Asia Trip - 8.6-17.7.2008

Before leaving Tokyo with the night bus I had a last supper with my friends Haruka, Yuki and Yoshi

then after a night on the bus I arrived in Kyoto early in the morning, after checking in at the hostel my friend Mayuko gave me a city tour, it was great to have her as my guide and she also could explain me more about the japanese culture, history and the city oh and she also knew a lot about good japanese food!

for dinner we went to a Japanese sushi restaurant, there I had my first whale meat sushi!

the next day my plan was to see the "tori-gates mountain", a mountain covered by trails with thousands of these red tori gates and also a couple of small shrines


Nara, another old city in japan famous for it´s history. In the picture you can see the largest wooden building in the world, inside in it is a huge buddha statue. Another cool place was Kasuga Taisha with hundreds of stone laterns along the way.

After picking up my bag in Kyoto I took a train to Osaka, there I spent the evening walking through the busy Shinsaibashi area

2 days later on the boat back to South Korea I met this nice young lady, her name is Ryokko and she went to South Korea for a short quick trip to see Busan. She´s also been travelling quite a lot and so it was fun to talk with her and exchange stories...

Busan, South Korea. In the picture you can see the Gwang-an bridge, supposedly the biggest one in Asia.

In Busan I stayed with Eun-Young, she is the sister of another friend of mine. 2 great days in Busan, these Koreans really know how to be great hosts!

Then I moved on to Gyeongju, South Korea´s museum city.

In Gyeongju they have a lot of these large tombs that look like little hills. Actually they´re all over the city and it´s sourounding countryside. Beside that there is a great museum and some temples in the mountains which are easily accessed by short hikes.

Today I spent all day getting from Gyeongju to Seoraksan National Park which is very close to the border with North Korea. Along the way there were some nice ocean views as you can see on this picture.

6am next morning my alarm woke me up, I wanted to get an early start so I could get up to Dachebong Mountain, the highest mountain in Seoraksan Natl. Park. The trail was is great condition and winded it´s way along a narrow valley and a creek before climbing up to the peak. Along the way I could see lots of nice rock formations and some waterfalls. Once I got to the top it was lunch time, a group of Korean hikers invited me to have picnic with them and it was amazing how much food they carried up all the way...

A day later it was time to finally take a bus to Seoul, the capital of South Korea and a city with 10 million people. I would spent the next 10 days here meeting old friends, making new ones and exploring this big interesting city.

here I had the chance to experience a traditional Korean wedding ceremony

Maria, first time I met her in Osaka and then again in Seoul where she lives, we got along very well and spent a few days together

some of you might already know this lady, Eunji a great friend and travel partner was my host during my stay in seoul

on one of these days I went by myself for a hike up one of these mountains close to the city, the city is built around a lot of mountains

oh yeah and this is a very special korean thing JJIMJJILBAN, kind of a sauna, chill out, steam room and hot tub all in one building, koreans just love it as so do I!

while I was in South Korea people where protesting against beef imports from the US...

so instead of eating beef I ate DOG soup! it kind of tasted like chicken but a bit more oily....so delicious!

museum of contemporary art at Seoul central park

Eunji´s aunt and uncle where we lived

One night we also stayed at her parents place that lived outside of seoul, very good friendly and welcoming people! I enjoyed staying with them!

From South Korea Eunji and I took a plane to Mongolia, I couldn´t get a second chinese visa and so I had to change my plans and fly to mongolia instead...this was on our first day, while we were sipping on our nice and cool Khan beers we could watch the demonstration start in front of the government building, later they moved to another building and that´s where they started a riot which lasted late into the night and resulted in a burned down building and 5 dead people after fights with the police and the military in downtown Ulaanbaatar....

the day after the riot we took a bus out to Terelj National Park, unbelieveable how nice the mongolian countryside is!

we stayed with some locals that rented us one of their Gers (kind of a tent that the nomads use)

Another trip out of the city to Zuunmod

through some connections with Eunji´s friend in Seoul we had a driver for today and so it was a lot of fun to hang out with a local and cruise through the wide open mongolian countryside

War Memorial...a left over from the communists

After almost a week in Mongolia Eunji flew back to South Korea and I took the train to Russia. While waiting for my train a member of the train police approached me, he wanted to practice his german with me! A Mongolian man that taught himself german, crazy eh?! but he was a good man and I even could help him a little bit with his german.

After a night on the train we got to the last mongolian town before the border just around 6am, there the engine left the two wagons for russia. We had to wait there without an engine for 4 hours, then it took us another 6 hours to get through mongolian and russian customs...

...here on the way from the mongolian border post to the russian one...you could say this was "no-mans-land"

then we were all lucky and they let us into russia...the scenery along the way was beautiful!

another night later the train arrived in Irkutsk where I got off the train

Irkutsk has some nice churches and government buildings but you could say it is a very poor city, most of the infrastructure is in bad condition and it´s not recommended to go out at night.

after a day in Irkutsk I took a local bus to Lake Baikal, the worlds biggest fresh water lake...and believe it is a huge lake even tough I´ve only seen a small part of it!

After one night at Lake Baikal in a homestay I went back to Irkutsk to catch a train straight to Moscow, that meant 4 nights and 4 days on the train....

one of the couples that stayed with me in the same compartment were these two...both were quite smelly, they drunk a lot and smoked a lot of cigarettes during the 2 days on the train. But still good people and it was interesting how we interacted with each other...me no russian and they no english. later I found out that they just got out of prison, he sat for 20 years because of murder and she 5 years because of drug dealing....concerned about safety on russian trains?! :-)

along the stops I had the chance to stock up on food, old babushkas selling all kinds of things from liquor, beer, fish to veggies and newspapers

this couple was with me during the last 2 days, he also drunk beer fro breakfast but they also were good people

during the time on the train I also got to know a group of students, some of them spoke very good english and so it was great to hang out with them and for sure drink vodka!

Here I was visiting my new friends in their wagon, this nice family invited me for supper

because it was our last night on the train before arriving in moscow everbody was in a good mood and this gentleman called Sergej loved to play the guitar and sing russian sings, most of the russians also sang along and so it was a night with lots of fun and good memories for myself!

Then in Moscow I used the morning to see the Red Square and surounding areas, the afternoon I spent sleeping at the hostel since I was too tired after short nights on the train.

day 2 in moscow I used to explore other areas by foot, I must say there is a lot of money in this city but it was sad to see that and know that the eastern part of russia is in such bad condition and here in moscow there is money everywhere...

after one night on the train I arrived in St. Petersburg, probably Russias most beautiful city. It look like Venice in Italy because of a huge old town and lots of canals and bridges

day 2 in St. Petersburg I used to check out some parks at the shores of the Baltic Sea, it was a nice sunny day and a lot of russians were out sunbathing in the parks

another night train back to Mosow and from there back home to Germany.
After 104 days on the road I was pretty tired, but there have been so many good experiences and good times that I felt kind of sad going back home to "normal life". But anyways thanks for reading my blog and feel free to drop me a comment or two!
Cheers!