Just as sloshed as Schlegel

I didn't feel noticeably wiser after traversing the Path of Philosophy (哲学の道) in Higashiyama, which connects many of Kyoto's most significant historical sites, though that could have been partly due to the fact that my soundtrack to the journey was Daniel Defoe's celebrated imperialist horror Robinson Crusoe, and the rage was clouding my judgement.

Don't read it unless you're the sort of person who thinks the extermination of backwards indigenous cultures by the progressive regime of Catholicism is a good thing, especially if you've visited countries where this has actually happened. If that sounds like you, you can stop reading my blog while you're at it.

Despite my unwise choice of audiobook, this was a nice walk and a pleasant way to spend my last few days in Japan. This time. It's ridiculous and very bad news for our planet that it's cheaper for me to leave this country and come back again later than it is just to take a train between cities. I'm screwing our environment and putting human civilisation in jeopardy. I'm like a 21st century Crusoe.

I won't lie to you, this post is pretty much all temples, shrines and pagodas again. But if you behave, I might throw in some more unpleasant schoolgirl costumes. Aren't you lucky?

Tokyo good experiencing joy you 6 garden

Enough of wilderness excursions, cosmic choreography and minging museums, I know what you want from Tokyo. Shibuya is probably the best place to see iconic Tokyo sights like too many people crowding into cramped streets, cyberpunk fashions and deafening arcades packed with pensioners, though these static photos probably give a misleading impression of how stressful and frenzied it all isn't.

Even when my senses are being overloaded, I still feel a lot more relaxed in Japan than in most other countries I've visited (Korea excepted), and even during rush hour, the scales are tipped more in favour of order than chaos. That doesn't mean this city always makes sense and isn't completely bewildering on occasion - it's Tokyo, after all. Perhaps you've heard of it?

Bye bye baby

I'm back in Bangkok for a bit, before taking another flight at the end of the week. For all its faults, Bangkok is a much better place to kill a few days than Kuala Lumpur, where I would have been otherwise, and this at least gave me the chance to tie up a loose thread from my last visit here in November, when the morbidly fascinating Siriraj Medical Museum was closed following the flooding. It was worth the wait.

Bangkok is many things to many people - for some it's a sex tourism paradise or a convenient place to get a realistic-looking driver's licence without having to go through the tedious process of learning how not to run people over. In my case, it largely serves as a Deep Space Nine-style spaceport connecting my trips around various parts of Asia - a Bangkok Nor, if you will. If you're such an irredeemable nerd that you understand the reference.

This city isn't so renowned for the quality of its museums, but what they may lack in educational value and dinosaur skeletons they make up for with a commendably non-squeamish approach to death and deformity. Readers of a sensitive disposition and pregnant women (or anyone who doesn't really like seeing dead babies) might not want to read more. Seriously, this could be a bit upsetting.

Well, that about wraps it up for Korea

It's not like I'll be visiting the North any time soon. I had a mixed time in South Korea - good for the first few weeks, then dipping in the middle due to a lack of money where I mainly survived on free toast and had some lousy hostel experiences, before perking up again at the end. Gyeongju was good too.

Because I'm generally shy, reclusive and run away if a pretty girl offers me an orange (true story), I didn't give myself many opportunities to experience Korea's famed odder side during my stay. Like attending a Cosplay convention, or professional Starcraft tournaments that sell out stadiums and earn players six-figure salaries (that's six figures in US dollars - six figures in Korean won is about three nights' accommodation).

Fortunately, it's impossible to walk down a Korean high street without seeing something zany. And I shouldn't despair, as BBC Three documentaries have taught me that Japan is basically a synonym for 'mental,' so I have plenty to look forward to.

My English bad quality

Call me an elitist language school snob,
but I'd probably think twice before sending my kid there (Kaohsiung)

I've been living outside the English-speaking world for more than a year, which really isn't as difficult as it sounds, as a lot of people speak English there anyway. Language barriers haven't presented a problem most of the time either (apart from that one time in Indonesia when I ended up sleeping in a rainy field).

But as I speak less and less to native English speakers, I've been noticing a drop in the quality of my spoken English - what began as well-meaning simplification to make me easier to understand seems to have had the adverse effect of making me forget how sentences actually work.

This became most apparent when I spoke to an American in Thailand in November, and caught myself saying 'tomorrow I stay three nights in Cambodia.' An ambitious plan, albeit chronologically impossible without some sort of Father Christmas-like time-warping ability. But I realised this had become a major problem when I took in the view at Jeju Island, South Korea, and proclaimed: 'I like to be fresh air in my face.'

Greatest tits

I've been writing this blog for nearly a year now - stubbornly refusing to keep a travel diary of my experiences for what seemed like a long time, but can only have been a week at most (it was in Florence that I wrote a couple of entries on WordPress, before getting pissed off and switching to good old, unreliable Blogger).

One of my favourite features of Blogger (aside from its dodgy spam detection filters that mistakenly restrict access to my blogs and then finally restore them after I lodge an appeal, but with all the images accidentally, permanently deleted) is its 'Stats' button, which allows me to autistically keep track of everyone who stumbles across my pages through Google image searches for sexy teachers and Michigan cheerleaders.

And sometimes a travel-based search term too. But let's be honest, it's mainly the sexy teachers and cheerleaders.

Ubud-der believe it

If you can drag yourself away from the monkeys in Ubud, there's plenty more to see around the unspoilt capital of Bali.

That's 'unspoilt' meaning no big shopping malls or KFCs - you can still rely on hawkers trying to force the same five pieces of tourist tat down your throat every time you come across something worth photographing, ensuring you have all you'll ever need to commemorate a right ripping-off time on the Island of the Gods. You can never have too many shit 'Jiggy-Jig' T-shirts.

Paradise regain'd

I woke up on Day 4 in Bali feeling positive, refreshed and ready to appreciate this place properly.

The stress of the first few days had made me slightly regret choosing a middle-of-nowhere retreat away from the tourist traps of Kuta and all its resident Australian surfer Michelangelos (referring to the annoying Ninja Turtle, not the Renaissance master). But now I knew I'd made the right decision - and was able to start appreciating the landscape, temples and paddy fields of West Bali that I'd previously been too preoccupied to even notice.

These aren't major tourist sights or anything - I'll deal with those when I come back in a few weeks. This place is Nowheresville, and that's why I like it.

You must be Malaystaken

Another smugly superior, borderline racist guffawing at the poor English skills, accidental double entendres and deliberate copyright infringements of foreign shop owners, this time across Peninsular Malaysia.

Thailand typos

An overdue compendium of broken English, unintended entendres and things I just found funny in Thailand.

With a large tourism industry meaning more people are fluent in English, there was less here to choose from than in Taiwan, and to be honest the funniest things you'll hear tend to come from the mouths of tuk-tuk drivers. You're only getting part of the experience in the visual medium.

Taiwhat?

What the hell am I looking at? (Taipei Main Station)

A final anthology of more unusual/daft things I've witnessed with my eyes in Taiwan.

Kaohsiung ka-kas

I choose to look at today as a bonus day in Kaohsiung - my favourite Taiwanese city so far - rather than the result of a combined screw-up between me and the guy who was supposed to give me a lift to Kenting, meaning I ended up not going there. This is why I hate lifts, I told you people are unreliable - especially when one of them is me.

So on the subject of screw-ups, let's see how Kaohsiung's local business owners have made a cock-up of the English language (great segue or what?) I wasn't going to do these for Kaohsiung, but when I passed this 'exotic' dance bar I had to share its delightful menu with the world.

Shilin slips

Another uninformed, insightless wander through another district of Taipei, on the lookout for 'hilarious' shop names and letting the real beauty of the world slip by.

This will be the last of these. At least, until I see the next Boloking.

Nangang nonos

I've moved to Nangang (East Taipei) to keep life artifically interesting. Here are some local strange shop names.

Taipei typos

Here's a project that's been ongoing since I arrived in the Far East, and will doubtless continue until I leave, or until Asian retailers stop giving their stores such amusing names.

HA HA HA! They can't even speak English properly, and occasionally make understandable mistakes that could be tenuously misinterpreted to mean something vaguely rude or otherwise inappropriate! It's as if English isn't even their native language and they're forced to adopt it to survive in international markets! The idiots!!!

Oh well, it's still funny. Here are some of the best I've found around town. More to definitely come soon.