For those if you who know me IRL, you probably know that I'm brewing some epic trip this year. I don't think I made the details particularly clear because things were in the planning, but the plan is pretty clear now so here goes: My partner, his mate and I are attempting an overland  journey from Thailand to Turkey.

The Master-Plan-Ideally-Plan Intinerary is:

• Thailand
• Laos
• Thailand (no, this aint a typo :) )
• Cambodia
• Vietnam
• China
• Trans-Mongolia (Beijing -> Mongolia (Ulanbataar) -> Irkutsk (Russia) -> Moscow)
• Russia
• Finland
• Estonia + some Balkan countries
• Bulgaria?
• Turkey
• Kosovo??
• Netherlands and Germany just to visit some friends

Everything after Finland is up in the air… because who knows if we’ll have enough money left? Ideally I would love to do Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Bulgaria, but we’ve set Turkey as the final goal, so if we’re finding the cash supply is a little low, we may have to skip some places. Everything after Turkey is really, really if I have money left. From where I’m standing now, I just can’t tell. Kosovo is on the list because I'm an idiot, and the Netherlands/Germany are there because I have some friends there... and catching an International flight form a hub airport seems better than catching one from Turkey... not sure why I think that. The Boy's mate will join us in Vietnam. The Boy will probably leave for Aus at Turkey, but I'm going to try and do Kosovo and Holland/Germany. But those are looking to be 1 day each, if anything.

I'll also have to drop into Tokyo for a week or so to tie up loose ends. This is a must, so I may have to cut off a bit of Europe in order to do this proper. Just thinking about the cost management for all of this boggles my mind! (read: I try not to think about it too much)

But yeah. Crazy, huh?

An increasing number of incidents involving persecution of journalists have been as a result of environmental reporting. But independant reporting on environmental issues is essential to equip the public with the tools to help the planet. - John Pickrell, on ABC Environment

This is pretty scary. I would believe it too. So knowledge about things like this and making informed decisions is the best that we as lay people can do. And to not waste the efforts of such people.

The photo is of the Shirakami Mountains　(白神山地) in northern Japan. I went there back in August 2008. The area of the Shirakami Mountains is protected by UNESCO as a world heritage site. Apparently this is the biggest area in the world covered by the buna (ブナ)/ Japanese beech/ Seibold's beech in the world. And as you can see from the photo, there are no man-made things visible to the eye. Throughout the hike we saw trees marked with tags for scientific data collection, but apart from that... all green.

This wasn't my first time to see sumo. But it might've been my last. At least, I don't think I'll have the chance to go and see sumo live again for some time.On this occassion, me, my partner and two co-workers paid the proper amount of money to sit near the front. It was a little cozy (read: cramped) but we were quite close up the front so we had a very nice view...

...of some buttocks.

Mr Ray, the resident sumo expert and self claimed sumo otaku, made these awesome statistic sheets about each wrestler: weight, height, age, number of matches won in the previous tournament, number of matches won thus far this tournament, even the numbr of times each wrestler has won against their opponent today... it was awesome. So all of us would make a bet each match, and add up points if we guessed correctly who would win this time. There were four of us and I came third... I guessed about half the matches correctly, I think. It was pretty fun...Mr Ray was guessing all wrong in the first half, but his guessess were almost all correct in the second half! That is to say, the second half had a few upsets... some of the wrestlers who, statistically, weren't doing so well, won, and things like that.

There are various divisions in a whoe sumo day. The best of the best are in the last division, makuuchi (). This last division has the highest ranking and most skilled wrestlers. Here you can see the wrestlers coming up at the start of makuuchi.

The poster boy of sumo, one of the highest ranking wrestlers, Hakuho (白鵬). There are two highest ranking wrestlers, the Yokozuna (): Hakuhou here and Asashoryu (朝青龍). Both are from Mongolia, which seems to be a thing for some Japanese people. You wouldn't think so immediately, but these guys really are rock solid and a calibre above some of the other wrestlers. Here is Hakuho doing one of the opening ritual dances (?). Personally, I think Asashoryu does a better performance. He's one intense dude.

Asashoryu, and his multiple sponsors.

According to Wikipedia, the Yokozuna's salary is about $30,500. That's USD. Not particularly high. But you see those flags around Asashoryu right? Those flags are the sponsors of each wrestler. If the wrestler wins the bout, he gets the money from the sponsors. According to Mr Ray, each of those flags are worth 60,ooo yen. That's close to $600USD. So if you have one sponsor flag and you win the boutm, you get 60,000 yen. Asashoryu and Hakuho both had about 13 sponsors. So that's close to $7800USD. Per bout. So if these guys win 10 matches (yesterday was the 9th day?), they get... $78,000USD. And they have these tournaments four times a year...

So the tournament goes for 2 weeks. There are a few more days to go, but it seems like the Yokozuna will still be tops. Both Asashoryu and Hakuho have lost one bout, won 9, so we'll see. Another wrestler, Baruto from Estonia, seems to be doing well.

Finally...

CHOCO BALL!!Who does Choco Ball sponsor again?

The sumo is a really nice day out. People are there with their kids sometimes, and we sit around drinking beer, cheering out loud for wrestlers... It's one of those places where Japanese people let loose and have a great time. There was one man in the seats in front of us who had brought along an Estonian guy (business partner?), and he was drunk and merry and very chatty. He thought I was Bulgarian because we were cheering for Kotooshu. UM.

Now I want some Choco Ball...

So. I think I'm safe. ... o______0

The past few days, almost everything that I do online had been halted because of that h@ck-job. But I think it's all ok now. The bulk of my site is up and running, and there are only a few minor tweaks to be made here and there on this blog. With hindsight, I'm really happy I moved this blog away from my host...

It seems like there were two ways in which the buggers could have come in to my directories. One is via somehow getting my ftp password. This, in my case, was slightly possible because I wasn't using a secure ftp (SFTP). That was pretty stupid. Now I'm using an SFTP called WinSCP. It seems to be pretty good... I was able to access my directories that were infected with little problem (i.e my harddrive is ok). The second way the hacks could have gotten in was through corrupting old php/js/css files. I had, stupidly enough, some old blogs stashed in my directories, and they used outdated software to make the code, and my hosts reckon the hacks exploited that vulnerability. So perhaps if I had leaned out my directories more regularly, this wouldn't have happened...

So in a nutshell, if you want to avoid what happened to me:

1. Use secure FTP
2. Update software regularly so that old bugs and vulnerabilities can't be exploited
3. Clean up your directories every so often and get rid of files you won't use anymore, which could possibly be corrupted

So yeah, lesson learned indeed! o_0;

Anyway, so hopefully online activity will resume as before. Researching travel stuff, doing art stuff etc. But now I have a bit of catching up to do...

This is a photo I took today from work.

So, I had a few issues regarding the hacked site, but for the time being, if you go to my url, you will not be infected. But you will also not see anything there. This is because I asked my hosts to wipe all the files in my directories I have with them. There were all these files in some of the directories that I could not get rid of, and they were clearly the files that were infected with the awful malware (still not sure what that malware's purpose was...). I've asked them to kill everything aside from my main directory (for some reason I had all these old directories lying around from like seven years ago), and am waiting for a reply on that. But the point is, I think the malware is gone. But because I aint 100% sure yet, I'm going to wait until all directories bar 1 have been killed off. And then I'll upload the other stuff up. I've virus checked my to-be uploaded files and they have come back clean, so this is good news.

Yeah, what an ordeal (not really, but). Glad to know that it's almost over. Just worried that the hack might happen again if I dun take the proper precautions. But now I think I know how the hack exploited my files, so it should be ok this time around. *fingers crossed*

My second day in Kyoto was pretty chill. I wanted to take it easy because I had until 24:10 that night to catch the night bus back to Yokohama. That's a lot of time to kill. So braving the cold weather, I head off to Sanjyusangendou (The Hall of 33 lengths).

We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but the site was pretty amazing. There were five (I think) rows of 100 Buddhas, all about as tall as a real human being. They had the multiple arms that save the universe, and other esoteric items in the hands. In front of the Buddha statues were other Japanese Buddhist deities. The descriptions of them in English were really good, alluding to the Hindu origin of each deity.

But this place was chilly as! And because I was slowly reading each description of each Buddhist deity, I spent a fair bit of time here...

Outside again.

Next I wandered over to Shijyo/Karasuma, Shijyo/Kawaramachi areas in the heart of Kyoto city. Just a regular shopping district, but with a smattering of Kyoto gift shops with lovely accessories and such. I also came across my most favourite skirt shop ever, El Rodeo. Who knows when U'll be able to come back here again! So I bought myself a nice funky skirt :P

The cool thing about this area is the little side streets. There are quite a few of these small streets. A variety of eateries and izakaya (Japanese style pubs?) lined this one that I walked down. The prices were not as unreasonable as I had thought they would be.

I did a fair bit of going in and out of shops along Shijyo, Kawaramachi and so on, and came across this little gem:

A second hand bookshop. I found a set of books with outlines regarding the big-guns of Western philosophy, and it was reasonably cheap so got hold of that as a gift :D I chatted to the shop lady for a bit, and she told me that this store had been around for a 130 years, and that back in the day it specialised in academic non-Japanese texts. But now the section of non-Japanese books was pretty small (a few English, German and French books). She was kind enough to let me take a photo of inside the store.

After that I headed off to the lovely Philospher's Walk. Memories of my last time here...

I came here in 2005 with my best mates. It was in December, around the same time of the day; afternoon heading into dusk.

The sun was really bright, so there was this lovely melancholy afternoon glow to the path. I wandered in and out of some shops; private galleries, gift shops, individual studio/shops.

Kyoto really is a lovely city. I would love to come here in autumn when the leaves are changing colour, but it would be SO expensive then... and really crowded too! Ah well, one can imagine (sometimes imagining is just as satisfying as actually doing, I'm beginning to think...)

Returned from a trip to Kyoto! In theory, this trip is short. But it felt really long. The main reason for that would be because I took two night buses to get to and from Kyoto. Very economical, but my god, how did I manage to sleep in that thing? (According to one Caroline, it's the Japanese blood in me: being able to sleep on most forms of public transport.)

The first day I had a travel mate, Miss Y. We caught a bus from Shinjuku Station around 23:00 and arrived in Kyoto around 5:30AM the next day. I managed to sleep for most of it, but Miss Y had a bit more trouble.

We were keen to try out this ride... Not a train, but like a trolley ride? But it was closed because of the winter, boo.

We wandered around the area, saw a temple (but didn't go in because we were being cheap and didn't want to pay the entrance fee), but near the temple was really quiet, and a nice-to-do residential area, I think.

Believe this or not, these photos are not from the temple or any of its neighbouring features. These were taken outside a swanky looking tofu shop. Really.

As you can see, Saga is a beautiful area. Very tranquil, clean, peaceful and natural. Many birds in the river, many trees, a river running through it... it was nice. I could live there if I had to.

There's a bridge that crosses the river called Togetsu-kyo. I only learned afterwards that this bridge is a historically famous bridge. It's said that the young Minamoto(no) Yoshitsune, then still going under his child-name Ushiwakamaru, fought the giant Benkei. Every Japanese child knows this particular episode, and both Yoshitsune and Benkei are loved as historical characters. Ahh, how my childhood comes back to me...I remember that cheap childrens' book in which I read that story...

You can see, it's lovely.

But the real reason that Miss Y and I came to Saga Arashiyama is...

Yes, the pilgrimage site for all V0lks owners...What unabashedly visible sign. I won't write much about our visit here in much detail, suffice to say that it was a very nice place with a very nice garden and exhibition. We had glorious weather, as you can see from the photos, so it made the whole experience very memorable.

After our day at Saga, we headed over to Kyoto so Miss Y could take the bullet train back to Tokyo (she had work the next day, poor soul!). Her brother lives in Osaka so we met up for dinner near Kyoto station, and after that went up Kyoto tower and got a nice night view of Kyoto.

By the time I parted ways with Miss Y and her brother, I was pretty knackered. I headed over to K's House, a lovely guesthouse I stayed in back in December 2005 with my darling mates. It was still the cozy, warm, clean youth hostel I remembered. If you're ever planning a trip to Kyoto and want buget accomodation, I highly recommend this place. The dorms are pretty small, but it's clean!

Blurry, but.

Next day I had a whole day to myself in Kyoto city, so more photos later!

A Happy New Year to all! Hello from Tokyo, Japan. I really am still in Japan, and it really is 2010. The 2010 looked quite impressive on the Tokyo tower last night. Had a very small scale house party last night, and headed in downtown for a bit. To be honest, we could have done without the going downtown, but the great view of the Tokyo tower made up for it. Yeah, it isn't the most beautiful or impressive building on the face of the planet, but I thought it was pretty neat.

The night shots are pretty blurry, but you get the impression. It was quite chilly last night; probably the coldest that we've had so far! It felt like it, at least. I just spoke to the parental entities and they said that it was 35 degrees last night in Aus! And then a cool change came along so it was all cool. :D Melbourne, you fail to disappoint.

We were toying with the idea of going clubbing, but we wound up just walking through Roppongi (it didn't look like Japan. Many different languages being spoken, empty beer cans and campaign bottles, plastic wrapping and police cars on the ready), had a kebab sandwich, stopped at a pub to warm up with a drink and chips with gravy and melted cheese (I think I've damaged my arteries big time over the past few days just eating crap like that), wandered at the foot of Tokyo tower, then headed back. Currently at Ikebukuro, Paulo's place.

Before heading downtown, we went to a local temple. Last year we did a shrine, so this time we decided to do a temple. They were giving out complementary sweet bean soup with mochi, a fire was going on, the huge bell was being rung by people of all ages... it was peaceful. Japan isn't the most emotional country; emotions of all kinds tend to be understated. Therein lies its beauty. At least I think so. India has it's celebrations by expressing their joy and excitement at uber capacity; that's cool, communicate your joy! But Japan has it's own way of doing things. I appreciate that.

Hope everyone has a nice start to this decade. Peace.

So, where to start. It was a pretty amazing year. A lot happened, and while it kind of felt fast, it was also long. Fulfilling, is maybe a better word. I feel I did a lot; traveled to Korea and India, started an outservice teaching kids, went to my first offline doll-meet, started using Corel P@inter, made some new friends, kept in touch with old ones, dreamed about the universe... such kind of things. And as usual, I feel that artistically speaking there was a lot to be desired. But at this point in time, I'm feeling like I know what kind of direction, at least aesthetically, I want to go. Or at least, that I'm becoming a bit more confident, a bit more focused on what I want. Strange, that.

My time in Japan is coming to a close. 2010 is going to be a monster year. And what a way to do start the new decade. I hope this coming year is a good one for all involved.