Australia- Melbourne

First I would like to thank my hosts for the week, Nozomi and Kaori.  it is too bad this is such a crap picture.
 Melbourne skyline


 tram line down the center of the street.  Be careful of trams!


Through a park



At night

 A cool cafe/bar underneath a bridge right on the river

 Graffiti alley.  It is a tourist attraction

 Coffee and sudoku

 good times




Okay stop taking our picture

Fine, I will just take your picture aka Fancy boy Alex

 Melbourne State library's reading room.  Gorgeous

 It houses Ned Kelly's armor.  Ned Kelly is a famous outlaw in Australia.  He wore armor and the police couldn't kill him.  Cool.
 Melbourne Gaol (Jail) where they eventually hung Ned Kelly after capturing him

 a tree with paper like bark

 Went to St. Kilda's beach.  Very calm.

Stupid looking dog statue.  Not the statue is stupid, but the dog looks absolute special needs.

 The word choice...Australia!

 Went to the aquarium

 big crab

Cool river shark display.  Danger everywhere in Australia.

 manta ray feeding time.  They were hungry!

 A penguin going to get a rock for its nest

 bringing it back

and placing it into the nest in front of its mate.  Cute!

Kaori looks terrified.  And even though I wear the same shirt in all of these pictures, it is actually three different days.  Gross!

Thailand Beaches

First I went to Hua Hin.  Nice beach, calm, family/tourist oriented.

 



 beach dog.  there were dogs everywhere in Thailand




Then I went to Railay, an island in the south for more adventurous/traveler types.  You could only get there by ferry and the accommodations were much more primitive.

 My bungalow and mosquito net. 

 Mud flats on the East beach

 I had a guest in my room one night.

 People getting on the ferry back to the mainland.  And by ferry I mean one of the long boats in the water there.

 storm is coming

 

Lush tropical rainforest.  And I do mean rain.

 huge spider whose web I walked into

bangkok

Bangkok
traffic during the day, note how the car and woman are competing to cross the street.

Traffic at night, look at all those cars


Outdoor eating was everywhere in Bangkok. I don't even know if there were inside restaurants.


Wat Arun, a very tall temple with steep steps

here are the steep steps

Outside the royal palace. I didn't go in because it cost $30 to enter. Yikes.
The reclining buddha at Wat Pho
Weekend Market. 35 acres of tightly packed shopping "fun"



Foot massage. Fantastic

Took a river boat trip along the canals of Bangkok





lots of stray/wild dogs in Bangkok (and all around Thailand) here are some canal dogs
random architectural details

earthquake

Just to let you know where I am in relation to the earthquake. I live in prefecture 18, Fukui, on the opposite side of the island from where the earthquake hit. Best way to put it would be to imagine something happening in New York when you live in DC. bout the same distance away.

It is strange because on this side of the island it is life as usual. No delays, no damage, maybe rolling blackouts depending on power needs for Tokyo but that should really only be the Kanto area.

So, safe and sound, thank you for your concern, it is much appreciated.


also, no blog posts because nothing is happening in my life right now that I really want to talk about. Geos went bankrupt in April of last year, was bought by Nova (a competing language school), they kept the Tsuruga Geos branch open until December. After it closed I was transferred to a Nova school in Fukui city. I still live in Tsuruga because I don't want to move twice in 6 months, so I simply commute to and from work every day. My days off are Thursday and Friday so I don't even get to see my friends with real jobs. Basically, all I do is work and watch tv, not much worth writing about.