Almost in Sydney

Tomorrow night I'll make my way to Sydney and my hunt for job will start again, hopefully more successful than in Cairns.

Since Coolangatta I have stopped in Murwillembah and did a very nice hike in what was a volcano 20 million years ago, Byron Bay, a really famous surf spot that has become another backpacker pit and now Yamba, the Byron Bay of 20 years ago, much more to my taste.

I'm having really nice days here and if I did not want to work I would probably stay longer. Apart from beautiful sunsets, many whales and dolphins, the highlight of this last week is that I have tried surfing.
Tried is here the most important word because god this is not easy especially for me who has never done any sport where you need balance.
As a consequence I had to learn to lie on the board (I happen to tip it over still a couple of times), get carried by the wave (this is not too difficult but when they are big they play with me like a toy, throwing me in the sand or just kick me out of the board) and stand on the board which I managed to do like 7/8 times over 5 days. By the way if you think I play like real surfers at the point the waves break, well, I have to disappoint you, I just go with waves already broken, this is so much easier.

There are unfortunately no pictures to show my performances but here is my board (that would probably suit very well with my bike).

One very cool thing we did was a tour of Yamba, its beaches by Shane of the hostel (next to me on picture). We went to a couple of natural pools and did some jumps there. Shane made me believe (I was the most naive of the 3) that there were crocos in one pool. So the idea was to scare them with rocks each time we saw bubbles in the water, jump quickly and then get out of the water even more quickly. I did not want to jump the second time but because everyone had done it and we were doing "figures" for pictures I did it and it's only later on that Shane told me the crocos story was bullshit.

I also add a few pictures of Byron and Murwillembah, more in the albums on the right hand side

Track me on my bag

After having stored them since Bangkok (so 2 months) I finally got the momentum to sew the flags of the countries I have visited so far!!!

The picture is with Valerio who had the same will but the same lazyness so far as well so the two of us joined forces and with the help of the excellent thread of Valerio's grand mama we managed to have our flags sown.
6 more flags to come over the coming months and then I'll put France, Holland and the UK because I have lived there as well.

Needless to say I love my flags and it usually raises the interest of other travelers.

Concrete and waves game

Coolangatta is on the South of the famous Goald Coast, the place to be it seems for surfers.

I skipped Surfer's paradise because it seems to be just one more party place with many waves. But you can see it from Coolangatta and I find it really awesome from a distance. You would think this is a big city you are looking at it with all these big towers (I am 25 kms from it I assume)

Next to reading Into the Wild, learning Spanish (please do not write to me in Spanish yet I am only at lesson 14 out of 100 so I can hardly say or read anything) and sleeping my favourite activity on the beach is to look at the waves and try to understand.

Have you ever noticed how some waves are stronger than others and how some waves cancel each others strengths? Well, check it out next time because this is very interesting. So my game is to try to find out which one will be the next big one. I can stay quite a while doing it!!!
First you need something to measure the strength of the waves and this small "wall" will perfectly do

Now are the competitors (look how they show off, rolling their big tide)

But they won't make it because the lower tide going back to see denies them.

My conclusion so far is: the big waves can make it only as long as there is a weak one before (sounds like military conclusion). More watching and more conclusions soon on this.

The last thing that struck me is that, sadly, the coast is becoming concrete....following the example of Surfers paradise.

Down the Coast

I have left Cairns approximately 10 days ago and I have come across some very nice landscapes. I stopped for a 2 days cruise on the Whitsunday Islands, 2 "safari" days in Fraser Island, 2 more days in Noosa, Brisbane and now Coolangatta (see next post) where I am about to cross into New South Wales.

So far my highlight is the Whitsundays. We were 23 passengers on a sailing boat and that was my real first time there. Chilling out on the deck in the sunshine or watching the stars at night is simply awesome.

During this two days trip we also saw huge fish when we snorkeled (pictures are not mine, thanks Claire)

and we went to the famous Whitehaven Beach

I recommend anyone going to Australia to do such a cruise. If you do it at the right time you could even sleep on the deck, which we couldn't because it gets too cold at night (like 10 degrees, I did not know it could get that cold here).

Next stop was Fraser Island. Fraser is special in Australia because this is basically a big island of sand where a rain forest has managed to develop (because of the heavy rainfall apparently). Considering that there are no roads but just sands you need a 4*4 to drive around there. Our bus looked a bit like a tank:

During the two days my favourite things (except the jacuzzi of the nearby resort) were the famous Lake Mc Kenzie that has two beaches, one crowded with tourists (mostly noisy Germans) and the other one almost for yourself, very very nice and enjoyable.

and the Champagne Pools. Pity this is not real champagne but pretty cold water (apprx 20 degrees which is really cold after the 30ish in Thailand). However the really cool thing is to see the waves breaking just before the pools!!

Finally Noosa is a cute little town coastal town that has both a very nice beach where surfers come and enjoy the waves, and a national park where I saw my first koala (although I have strong questioning about the koala being put here for the tourists because we did not see anyother in the 7kms that followed). I really like Noosa simply because this is not a typical backpacker town which I find is a bit the flipside of the fact that Australia is so easy to travel.

Draper Streets 461 the place to be

I am now in Australia for a bit more than 2 weeks and I have just started to move on to the South in direction of Sydney (from Cairns, 3,800 kms).

My plan when I arrived in Cairns was to find a job, get into a shared house and work for the first 2 months.
Well, only one of the 3 happened but it was really fun. I could not find a job because I do not have enough experience in waiters or coffee maker jobs and there is a strong competition from backpackers since many people went north as the winter has hit the South of Australia. I quickly decided to stop searching and to work in Sydney in September. Fingers crossed I can find somethin.
August will be the time to visit the East Coast of Australia.
But the past two weeks in the house of 461 Draper Streets with my 8 house mates (4 Frenchies, 2 Italians and 2 Aussies) have been excellent.

There was temptation (and I almost resisted),

relaxing time,

parties and

excellent food we cooked for each others.

Japan update (at last)

Hey all,

It took me ages to make my update. This mostly because of the orgy of pictures I shot in Japan: more than 1,300 in 26 days so more than 50 per days!! Who said I was not integrated?
I hope you will have a bit of time to go through the albums on the right hand side that I have divided into parts of usually no more than 150 pictures and WITH comments.
If you should look at only one I really recommend the best of and reading the posts about the anecdotes and why I love Japan.

If you want to read everything I wrote an explanation why I changed the title of the blog as well as the anecdotes and my favourite things in Japan.

These 3.5 weeks have gone so fast, I have visited 17 cities. The typical day was visiting by myself during day time and spending the evening with people from the guesthouse, who were my hosts or whom I had just met randomly.

I had a taste of Japan and what I saw/heard/experienced just gives me the feeling I want to know more and come again.

I really hope I can share this with you and if you have any question about Japan I will delighted to answer.

The blond effect

(Feminists if you want to attack me please note that this post is completely "second degré" as we say in French (= ironic) and that nothing is against the blonds)

After more than three months of almost continuous sunshine in SE Asia my hair is much more blond than when I left and the change is not only to my hair. What follows is a description of the blond effect (the theory comes from a famous philospher named A.) Contrary to what many people think this is not limited to women (although statistics show that the effect is much more present with women) because this is a concept. The blond effect is like the candy kiss cool in France there are two effects in one name.

The first effect is the feeling to be quite dumb (being completely dumb without knowing it is called the "golden blond effect"). I really felt it as soon as I arrived in Japan as I got lost 10 times per day in Tokyo, I kept coming back on my steps and I was usually unable to find by myself what I was looking for. The other moment I felt really stupid is when I was asking to Japanese where is XX in Japanese (this sentence is really easy, it is XX wa doko desu ka) and that they were starting to talk for 2 mns and obviously I did not get a word of what they were saying so I was just smiling and pretending I understood (and I had to ask again 100 meters further).
Another instance is when I did not take my umbrella one morning whereas all Japanese people had theirs and later on that day I had to buy one to protect myself from the rain or the day after when I took mine and no one did I decided to keep it and the sun came so I had to carry it all day for nothing. Finally the top is probably when I was trying to find places to eat and if there were no pictures and if even the figures were in kanji (one of the three Japanese alphabets) I knew I simply could not eat there.

The second effect is that people stare a lot at you (and usually in a positive way). Well this was the case in Japan and somehow maybe even more than in SE Asia. People do nt twave at you but it is sometimes obvious people are talking about you (when you hear the word gaijin), pointing at you or like these men in Shimosuwa that thought I was cool simply because I was blond and I had a beard. There are also these two young girls who started to picture me as if I was an object in Shibuya. The attention is nice but feelign like an object is definitively not my cup of tea.

Anyway this is to say that I understood a lot about why it is also difficult to be blond and that I will probably do less jokes about blonds in the future (maybe...)

What makes Japan special to me

OK, I will not hide it I really had a fantastic time in Japan and this despite coming at one of the worst times of the year: the monsoon.

I know this is hard to explain everything but here are a few elements why I fell in love with the country and i really hope I will go again there (and you too!!!).

Japan is beautiful and I am sure this is mind-blasting in Autumn or during the cherry blossoms. The country has the same diversity as France with sea, mountains, plains etc...

Japan is unbelievably safe and it is so relaxing. I never felt myself threatened in any respect over 3.5 weeks wether I was walking in the streets at 18.oo or 3.00. I got used to take my eyes off my belongings (bag and camera for instance) and nothing bad happened. There is no aggressivity in the Japanese society (at least in the open) because this is seen as a sign of weakness (remember all Asia is about not losing face). The last example is when I visited the small village of Tsumago; I was in a hurry with 30 mns only before the last bus. I then decided to leave my big backpack unattended (just telling some people in an opposite booth) on the bus parking and when I came back I was not surprised that it was still there.

The people are just so nice (see anecdotes and pictures). I do not mean here only the Japanese people but also the expats and tourists.


The Japanese have a really strong culture and they defend it. This culture is really exotic to us even if we are also modern countries. I find it really impressive that they do not copy the American model but adapt it to their specificities. This is something I mostly feel but for which I cannot really give examples because I should speak the language to understand better. Anyway this feeling of not understanding is really nice and challenging and this why I travel.

The food is simply excellent (no comment).

All in all I think there are many parallels between Japan and France: both countries have a strong culture and carefully protect it, both countries have very good food because they care about eating, both countries have a beautiful country, both countries are regarded as special (yes this is French arrogancy but this is also the truth) and both have beautiful women (which is never bad).

New title

From Round the World trip to World Bakery Tour.
After 3 months in South East Asia I noticed that each time I see a good croissant, paint au chocolat or baguette I get really happy and I feel I have to try them.
I then realised that I could classify countries between the ones with good bread and the ones with bad bread instead of developped or developping. This is why I changed the title of my blog that I had chosen only because I had to put something.
So far, the rankings are:
1) (Best) Japan
2) Laos
3) Vietnam
4) Cambodia
5) Thailand
And I can already say Australia is unlikely to go in the top 3.

Japanese anecdotes

To explain why I loved Japan so much I have to narrate a few anecdotes (sorry no pictures) because they show how Japanese people have been kind to me and this makes such a difference.

There are first the people who spontaneously propose to help you when they see that you are lost. If that was to happen in Europe (this is a big if) they would not do like I saw several times asking everyone around for help if they do not know or making calls hoping the person on the other side of the phone would know.

I remember also the man of the metro for the fare adjustment (when the ticket you took is not at the right price you have the possibility to pay the difference after you tarveled) diminished my fare because I did not have the right change. This is a classic in Japan but still very pleasant.

There are all these Japanese people who offered me something just because I was a foreigner:
- a drink in a bar;
- a postcard when I went to the tiny post office of Magome only because the manager there who spoke bits of English had visited Paris 3 years ago and loved it at the time;
- a small gift when I went to a temple and I saw I had to pay to get in so I went out and the employee came out to show me how to use the vending machine. She thought I wanted to get in but I did not because I was not interested. When she understoodin my bad Japanese that I would not come she went to get me a small gift.

The cops in the small city of Shimosuwa gave me a lift. I was going to the house of my hosts for the evening and when I arrived at the small train station I was just checking I was going in the right direction so I asked one young man just outside the station. I started then to walk and it seemed easy to find (on the map at least). 50 meters later I heard steps of someone catching up with me. It was a teenager who stood next to the one I had asked and dressed a bit like a bad boy. He told me to give him the map and he would come with me to where I had to go. Obviously in any country I would take this with caution but this is Japan so I decided to give it a try. At the same moment a car of police stopped next to us and two cops got off with a big yellow book (full of maps). They told the teenager they would take care of me and after understanding where I was heading they told me to go in their car and they simply drove me there!!!!

Finally the kindest thing that happened to me. I met Keiko on the temples of Angkor in April and if we talked two minutes, this is the really the max. I just saw she was from Japan and I thought I know no one there so let's try to get a contact with a local. Obvisouly this was weird but she game her email. When I contacted her and when we met she organised these two really nice evenings with her friends that you can see in the pictures of Tokyo and when I did some typical Japanese things. All this for someone you absolutely do not know I can just take my hat off and thank you.