Matthew's Website

I’ve got some smart cards left over for Tokyo, Singapore and Shanghai and the latter two even have some credit on them so if you’re going to any of those cities and would like a smartcard then drop me an email. Note that the one for Tokyo is less useful as if you dont have [...]

My friend Rupert has kindly uploaded a bunch more photos for me, which I’ve started to name, I’ll finish when I’m not in the most expensive internet cafe in Malaysia in the KLCC complex (it costs RM8, 1.60GBP for 1 hour!). I’ve named some of them as well

So I got the train up from Hiroshima to Yokohama on Monday the journey was fairly uneventful (I even got 2 seats for the price of 1 for most of the journey.) except when I was told to move behind the yellow line on the platform. Now this would be fair enough except firstly there [...]

I was always going to give some awards at the end of my trip, but so they stay relevant I am going to do some as I go along. So I’m going to split my trip into thirds. The next logical third is the Pacific Islands including Easter Island, Tahiti, New Zealand and Japan (technically [...]

After arriving on the bullet train into Kyoto I sat down and uploaded some more photos at my hostel these are now online on Flickr and named (some not very well though), enjoy, but now I’m off to bed as its midnight here.

First thing on Wednesday morning I headed to Ginza as I needed to buy some socks; the mission to do this was successful and after that I headed to Tokyo station to get the rest of my train tickets reservations. After this I headed to Ryogoku and the Sumo (really pronounced with a very short [...]

So after arriving late in the evening to the Japanese family with whom I’m staying in Tokyo on Sunday I went to bed fairly early and set out into the city just before 9am. First I had some admin to complete and then I set out to explore the city. First I headed to the [...]

I took the train up from Wellington to Auckland on Saturday which was pretty good and the train left early on Saturday morning for it’s journey first along the coast and then through the mountains. Unfortunately the windows are far too shiny to really get a good photo and there is too much pollen on [...]