking place. This is a really stunning medieval village again built up around churches and with a large characterful square in the centre. It’s a great place to explore, lots of cobbled walk-ways, cafe’s and bars as well as views across the river towards the bridge built in 1066 or there about.

We followed our sightseeing tour out towards Ripoll and after another hour of driving we landed in Fibes De Freser where lunch was booked up in Ventola at Anna’s mountain restaurant. You can’t get a better authentic Catalonian mountain hut than this for food and service. They took Dave and I under their wing and were fantastic hosts for the afternoon, only reassuring further their gratitude at being the Aston Martin lunch stop of choice for the Rapide launch. This time with no Aston’s in sight the restaurant was packed to the rim of tourists, locals, hikers and skiers all following their noses to this legendary restaurant. Owned by Anna, a former Olympic skier, and ran by her loyal staff they run up and down the stairs with hot plates of food, sweat on their brow there is never a rest at this place! We enjoyed a great lunch and vow to go back their one day. With 3 meals in one we didn’t need to eat out that night! So it was a DVD back in our Aigua Clara home and a glass of Esmeralda white wine.

On our final day in Begur it rained! It was very misty and we didn’t have a car, so we simply spent our day in and around the hotel, walked a little, read, edited some photographs and enjoyed food with friends later on. We really loved Begur as a place to base ourselves whilst exploring the depths of the Catalonian region and the comforts of the Aigua Clara Hotel meant we had a home from home to relax at in between the sight seeing.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, Nikon D600, Nikon 50mm f1.4, processed in Lightroom 3)

We had a long journey from Thattakad to eventually find ourselves in Delhi early evening of the 17th. We started at 4am from Ms Sudah’s home-stay in a taxi which took an hour to reach Kochin airport, from where we had an early flight to Chennai. As we had changed our travel plans a little last minute we couldn’t connect our later flight to coincide with the early arrival at Chennai and so we spent a good four hours or so working on the blog and editing whilst we sat in the Chennai airport departures lounge waiting for check-in to open. We had a 1.25pm flight to Delhi which got us in just before 4pm. When we exited the airport we picked up a taxi and went straight to our B&B, G-49 Bed & Breakfast located in Nizamuddin West.

After we checked into our very nice ground floor room we simply kicked back and relaxed before deciding on heading out for a walk. The bed and breakfast is a really nice building located on a corner and with only 5 rooms they were full, although the place wasn’t exactly bustling with people as the rest of the guests were a documentary film crew from Switzerland working on a project in the local area. We decided to stay local and explore the streets after getting our food order in for later on. Nizamuddin is the heart of the Islamic district in Delhi and so only a few steps out of the B&B we were submersed in rich culture and flare as we wandered around the back alleys.

Dress-makers were in full swing whilst children huddled around us to be photographed and passers by crossed us in their cycle rickshaws. It was all quite over-whelming having spent most of our time in India in the relaxed Southern states. When we were back at G-49 we enjoyed palak paneer, rice and a mixed vegetable curry. There aren’t many accessible eateries in this area so the owner suggested we eat in. We did feel like we were cheating a little but after all this time on the road it didn’t really matter.

The next morning we were up fairly early and enjoyed a good breakfast of eggs, toast, muesli and fruit, enough to set us up for a solid day of Delhi’s sights. First on our list was Humayun’s Tomb which is only a 10 minute walk from the guesthouse. When we got there we were chuffed to find out that there was no charge of entry as the date marked 150 years since the site was graded as a World Heritage monument. A free day for us so far!

The main tomb is massive, built by a grieving wife, Dave requested that Helen should build one for him to mark his existence on the planet…hm! They did like to go over-board on these monuments though, it was a fantastic build holding the tomb of Mughal Emperor Humayun and commissioned in 1562AD.

They really did know how to do it back then and this particular tomb is said to have been a huge influence on the build of the Taj Mahal. The walled gardens are well kept and pleasant to walk around, we read that a renovation project had taken place around 2007. There were lots of school children in large groups being escorted around the site and so we were rushing ahead each time to get photographs of the space before they would come bounding in.

When we left the tomb site we jumped in a rickshaw and went to Lodi Gardens, on the way the driver kept trying to convince us we should hire him for the day but we didn’t want to caught in the trap of being taken to shopping malls and so managed to leave quickly as soon as we arrived at the gardens. We walked around this lovely site which is open to the public and has lots of nice paths interweaving their way through the park and along it’s edges. There are also ancient tombs and mosque’s in this park and we enjoyed the walk.

When we left Lodi Gardens we exited out of the north entrance which led us to a road up to India Gate. The walk took around 40 minutes and once we were at the gate we took a few photos and then left, mainly because we were being hassled by hawkers trying to sell us things we didn’t want, beads, henna, drinks, food etc…So off we went along Rajpath Road towards to the Parliament State and the Secretariat buildings, all of which are all fantastically built, symmetrically and very monumental indeed.

After we convinced a driver to take us to Connaught Place for 70 rupees we had to again persuade him not to take us to another mall or a different restaurant. When we arrived at Connaught Place we managed to find a vegetarian restaurant in L block that served excellent dosa’s, we were recommended to go there by one of the book shop owners we’d been chatting to earlier on. We’d already noticed the price difference between eating in Delhi compared to Kerala, prices were around double per meal.

We wandered around Connaught Place for a while, went into a few shops, explored the Janpath and Palika Bazaar’s and then went to the peaceful site of Jantar Mantar located very close to both market areas and Connaught Place. Neither of us were in the mood for shopping or haggling with the ever-keen and ready stall and shop owners and so we just scooted around before coming to a complete stop in Jantar Mantar. This is a very impressive architectural site made up of huge instruments built to measure and observe space. We couldn’t imagine these vast instruments being used and it really is a beautiful place to go and observe. This was also a free attraction and so we didn’t spend any money on sight-seeing other than our rickshaw rides.

We sat and people watched for some time before going round and documenting the place as best as we could. It was quite amusing to see the locals being distracted by a blonde 2 year old who was being carried by her American parents, people kept going up to them asking to be photographed with their young fair skinned daughter.

Later that night we ate at Karim’s one of Delhi’s most famous restaurants and there was one a 10 minute walk away from where we were staying. Again we delved back into the local area and enjoyed a very nice north-Indian cooked meal, what we didn’t know is that Karim’s is a mainly meat serving restaurant and so when we asked for vegetarian food we didn’t quite get looks of approval. The food we did have though was really good and different from what we’d experienced in the south.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0, 18mm f4, 90mm Tele-Elmarit f2.8 processed in Lightroom 3)

The skydive was off once again! We found this out bright and early and decided we would hang around for the morning to see if the weather would improve. With the help of the Motueka I-site staff we decided that the weather wouldn’t be getting better until the next day so armed with this information we moved our skydive once again and went north.

We drove over Takaka Hill which is and steep windy and took quite a while in “Po”, on the other side we stopped off to get a few bits for dinner and then drove on toward Totaranui a DOC campground located partway along the Abel Tasman coastal track. This was a further hour and a half with a scenic lunch break at a quiet bay along the way. The weather was improving at last. When we finally reached the campground we found a spot amongst the vast spaces on offer, this campground is huge and it does get full during the Christmas holidays. Thankfully for us we didn’t have to worry about having too many close neighbours and they have good shelters for cooking under too. We noticed straight away how many sand-flies were around to start feeding on us, so we quickly changed and went on a walk along the coastal route.

It’s not a particularly tasking path the Abel Tasman track but it does reward with great ocean views, with clear skies perhaps we could have appreciated it more. We made it to Awaroa Inlet where we couldn’t go any further along the track as it was high tide which makes it impassible. We watched and photographed the tide coming in quickly, turned around and took the path back to the campground passing back through the beautiful white sand beaches. We enjoyed the rest of the evening back at the campsite which was a quiet event with a spot of ‘Peep Show’ on the agenda after a solid camp meal.

When we woke up the next day we realised that the skydive wouldn’t be happening…AGAIN!! It was absolutely chucking it down and we’d now come to the conclusion that the weather forecast is a little unpredictable over here! After a quick chat with Abel Tasman Skydive we decided to cancel with them completely and hope there would be another opportunity later in our travels. We had spent enough time moving around our agenda trying to fit this in and we were both ready to move on.

But not until we explored Takaka a little more. Helen had been here a few years earlier and was left with fond memories and wanted to share this with Dave. Although it was damp and grey we started with a drive to Te Waikoropupu Springs (also known as the Pupu Springs), one of the largest natural springs in the world. Neither of us have seen a natural spring on this scale before and it was really interesting. This is a cold spring which bubbles out of the ground and the water is crystal clear.

We then drove into Takaka and walked around the little town streets taking in the museum and art gallery; very twee would be our description. We also found the Wholemeal Cafe who’s cookbook Helen had been reading when we were staying with Vic and Dave. We enjoyed a lovely lunchtime dinner at the Cafe and found time to do a little work on the blog. The food at the Wholemeal Cafe is really good, Dave had a vegetarian jungle curry and Helen the salmon and pesto pasta. We were happy to be enjoying another cooked meal as this was supposed to be Helen’s birthday treat in the first place. We also bought cookbook number 2 which at $40 is expensive but their approach to cooking is very realistic and achievable and we also thought we would start using the recipes as we travel to spice up our cooking adventures.

On our way out of Takaka we popped into the I-site to get a few more ideas as to what to see in the area. We were strongly recommended to go to The Grove. We clambered amongst its limestone formations under tropical leaf coverage and as we were leaving we spotted a sign for Anahata; the yoga retreat where Helen had stayed when she was here in 2009.

For the rest of the day it rained as were driving out of the area and into the West Coast region. We made it as far as a DOC campground located at the Lyell township historical site. The town is no longer there and the campground marks the entrance to this area. We read into the history of the gold mining place and then trekked out toward old mining equipment remains along the river gorge. The sandflies were upon us once again so we hid away in the van for the rest of the night.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We had a late start to the day with the idea that we wanted to set the tent up to give it a clean, do some writing and clothes washing. So by 1pm we were ready to set off and we walked to a local Dim Sum restaurant called Dim Sum King! It pretty much lived up to its expectations but we always forget that they don’t tend to have a big vegetarian or fish selection in these places! Even the sticky rice had minced pork inside!

After some research into car hire and a trip to REI‘s flagship store we managed to pick up a few essentials for our camping trips ahead. We continued our urban hike through the hilly streets to the funk that is Capitol Hill. It’s very different from the main parts of the city and offers more of an eclectic atmosphere with lots of bars, cafe’s, vintage shops and restaurants. We stopped for some food at Oddfellows, perhaps not so great for the budget conscious but we shared a salad, a veggie lasagne and some fries, which was more than enough for us both and the food was very good! This place has kept it’s charm with original features, signs and a mish-mash of wooden furniture.

With our stomachs full we continued to wander the streets of Capitol Hill and a few doors down from Oddfellows is the Elliot Bay Book Company where we picked up some Joe Nesbo novels (one of which we dug deep for in the bargain books area) and a couple of notebooks for us to draw in, write and so on. The bookstore is amazing, it’s got a lovely charm to the place within its layout and it has a huge listing of books available, really something that we could do more of in the UK! We finished our evening by walking back through the streets from Capitol Hill to our neighborhood! We probably clocked up around 10 miles or so – if you’re doing Seattle by foot, wear trainers!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f/2.0, Leica 90mm f/2.8, Zeiss 18mm f/4 ZM processed in Lightroom 3)

We were due for a pick up at 7.30am but it wasn’t until around 8 that the bus turned up, we ended up doing the rounds of the town picking up fellow travellers and en-route passed our place about 3-4 times! Once on our way it was a pleasant journey, we were pretty chuffed as we had the whole of the upper back row sleeper seats to ourselves – that’s 5! It’s a good tip actually when you’re doing the sleeper buses over in Vietnam the upper top or lower back end of the bus means you get a little more room and windows to get rid of the smell (if there is any!). Helen was feeling ill so slept and awoke for a few photos every so often, Dave happily snapped away through the back window and was rewarded for his efforts we think!

We arrived in Mui Ne at around 1.30pm and it was scorching, somewhere around 30 degrees or so. Very nice indeed but we had to look for somewhere to stay so onwards we walked to find accommodation, fortunately we bumped into Justin and Jules and they let us put our bags in their room at Mellow. A nice vibe place that is what its title says; Mellow! Oh and yellow!! We booked to stay there for the following nights as they had availability and found a room at the back of a restaurant a few doors down from Mellow for $15. For the ease and the fact that it was clean we stayed there for the night.

We managed to walk along the beachfront to catch a glimpse of the sunset before meeting up with J&J at The Lam Tong restaurant for dinner that night. Lam Tong is nicknamed ‘Long Time’ for good reason, the service is pretty poor, they don’t always get the right food to the right table and you may have to wait a while to eat. Still it’s cheap and pretty good for what you’re paying, they also do an excellent fruit plate which is tour 5 a day right there. We went along the beach for a few drinks and then went off to our beds!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We arrived at 8am in Hue after a bumpy overnight sleeper journey. The bus was packed with westerners which made a change from those our travels in China, but it was nice as Helen befriended a South-American Fashion journalist and watched a few episodes of Arrested Development. When we got to Hue we took our bags off the coach and were pointed towards the Google Hotel, here we had a quick pick me up in the form of some fruit and coffee and then went off to see a few sights before our onward bus scheduled at 1.30pm.

Hue is quite small so it’s easy enough to walk across the river and over to the main sights. It was raining and quite humid, and we passed by a war museum so stopped to take a look and saw some old American army tanks before taking in an exhibition on the Vietnam war. It’s not that big an exhibition but was a good introduction to the developments of the Vietnam war. As we left along very slippery paths we walked to the Imperial Palace which is probably the main attraction in Hue. It only cost 10,000 dong each which is around 33p so we forked out the cash and went inside along with several other tourists. After a brief stop to feed the fish we continued to walk around the Palace grounds and ruins, the site is mainly made up of old Palace rooms, some have been preserved to their original use whilst many others are still as they were since being bombed in the war. Tiled floors still form the ground to many rooms but only have wooden structures and the odd wall that show where the walls would have been.

After taking in the Palace grounds we walked to a Vegetarian restaurant on our way back to the hotel to meet the bus. We chose a few local dishes along with some rice and really enjoyed it. We then made our way back to the hotel and got the bus at 1.30pm as scheduled bound for Hoi An. We arrived there at around 5pm and went to find a hotel, we had provisionally booked one place but en-route were offered a cheaper and quite decent room so we opted for this one, breakfast was included and the room was a good size with en-suite. After checking in we went to explore this picturesque river-side town, as we ventured towards the riverside we became enveloped by old quaint houses, tailoring shops, restaurants and souvenirs. It is a very pretty town indeed and almost felt like a stage-set at times, perhaps a little over the top in terms of restoration and just oozed hundreds of western tourists on every street.

We opted for the Morning Glory restaurant close to the riverside but not on the river front for our evening meal. This came in the form of Vegetarian curry, salad, soup and grilled aubergine, each dish was bursting with flavour so based on this we decided to book ourselves onto their cooking class in two days time. Back to the hotel via some more quaint streets, tailoring shops and light displays. before an much needed early night was had.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We had a slow start to the new year, not a lot was done at all. Helen had quite a hangover for the first part of the morning but after a while and a re-hydration sachet she soon perked up. As the day went on we cuddled in the cafe and worked on editing and the blog. We had some good comfort food and went out for a little walk before heading into town to meet Emma and Doug for some local food. We ended up at a great cheap little clay pot restaurant away from West Street where you’ll find most backpackers eating away, you can eat a good meal for around £1. So having recovered from hangovers we swapped notes on our plans for South-East Asia and ended the night with a nice cup of chai.

We started the following day early with an hour or so of horse-riding accompanied by a local guide. The session was supposed to be an hour but Dave’s horse was a little slow so we ended up being on the horses for an hour and a half. Our guide couldn’t speak very good English so it was more about signaling and the odd whip to get the horses up to his pace. This was Dave’s first time on a horse, but they were pretty tame and we think the slow pace probably helped for the first-timers. Helen’s horse was well-behaved and just got on with it, trotting when instructed to and just followed his lead. The guide came along with 3 horses and met us at Trippers, he took the white horse which was the smallest and the most feisty so we were relieved that he was riding that one. It would have been nice to find out the names of the horses but we still managed to have a small bond! Our trip concluded by a little stop on a sandy beach where our guide proceeded to take a few photos of us with our new travel companions. It was a nice experience, perhaps a little pricey at £12 each, but we enjoyed it all the same.

We had planned to do some rock-climbing later on, but the weather came in and the temperature had dropped quite significantly so we decided to hire some bikes for the afternoon and make our way to Fuli. Tripper had given us some good advice on a route to Fuli away from the busy roads, the first part of the route took us back to where we’d been with the horses earlier on and we made out way to a little taxi ferry so we could cross the river to get to the start of the path. There was a man cooking his lunch and he was ready to eat signaling to his stomach, we tried to communicate that we didn’t mind waiting for him to eat but he left it cooking and took us over the river with our bikes. When we got to the other side we found the path straight away and set off on another biking adventure. Our target was Fuli and we had a map showing various paths and villages for us to go through. It definitely helped us to get warm and it was great riding along the bumpy trials. We’ve really enjoyed hiring bikes in China as it has always given us the best platform through which to explore in our own time. Most of the villages are very tranquil and it’s always great to see the culture of each place, seeing how people live with so little in contrast to the western world.

After some time we passed through orangeries and ended up on the road to Fuli. When we arrived there wasn’t really that much to see but we did stop for some lunch and meandered through the town’s streets until we came to the Li River. We were told we could pretty much cycle the length of the river back to Yangshou without going back onto the main road, this was the case for most of the journey and it was really good biking along the paths and through more villages, past more farmland and so on. After a while though our path led us back onto the main road and so we stuck with this until we got back into Yangshou.

We hadn’t much planned for the evening other than more work on Notworkrelated and some more good Trippers food. We’d already sampled the apple crumble which was delicious so we were looking forward to another relaxing evening. Most of the south of China comes without heating so it’s always good when we have the sun during the day, here though the weather was getting colder but we didn’t mind so much as Yangshou is a really pretty place and we were enjoying staying at Trippers so we decided to stay for a few more nights. That night we stayed in the cafe until quite late and as we were the only ones there asked if we could set up the laptop to watch another episode of Misfits. Addicted some might say!! We still made it to bed by 10.30pm though so we didn’t keep the staff up too late!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Having decided on our next destination we bought our tickets from the bus station for Tunxi. This required an underground subway ride but it didn’t take too long. Taikang Road Art Centre has a nice exterior and looks very modern so we decided to take a look inside. They were exhibiting a collection on Luilu glass art which was nice to look at but not that attention grabbing. Across the road is a western style small supermarket and we found ourselves some weetabix for breakfast for the next few days, the small things can make all the difference to the traveling experience, especially when eating them out of a metal thermos flask!

We proceeded to walk around the backstreets of Shanghai and we found Kommune situated at the heart of the Taiping Road Art district is a cafe/restaurant recommended in The Lonely Planet which has some tasty Chinese and western fusion food on offer, it’s a little pricey but the food and setting kind of makes you overlook this a little. In this area there are quite a few photographic galleries, some are very much aimed at the tourist with some nice(ish) images, but nothing that we haven’t seen before and a lot of repetition in imagery, style and so on. However one or two galleries have some really high end work and do manage to stand out above the rest. Its quite a contrived arts area but there have been some good renovations to the buildings and most things on offer including food and tourist tat is all a little over priced. We walked onwards towards the French Concession part of Shanghai which offers not-surprisingly very European style architecture and landscaping. Streets are much narrower and buildings are only up to 5-6 stories high. It’s really pleasant and does take you to somewhere in the Med. A nearby park once more offered some strong photographic opportunities in the form of men flying kites (a popular hobby in China) women gossiping, people exercising and practising Tai Chi along with the usual card and betting games. There’s always interesting things to document in these kind of environments.

As the afternoon passed we made our way over to Pudong well in time so we could get some good sunset views. We were perhaps a little over eager in getting to the viewing platform in The Jinmao Tower which is a very ‘Gotham City’ style looking building that looks out over Shanghai with the TV tower placed right in the forefront of your view. We stayed up there for a good few hours and waited for the sunset, they always disappear into a smoggy haze over the major cities in China, but from behind the glass we had some amazing views and met a few other travellers up top too.

On our way back to the hostel we found a great little cheap restaurant a few streets away from where we’re staying and managed to have braised tofu, green beans and a meaty dish for dave, along with rice for around £4. It really is amazing how cheaply you can eat over here!! It never ceases to surprise us! The waiters here were dressed in a retro military style uniform and our particular waiter entertained us by singing Beatles tracks as soon as he found out that Helen is from near Liverpool! Very entertaining! We followed this with a quick call to the folks and then few games of pool back at The Hiker YHA, our first game against each other and against all odds Helen won! This was the most important game of course, all others will be forgotten quickly… but this one will be held high in the list of sweet success.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

After the loveliness that was Dave’s birthday day we got up early, packed our bags and took advantage of our late check out time but going to one of Japan’s most famous and most beautiful gardens; the Kenrokuen Gardens. The light was quite flat so we weren’t able to capture the gardens as we would have liked, but there were good views and the gardens were kept in pristine condition so it was all worth while doing. They were making some wooden scaffolding to protect the trees as a typhoon was on it’s way. It seemed pretty calm considering the typhoon was due to hit Japan today!!

With the Kenrokuen gardens ticked off our list we went back to Namaste, checked out and said our goodbyes before setting off to the train station to pick up our next part of the travel. Kyoto was our next destination and we had changed our itinerary a little so we could stay for 3 nights as opposed to two. We were planning on staying in Nara, however we changed our minds due to the accommodation that we had booked was nearly 3 times more than Kyoto and it seemed like another place where you are surrounded by bus loads of tourists, every day you’re there. We may decide to do this as a day trip from Kyoto, but it felt good to be flexible on this.

So at around 3pm we arrived in Kyoto at their amazingly large station right opposite the Kyoto tower. Having got our bearings (it often takes us a while on the ‘You are here!” maps) we walked to K’s guest house, something like a 10-15 minute walk from the station. We knew we were on the right track though when we came across other backpackers and westerners making their way to the same place.

We checked into our little room, bigger than the Sakura Hotel in Tokyo, but a little prison like with bunk beds and a small desk with enough floor space that Helen thought she could do some yoga in there! The rooms are tightly packed in here though with metal doors and there wasn’t much of a feel for personality on our floor. In the communal areas the space is much more welcoming with sofas, a kitchen, books, music, an outdoor seating area and so on. We soon bumped into Mel and Cane who we had met at Namaste in Kanazawa as we were about to explore the streets by bikes. This was so much fun exploring backstreets and the river paths nearby our hostel. You can go some distance and we managed a spot of filming from the bikes which extended our creative processes somewhat. At waist level, sometimes from the handlebar view-point we rode past joggers, lovers, beggars, cats, people chatting on the riverside, skaters and other cyclists. Once the sun had set we made our way back through the busy down town area and eventually found K’s again!

For dinner we went to a Japanese restaurant just over the bridge from the hostel and Helen had some of the best udon noodles to date whilst Dave enjoyed another traditional style cooked Japanese set dinner. Very good. There’s a great bar at the hostel that attracts backpackers and other westerners from around the area so we sat in there for a drink, people watched and then went back to our little cell, we were getting a good feel for the place already.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)