Hola KJ - back in Madrid! What a busy week did I have... returned from Crete to Germany and enjoyed mama's cooking for a few days before spending a fun night with my high school gang - class reunion after 16 years. Quite a surprise to hear the life stories of some of them, and funny to note that most girls were quickly turning into big breeders while most guys are still clinging to the life in the fast lane. Another great train ride followed aboard a tilt-technology ICE-T through many Germain mountain areas to Munich, where I obviously had few other reasons for being than the Oktoberfest. A quick side trip to Salzburg in Austria, and then it was again off to Madrid to put the icing on top of my round-the-world cake. For all of you in the know - I did get my new passport and I also managed to finally get my new US visas today... woohoo! Sunday it's back to California for my next round of dishwasher-to-millionaire attempts.

Once again, Kalimera - this time from the island of Crete. After my last post I did manage to get to Istanbul in Turkey, which is quite an amazing place for religious architecture, intercontinental river cruises, and fake designer goods on 1,000s of bazaars throughout the city. As I am not too impressed by all things churches and mosques etc. I took the overnight bus two days later to get via Izmir to Bodrum, only to catch a ferry to the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Yeah!!! My favorite past-time.. island-hopping in the land of Homer & Co. This year, I started on Kos, where I visited the ancient Asklipieion of Hippocrates, first hospital in the world and birthplace of modern medicine. Some beach time, then on to Rhodes to wander around this amazing old town of cobblestone alleys and medieval fortresses. I also made it to the touristy Akropolis of Lindos and the southern beaches of Gennadi, where I could finally escape the relentless crowds. A ferry at ungodly morning hours took me to Karpathos, half-way towards Crete. Climbing around the old village of Olymbos is nothing short of spectacular, with its isolated people and their strange customs providing the real traveling experience away from the beaten paths. Another beach-only day at Amoopi before I hopped on the next ferry to Sitia, Crete's easternmost port. More beachtime at the famous palm tree forest of Vai in the far east, then a day in Agios Nikolaos. I arrived at Iraklio today, main city of the island, and after all that island solitude this is quite the civilization shock here, with thousands of stupid tourists causing prices to be more than twice as high as in the rest of the Aegaean Sea. Nevertheless, I did venture to the Palace of Knossos and must say that, after having seen the likes of Pompeji and Herculaneum in Italy, I was quite disappointed. Anyway, more beach time tomorrow and on Monday it's back to Germany for a few days!

Kalimera Froggie - puh, the Olympics are over! I guess you knew that but here's the really good news: I am on the road again!!! I finally managed to escape computer slavery (talk about tuning a web site!) and armchair sports (thanks to EuroSport), so I made my way via Budapest (by plane) to Bucarest (nice couchette overnight train, the old style). Romania's capital is an impressive mix of huge tree-lined avenues and Ceaucescu-era monstrous communist buildings, none more overwhelming than the Palace of the People, the second-largest building in the world. A sweet first-class IC ride to Constanta and a bus ride later I found myself on the coast of the Black Sea in Neptun-Olimp, one of the old communist-era beach resorts with lots of concrete and not a lot of people these days. I chose the land border crossing to Bulgaria via Vama Veche, which forced me to hike for 6 kilometers (with backpack!) to the next village of Durankulak, before there was bus service to Golden Sands available. Boy, did I enjoy the beach time even more! Countless hotels hidden in a forest along the hills of the long beach, with endless bars and club options day and night. The nearby city of Varna was quite pretty, with many shady boulevards and a large center with mostly pedestrian-only streets. Now I am north of Burgas on Bulgaria's Sunshine Coast in the medieval town of Nessebar. Very touristy but rightfully so - basically an open-air museum of a small town perched on a rocky cliff island just offshore. On the way to Istanbul now, here I will arrive by overnight train (I love those!) on Sunday morning. More planning info on http://www.matthiasworldwide.com

Moin Moin Frosch - finally, signs of life from the travel front. After nearly three weeks in Germany the bug bit me quite hard today, so I succumbed aaaaand... bought airline tickets, yeah! I will go on a little 3-week power trip of the Black Sea from Constanta to Varna and on to Istanbul in Turkey, before crossing down to Izmir and the Dodecanese islands of Greece. From Rhodes I will jet-cat-over to Crete, from where I will return in time for my class reunion on September 25. Two days Berlin before and two days Munich Oktoberfest after... perfectly planned, considering it will be rounded off with a three-day weekend in Madrid before jetting back to the States. Meanwhile, I have spent way too much time fumbling around with my old/new web site, which is supposed to go back online any day now. You will like it - tons of pictures! I'll keep you posted...

Grüezi Frosch - Sorry for the 2-week hiatus since I wrote my last message. The embassy dealings in Madrid provided me with yet another unsuspected twist to my travel planning, in more than one way. Left the city very quickly for a beautiful day in London, where I finally managed to take the BA Eye for a spin and walked around all day. Quite a change from my time there almost 10 years ago! Not half as boring, the people dress really cool these days, and you can even get good food, drinkable coffee and cold beer now. Continued that same evening to Iceland to be greeted by Reykjavik's weird midnight sun. Amazingly beautiful, amazingly expensive - I think that's what sums it up best when visiting the island for the first time. Went for a dip in the Blue Lagoon, of course, and started my explorations on the Golden Circle, which took in the ancient Thingvellir assembly site of Viking ages, the thundering Gullfoss waterfalls, and the famous Strokkur and Geysir hot springs. Then I just had to do it - circling the entire island following the over 1400 kilometers long Highway 1: The roaring Skogafoss waterfalls, the colorful fishing village of Vik, the Skaftafell glaciar tip at the Vatnajökull cap of eternal ice, the quiet village of Höfn with its picturesque harbor, the rough ride tracing the eastern fjords to sunny Egilsstadir, the tiring treck across the vast lunar-like volcanic ash highlands of the northeast, and finally reaching much-hyped Akureyri and the wonderland of Lake Myvatn. Bubbling mud pots and steaming hot springs are everywhere, not to mention volcano craters and freaky lava formations along this meeting point of the European and American tectonic plates. Finally returned to Reykjavik for another night of the infamous runtur, a midnight sun pub crawl by every young and fashionable soul of the nation's capital that one has to see to believe. I wouldn't be myself if I didn't top this little adventure on site: I flew to Greenland! Breathtaking floating iceberg fields and inhospitable sleet greet you upon arrival at Kulusuk, a Cold War-era dirt landing strip for the north Atlantic and Arctic radar surveillance station. I hopped aboard a helicopter and was in for the ride of my life through some pretty nasty weather to reach Angmagssalik, something of a Garden Eden for East Greenlanders, which they call Tasiilaq. Hardly a soul lives there and I stayed at the only place you could call a hotel, right at the huge Intelsat satellite relay station atop the bay there. The howling of huskies is what will stick with you forever... the call of the wild. Went aboard an old fishing vessel to see the monstrous floating icebergs up close - if the icy wet winds don't give you the chills, the sight of the deadly blue ice that forms part of the iceberg under the water surface sure will; quite a Titanic moment. Hiked out into the Valley of the Flowers, a glaciar drainage area where some miniscule flowerlike things battle the elements next to lakes and waterfalls. And always the huskies... howling everywhere, untamed and wild, yet harnessed to pull big sleighs. It was time to return into the highlife of Reykjavik! One more night there on the runtur, then back via London to Berlin, where I am currently enjoying Mama's cooking for a few days. Still thinking about what to do next but, no worries, I will come up with something!

Hola Sr. Frog!  Back in my beloved Madrid... what a sane and civilized place after my whirlwind tour of the Near East.  After taking off from Tel Aviv I first decided to head straight to Ein Gedi on the western shores of the Dead Sea.  Now that is one thrilling experience - 52 degrees Celsius (126 degrees Fahrenheit) in the afternoon, 412 meters below sea level, and to describe the water merely as salty wouldn't do it justice.  It creates so much buoyancy that it is extremely difficult to keep your "lower" parts under water - when you do manage then about everything upwards from the middle of your chest still sticks out of the water and any attempt to sink lower makes you bounce as if jumping on a trampolin.  The heat both inside and outside of the water was painful, though, so I made my way back across the Judean Desert to Jerusalem.  Wandering the streets of the Old City was very impressive, even though the whole religious thing doesn't do anything for me, as you know.  I visited the halls of The Last Supper, took a peak at the Sleeping Maria Magdalena, and went to the Western Wall (or Wailing Wall) to watch Jews in their frantic head-banging prayer activities there.  Afterwards, I haggled with some Arabs close to the Via Dolorosa and eventually purchased an awesome sheesha made by Bedouines living between the ancient Jericho and the Jordan river.  Party back in Tel Aviv that night, with an early morning departure to the Gaza strip (sorry, of course I couldn't tell anybody before I went).  Made it past the first military checkpoint and hooked up with a camera team trailing UNHCR personnel on a trip to the Jabahlya refugee camp.  My pre-registration hadn't gone through in time, though, so the inside military post suggested I better not continue, as there had been a new wave of violence since the night before due to the PM's resignation and Arafat's latest act of nepotism when appointing the new security forces chief in Gaza City.  Well, I don't like to turn around after having made it that far but my smart brain got the better arguments over my traveling heart, so I exited via the Eisra checkpoint and kicked my car as hard as I could on the way south.  Five hours later I was in no-man's-land between Israel and Jordan, probably the loneliest border crossing I have ever witnessed.  Spent the hot afternoon hours (well, "only" about 44 degrees Celsius, or about 111 degrees Fahrenheit) in Aqaba, the seaside port town and special economic zone on the Gulf of Aqaba.  The ice-cream sorbet shake I've had at the Moewenpick Resort was probably the best piece of cool stuff in my life, even though they skin you alive - a large 2-liter bottle of water runs about US$11, and the winds are so hot with virtually no humidity that I drank 5 of these bottles in a 4-hour span and still got so dehydrated that I never had to go pee even once!!!  Back in Israel (oh yeah, talk about a slightly more involved border crossing!) I enjoyed the evening and nightlife of Eilat, basically a hotel resort town with a few beaches where half of Israel's youth seems to congregate between July and August.  Next morning I continued my border crossing assaults by venturing via Taba into the Sinai peninsula of Egypt - why people want to go there is beyond me as the landscape is an extremely barren mountainous rock desert with nothing to offer beyond its hotels.  I cruised down the coast to Nuweiba and enjoyed a few quiet hours in El Tabarin before returning all the way to Tel Aviv that night, where I was fortunate enough to meet up with an old friend from New Zealand, who showed me around Yafo (Jaffa) and the beaches at night time.  To give you that final experience for Israel, if you needed one, the Ben Gurion international airport has some of the most acribic security checks in place:  I arrived just after 2 o'clock in the morning and barely managed to get onto my flight, which left at 6:45!  Every single piece of my luggage content was separately swiped for explosives and drugs, I was interviewed by standard security and Mossad folks four times, and still I wasn't as annoyed as when at US airports... it somehow seemed to work much better and it really seemed to find everything and then some.  Arriving in Madrid was quite a relief, to say the least, and I relaxed for the weekend at the swimming pools of the city.  The embassy dealings I've had here would fill another book so I'll skip those for now... long story short, everything is approved but I can't get actual visas into my passport until 10 days before the trip, which effectively requires yet another trip to Madrid in September.  For now, however, it will be some cooling-down time in Iceland and Greenland starting on Thursday.

Shalom KJ - greetings from Tel Aviv (Jaffa), where I finally arrived yesterday morning after a 2-day odyssey from Zanzibar via Dar es Salaam and London. Puked worse than a sick puppy on the hydrofoil from Stone Town to Dar in heavy seas, adventured with crazy cabbies through the streets of Dar at night in search of an available hotel bed, slept through most of my long flight to Heathrow, which was its usual ugly self except for my six hours in the lounge, waited in the airplane for three hours on the ground (at midnight) only to be told of a necessary complete change of aircraft due to some crazy flaps control computer, and got stuck at Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv thanks to arriving in the morning hours of Shabath. Oh well! There goes all the rest+relax accumulated on Zanzibar, which was quite a beautiful island to spend much more time on one day. This morning I awoke to a bomb explosion at one of the busiest central bus stations in town - welcome to the real Israel! The city is surprisingly green, young, and very much alive despite all the things CNN tries to tell you. Endless beaches right downtown, a fancy mix of old and new, and a welcome 1st-World experience after almost three months of criss-crossing through Africa. Tomorrow on to Jerusalem and maybe Ramallah, depending on the security situation, then back to TLV and on Friday home to Madrid for a week or two.

Yowza Junior - one more thing: Return to California planned for October 3rd, 2004.

Heya KJ - back in Arusha after cruising for three days through Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Wildlife viewing was as expected - spectacular, to say the least. Spotted cheetahs on the lookout for prey, countless zebras and wildebeasts on the wide-open plains, lots of impalas and tomson's gazelles all over the place, and majestic lions up close, not to mention the usual fare of giraffes, elephants and hippos. The night atop the crater rim was freezing cold and spent inside mystic (and misty) clouds but the early-morning descent into the caldera, at 20 kilometers diameter one of the world's largest, more than made up for it: Thousands of stampeding wildebeasts in search of fresh grass, beautiful flamingos and pelicans on the salt shores of the crater's biggest lake, rhinos and hippos enjoying the frigid water ponds, spotted hyenas lazing in the sunshine, elephants and vervet monkeys at picnic sites looking like sets from Jurassic Park, and of course the cheetahs and lions everybody was asking for. Next via Pangani to Dar es Salaam and the Spice Islands of Zanzibar!

Jambosana... glad to be back, dearest of all frogs. I can't even begin to describe what these past two weeks have been like, overland-trucking my way to see the mountain gorillas, of whom only 600 or so remain on this world, all of them in the civil war border triangle of the D.R. Congo (Zaire), Rwanda and Uganda. Most of it will have to wait until my website is up and running again, complete with picture accounts of some of the most incredible days spent during the past year. Montain gorillas are probably the most magical thing you will ever see in your lifetime, the final reward after 1500km of rough trucking on dirt roads, countless hours spent fighting corruption at land border crossings and bribing greenbacks to grinning and gun-carrying bureaucrats, and a day like no other you will ever experience - several hours of a triumphant ride on the bed of a pick-up truck, looking in amazement at peace-starved villages in Zaire with the most incredibly happy people running out of their mud homes to wave at you and jump up and down like it's the final stage of the Tour de France. To top it off, an exhausting final 4 hours of jungle climbing await, not to mention at higher altitudes with the weather changing from hottest and extremely humid air to ice-cold mountain winds and torrential rainfalls. Two machete guys were attempting to clear the non-existent path, one guide ranger explained stuff in broken French, and 9 Kalashnikov and AK47-equipped soldiers tried to watch out for poachers and guerilla fighters... in a nutshell, just another day in a civil war area, which it has been for decades. The reward is an emotionally overpowering encounter with a family of gorilla gorilla beringei - some moments in life are unforgettable, and the first sight of a silverback in his jungle is one of them. We watched a mother carry around her big youngster, were thrilled to hear the silverback mate with some of his girls several times, loudly hammering his chest after every round, and we fended off curious attempts to have cameras stolen by an inquisitive younger male. The moment the silverback turned his attention on us made us freeze with fright and sheer amazement - an unbelievably dominant and huge animal to face, yet so peaceful, almost sensing the close bond of sharing virtually our entire DNA. He approached so closely that we could have touched him, making it hard to take pictures (no worries - I got some awesome shots). We tracked the group for about one hour until we had to retreat and embarked on our return treck. Not knowing something is bliss, as they say, and we got our dose of this - while there, Congolese guerilla rebels invaded our basecamp village Kisoro in Uganda. They were fought by UCPF militias, who killed three of them and pushed the rest of them back across the border. At the same time, we later learned from newspapers, two former Congo generals fled with 305 rebel soldiers into Uganda and were subsequently pushed south into Rwanda, which temporarily closed all borders the day we arrived back. We continued on to heavenly Lake Bunyonyi and its islands with pygmy people, where we relaxed for a day before heading to Kampala and Jinja, the source of the nile. On the way, I visited the Chimpanzee Sanctuary on Ngamba Island on Lake Victoria, almost two hours by boat from Entebbe. If faces could talk... these wonderful critters have a hillarious human-like behavior (or was that the other way around?) and an impressive range of facial expressions. What a peaceful two days were the last ones, in comparison to everything else - Lake Nakuru in Kenya, with more pelicans, flamingos, rhinos and all other sorts of stuff in one spot than you can imagine. A big mirror-like soda lake saved by the 1997 El Nino rains, with beautiful camping in a forest of acacia trees, this national park should be on everyone's list of things to do. Crossing south into Tanzania to Arusha tomorrow, but not before enjoying the Saturday night feast served up by Carnivores, easily the most spectacular restaurant in Nairobi. If zebra, kudu and all other sorts of game meats are your thing, this is the place to be - vegetarians need not apply. Next week will see the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti National Park with its famous wildebeast migration, as well as the trip to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar - Spice Islands, here I come!

Jambo Junior... As expected, La Reunion turned out to be a wonderful "DOM-TOM" with everything that good old France has to offer, plus the incredible mountain circuits. Enjoyed the baguette-and-cheese culture thoroughly, went all over the island to see Salazie, Hell-Bourg and the Piton de la Fournaise volcano with its moonlike Plains des Sables. Relaxed on the beaches of St.-Gilles-les-Bains and Bucan Canot, admittedly taking in the view of female sunbathers a-la-francaise. Hopped back via Mauritius and the Seychelles to Kenya, where I am now in Mombasa. The dirt and the traffic are incredible, so are the mix of cultures and the muslim influence on everything. Spies everywhere... how went that joke about the islamic gentlemen's club? "Show your face, show your face!" Anyway, the call for prayers are very frequent and loud (and annoying for me) but the city does kind of grow on you after a day or two, even though the humidity is killing me. Wednesday it's back to Nairobi and on to Masai Mara - yep, more safaris for me!

Yowza Mr. Kermit Junior - one hell of a quicko update from the Indian Ocean. The Seychelles rank for me right there with Japan and Norway - very beautiful and interesting but not worth a second trip due to excessively ridiculous prices. Explored Mahe, the main island, by car for three days before hopping over to Praslin island by plane and then on to La Digue island by boat. This must be one of the most beautiful islands... I hiked around the entire island, visited the remote beaches of Grand Anse, Petite Anse, and Anse Cocos, and of course enjoyed not one but two sunsets at famous Anse Source d'Argent. Returned by boat to Praslin island to explore the impressive northeastern coast there, including the obligatory visit to Anse Lazio, a slightly crowded beach (well, 20 people or so) but heavenly, nevertheless. Flew back to Mahe island to catch my plane south to Mauritius... adventured cross-island to Port Louis, where my hotel nearly burnt down the first evening! No lights, and smoke and fire everywhere, but I knew I might as well be dead if I didn't dash inside to rescue my passport and stuff, which I luckily did, ending up on the street late at night trying to find a new bed in this town (which I did as well). Relaxed from this ordeal on the beaches of Grand Baie yesterday, got some more vaccinations today, and will head south to check out the beaches around Flic en Flac. Afterwards, it will be a short flight to La Reunion, so I can enjoy some French-European lifestyle sophistication after this Indian-Chinese assault of overpopulation, which is what Mauritius basically stands for today. The only cool thing I've done here so far was going to the crazy horse races at the Champs de Mars here in Port Louis - one amazingly crowded and fun experience.

[Mr. Kermit Junior auto-blog entry:]
He did it again!!! Ba-naaaaa-nasss!!! Can't just add the Seychelles as a "side trip" - no, it has to be half the Indian Ocean...

05/23-05/26 Mahe island, Seychelles Anse Intendance anyone?
05/27-05/29 Praslin island, Seychelles And La Digue.
05/30-02/06 Mauritius Yeah baby, more island stuff for me!
03/06-05/06 Reunion Even without accents, Vive La France!
06/06-07/06 Mahe island, Seychelles Bad travel planning. Ha!!!
07/06-09/06 Mombasa, Kenya And more beaches!
10/06-12/06 Masai Mara, Kenya Safari safari safari.
13/06-05/07 Overland Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania. Many more safaris...
06/07-09/07 Zanzibar island, Tanzania Spicey Spice Islands for me.
And on to Tel Aviv, Madrid, Berlin, then Iceland and the Caribbean - Martinique, more beaches for me until the end of September!

[original entry, 2 days earlier]
Hi Mr. KJ - back in the lounge at JNB international. What a thrill to hike around the Zambezi river and Victoria Falls at the end of the rain season, when water levels are almost 10 times higher than normal! Crossed the famous bridge towards Zambia on foot and visited Livingstone for a day. Crossing the Knife's Edge bridge on the Zambian side of the falls is like walking through hundreds of fire hoses being pointed at you with water at full power - no raincoat or umbrella will keep you dry. Of course, I did the incredible "Flight of Angels", a helicopter ride in a sweet big Bell 206 LongRanger helicopter over both sides of the falls, and also hiked out to the Devil's Cataract, which has spectacular water masses on the western side of the falls adorned with multiple rainbows. Went on a day trip to Chobe National Park in Botswana - without a doubt the most impressive "zoo" I have ever seen. During a river safari along the Namibian border I saw mating hippos, water buffalos, nile crocs, elephants... just everything the doctor ordered. Pulled the boat on shore just 15 meters away from two beautiful lions laying there and looking at us - no fence, no guns, no rangers, that's how you feel alive! Continued inland to witness countless circling vulchers before we found the lions with bloody paws, who had taken down some big kudus. Oh, and did I mention giraffes? Not 4 or 5... we're talking 40-50 parading in front of you, crossing the path of the LandRover. On the way back, past the Zimbabwean border, we couldn't continue for 20 minutes because of countless elephants with their young playing offsprings blocking the road! All in all, I think that this was probably my first real taste of Africa... what a cool place! On to Nairobi in Kenya this afternoon, then to the Seychelles for some vacationing tomorrow...

Salut Junior - just a quick update before I am jetting off to Vic Falls tomorrow. I went on several day game drives, a night game drive and a sunrise walking safari inside Kruger National Park and came face to face with some pretty awesome creatures. The place is full of giraffes, rhinos, hippos, impalas, buffalos, some leopards and lions, cheetahs, and all kinds of other normal zoo animals. Continued from Nelspruit into the Blyde River Canyon to see some spectacular scenery and ended up in Pretoria. Day tour of Johannesburg and Soweto today - what a huge place this is! Hiked around squatter camps inside Soweto and went to Orlando West, the site of the 1976 student uprisings and the only place on earth with a street called home by two Nobel prize winners. Oh, and did I mention that this country went absolutely bananas when they announced that they would become the host of the 2010 Football World Championships? I will remember where I was on that day!

Heya Junior - back in South Africa! Went on a special trip through Swaziland and Mocambique... now that seems more like the *real* Africa. Just crossing the land borders is one hell of an experience, a zoo without comparison. Spent a few days in Maputo and enjoyed bars on the beach, nightlife with African live music, and lots of run-down communist-era architecture. I even checked out the Museum of the Revolution! Crossed the bay to Catembe (with about 100 other people in a 20-foot "boat"!!!), yet another step back in time, and marveled at always-friendly and smiling people despite their below-poverty lives. One side note: My passport is beginning to run out of visa and stamp pages! The Mozis alone plastered yet another full-page visa and four stamps in it. With 8 countries still to go in Africa alone that's not good news; I will probably have to figure out how to get a new passport - while in Africa, so good luck to me. Oh yeah, before actually getting into Durban I did go diving out of Umkomaas... fantastic experience with manta rays up close, dolphins, huge turtles, and all sorts of other fun stuff.

Hello KJ... Hakuna matata and greetings from South Africa. Jetted via SYD and JNB into Cape Town - what a beautiful city! Did the whole nine yards... Robben Island and Mandela's famous prison cell number 5, sunset from the top of Table Mountain, and one heck of a spectacular Cape Point tour. Visited the fur seals in Hout Bay, drove the famous Chapman's Peak road, mountain-biked in the CP nature reserve among baboons and rock dassies, climbed to the Cape Point lighthouse and all the way down to the breathtaking views at Point Dias, and finished off with an amazing hike atop the cliffs of Dias Beach to Cape of Good Hope (with one hell of a scary picture, me standing on the last rocks of the clifftop to document it!). Continued on via Cape Agulhas (that's where Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet, the southernmost tip of Africa) to Oudtshoorn, the ostrich capital of the world. Yes, I do have a picture of me riding an ostrich!!! However, my favourite stop was at the Cango Wildlife Park and Cheetahland - I popped some extra bucks for the conservation efforts and was rewarded with a climb down into the pen alongside two rangers and was allowed to actually pat those awesome pussycats!!! Drove via the Garden Route (George, Knysna, Plett Bay) to Port Elizabeth and put in a monster day of driving to reach Lesotho, the Kingdom in the Sky. This country's lowest point is the highest of any country in the world, and the place and its friendly Basotho people are nothing short of absolutley special. I disappeared for several days at the Malealea Lodge and went pony trekking through the rugged mountains, to secluded villages, gigantic gorges, and thundering waterfalls. Exited the country via the zoo called Maseru Bridge, drove along the Maloti mountain ranges to Golden Gate Highlands NP, and spent the night at Harrismith - what a quiet and ugly place, but for the first time in days I have access to water toilets, power, telephones and even Internet. Going hiking in the northern Drakensberg ranges today and will continue on via Durban into Swaziland and Mocambique.

One last G'Day from the Top End, little K! Wasted a few days in Darwin being sick like a dog (read: I actually went to see a doc!) but it went considerably better last Tuesday so I embarked upon a four day Northern Territories Blitz to visit Kakadu NP, Katherine Gorge and Litchfield NP in airconditioned tour group comfort. Witnessed awesome display of power of crushing Saltie croc jaws, hiked all the way up to the top pools of Gunlum Falls, canoed up Katherine Gorge to take a dip in the Southern Rockhole, crossed the new Ghan several times along the way, checked out Charlie the famous water buffalo (well, the stuffed dead one) from Crocodile Dundee movie fame in Adelaide River, end finished with many more waterfalls throughout Litchfield NP. Long flight ahead this night - via Sydney and Johannesburg to Cape Town. No worries mate, as Yours Truly has the upper deck, first row window SkyBed... woohoo!!! The only way to travel...

Yo KJ - here's the current short-term update:

04/18-04/25 Darwin and NT, Australia Wrestling salties in Kakadu NP.
04/26-04/28 Cape Town, South Africa Table cloths and Robben Island.
04/29-05/17 Overland safari Southern Africa Garden Route, Lesotho, Drakensberg, Durban, Zululand, Swaziland, Maputo and Mocambique, Kruger NP, Jo'burg.
05/18-05/21 Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe Side trips to Zambia and Namibia.
05/22-05/22 via Jo'burg, South Africa to Nairobi, Kenia Bad travel planning.
05/23-05-30 Mahe and Praslin islands, Seychelles [Bugs would say:] Ain't I a stinker? Hahaha... more tropical islands for me!
05/31-06/22 Overland safari Eastern Africa Masai Mara NP, Kenya. Via Kampala, Uganda to Kigali, Rwanda and the Mountain Gorillas. Into Tanzania to Serengeti NP, past Mt. Kilimanjaro to Zanzibar and the Spice Islands, on to Dar es Salaam.
06/23-06/29 Tel Aviv, Israel. Long trip via London. Swimming in the Death Sea.
06/30-07/04 Madrid, Spain Time for nightlife al fresco!

More details later.

G'Day little Kermit... Still enjoying the last days of summer here in Perth - discovered a beauty of a beach, Swanbourne/Nedlands, right between Cottesloe and Scarborough, for some desperately needed FKK. No more tan lines, woohoo! Went to see some kick-ass ass-kicking at the Subi Oval - the Freemantle team showing off some of the impressive Aussie-Rules Football, better known around here as Dockers Footy. Indulged in yet another wildlife park, Caversham in the wine country of Swan Valley, but the skippies weren't up to much jumping around as they had been fed all day by children out of school. After a sunny day in Freemantle, a.k.a. Freo, which included a fantastic visit to the former maximum-security prison and great people-watching on the city's famed Capuccino Strip, I was not to be denied again: A day trip to beautiful Rottnest Island and a full day of biking all over the place resulted in my next boink, boink, boink moment - little quokkas! Hillarious skippies, basically miniature joeys, that are just a joy to watch and to play with in the limestone and sand dunes of the bays. More Subiaco nightlife today, another lazy beach day and maybe another stroll around Kings Park tomorrow, and then I am off to Darwin and the Northern Territories' swamps of Kakadu NP - Salties, here I come!

Salut Junior! Survived the double-whammy jet lag just fine and went on to Tasmania. Spent some time feeding my favorite little boink boink boink critters (a.k.a. kangaroos, wallabies, etc. pp.) at Bonarong Wildlife Park, cruised around the harbour and even inspected the reasonably famous Cascade Brewery - all in all, Washbear time!!! Back to Melbourne, on to Phillip Island... yes, froze the ass off at the Little Penguin Parade. Via ferry from Sorrento to the Great Ocean Road, a quick side-trip to Bells Beach in Torquay (the famous Oz surfer beach where the annual championships are held), all the way to the Twelve Apostles and back to Melbourne's sacred MCG for some kick-ass Aussie Rules Football at night. Weekend in Sydney with all the bells and whistles (those sharks almost attacked us!!!) plus an afternoon in Manly, and back to Melbourne for a few more days - most notably the Rialto Towers observation deck... woohoo, exactly my thing! I have finally made it to Perth today, all the way out west - it is super sunny and hot here, so beach time now!

Hi there KJ - It is freeeeezing everywhere in Scandinavia! Enjoyed my two days in Helsinki very much; kind of another blast from the past... things look and feel quite Baltic (duh!) and Soviet-Union-ish, so to speak. Oslo is another beauty, but far more westernized than the Finnish stuff. I'll probably not be a frequent traveller to this spot - almost as expensive as Japan, absolutely over-the-top ridiculous! Small Whopper menu is about USD 12, the tall Starbucks latte goes for about USD 8, and we won't even talk about beer and such... Arrived in Lillehammer yesterday and for all the 1994 Olympics hype it is actually a rather disappointing little town. Continued on to Hafjell and its fantastic ski areas - woohoo! I really am beginning to get the hang of it; nothing but black stuff is off limits these days. Awesome weather today; can hardly walk after snowboarding all day and hanging with the Eurovision Winter Games crowd. Well, I won't have to walk too much during the next few days, anyway - 3 hours by bus to Oslo, then about 27 hours (and two short skipped nights) via London and Singapore and Melbourne to Hobart... a measly eastbound jet lag, who cares!

Hola Señor Frog... greetings from an upbeat and recovering Madrid. It was quite emotionally draining to visit the many oceans of flowers and candles in and around Atocha station and throughout the city but it seems that the place is coping quite well. People are living their usual spring-time lives in bars, cafes and terrazas as good as they can. What a great advantage that I don't have to visit any tourist sites anymore - simply diving into the city life is an amazing medicine. Easter weekend might be best in Paris but Madrid and its parks and avenues are my hands-down favorite for spring-time feelings. I've been walking probably more than 10 miles every day; there are just so many new things to discover here, as always. I'll be back in June for another week, so leaving for Helsinki tomorrow is that much easier. Ooops, yeah, casual note on the side - yet another addition to my little relaxed itinerary here: I felt like three nights in Finnland before heading to Oslo, so here we go. It's that easy, if you haven't noticed yet.

Hola Junior... well, what can I say... I am flying to Madrid tomorrow and it will be good to see my friends after all that has happened there last week. Fortunately, all of them are doing well but some do have people they know that were injured in the attacks. I will spare you another rant of mine on this shit - I really couldn't care less if it was ETA or Al-who or whatever. All that counts is that some idiots exploit open democratic societies for their issues and that they deserve nothing but some of our own aggravated violence to death in return. No compassion with their issues, no mercy with their families and children, just nuke'em. And if I hear one more Christian asking for crosses in schools I will carry a cross myself and hit them with it. And if I hear one more Muslim asking to carry their head covers in school I will personally undress them and strangle the shit out of them with their desert scarves. Buddhists seem to be cool so far - they shut up and retreat into their Zen temples and leave me alone. And ETA? Or IRA? Or RAF? No laws, no mercy - that's how they play the game, so let's play it as well and kill them whenever we see one of them - boom, boom, game over. *** Oh well, by the way, I just spent one otherwise fantastic week of snowboarding in Italy. Austria was just no fun and not very accommodating so we ended up crossing the Alps yet again to refresh the good old memories of Livigno. Tons of awesome snow and I am actually beginning to get pretty good at this snowboarding thing!

Oh yeah, Mr. KJ - Let's hope no aliens will land their UFOs in the US of A before the Bush gang has been evicted from Earth. As most of you might have heard by now, the current fiscal year specialty occupation visa cap has already been reached thanks to the current government's inaptitude and unwillingness to extend the larger limits in effect for the past three years. Long story short, I will likely add another full travel rotation around this planet, as I am now in a position to expand my plans for several months. Here's the rough guide:

02/27-03/02 Melbourne, Australia Run-up to the Formula 1 week.
03/03-03/14 Austria Snowboarding sans girls but plus plenty of Apres-Ski.
03/15-03/21 Madrid, Spain Spring time in my fav place.
03/22-03/27 Oslo, Norway And more fun in the snow - Hafjell, Lillehammer.
03/29-04/01 Tasmania Don't hide, I will find you damn Tazzie Devils!!!
04/02-04/07 Melbourne, Australia More Washbear time.
04/08-05/03 Perth, Australia Diving, flying, boarding, beaching.
05/04-05/11 Darwin, Australia Northern Territories and Kakadu.
05/12-05/16 Sydney, Australia Gotta do it again before leaving Oz.
05/17-06/03 South Africa And I mean that part of the continent - Jo'burg, Cape Town, Durban, Lesotho, Mocambique, Swasiland, Victoria Falls.
06/04-06/30 Central Africa Kenya (Nairobi, Mt. Kilimanjaro, safaris, Mombasa), Tanzania (Zanzibar, Dar es Salaam), Mauritius, Seychelles, Uganda (see those mountain gorillas!)
07/01-07/04 Berlin, Germany And again making mama happy.
07/05-07/12 Iceland Check out that gene pool!
07/13-07/20 Friedland, Germany More mama (and two birthdays).

Note that the following dates are made up for now as yet another new round-the-world ticket:
07/21-07/28 Israel Land route to Sinai.
07/29-08/07 Egypt Pyramids, Nile, and Red Sea diving.
08/08-08/15 Dubai, Emirates Sparkle with the seven stars.
08/16-08/23 Nepal Close-up inspection of 8k stuff.
08/24-08/31 Southern India Testing Bollywood.
09/01-09/05 Sri Lanka Or Ceylon. Or whatever. Or tea.
09/06-09/13 Maldives Diving and islands, here we go again.
09/14-09/28 Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam Chasing Red Khmer.
09/29-[open] Caribbean Visa stand-by. Under palm trees, of course.

Kia Orana, dearest Junior Frog - finally back in Internet worlds (Melbourne's fabulous St. Kilda beach area at this time) but I just have to give my report on the Cooks. Life is not measured by how many times you breathe but by how many times it takes your breath away. Or so goes the saying once you have reached the Aitutaki atoll, an impossibly beautiful and large lagoon with 15 fringing reef motus, about 200 kilometers north of Rarotonga (which, I should add, isn't the shabbiest place on earth, either). Being there is one thing but I had to get there in style first - riding shotgun in the cockpit of an Air Rarotonga Saab 340 and making good use of ample video and picture ops. Attended one of the fabled Island Nights at the Blue Nun - those Maoris can dance up a storm! (And all those hot chicks must lack the L5 the way the shake their booty.) Went on a lagoon tour on the Titi-ai-tonga, a 70-feet Polynesian vaka, to get my passport processed on One Foot Island, before wading for half an our through the shallow lagoon waters to my private little piece of heaven- nothing but about 50 meters of sand in the middle of the Pacific. Back on Rarotonga I actually passed the test for the local drivers license - what a souvenier! Cruised around on scooters for several days before catching my flight to Auckland and then on to Melbourne. Absolutely awesome here at this time of the year - it's Formula 1 Grand Prix week... truckloads of stunning pitlane babes all over town posing for pictures with beer-drinking dudes (yes, including myself). Lounging on St. Kilda beach today and parading along the picturesque streets - they must have 100s of cafes and restaurants here. Tonight it's Aussie Rules Football time at the Telstra Dome!

Hello again from Kiwi country, dear frog! Finished my Kiwi Experience circuit on the southern island and now en route to Rarotonga and Aitutaki of the Cook Islands. The Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers weren't that impressive after having seen the Perito Moreno in Patagonia last November but I still managed a long and picturesque hike almost all the way up to Roberts Point. Wanaka was quite the beautiful place, albeit clearly more geared towards winter frolicking than summer sports. Queenstown, on the other hand, is just wonderfully nestled between the high mountains of the Southern Alps and 100% tourism. There are bungy jump and river jet operators left and right, heaps of restaurants, bars and nightclubs that are all busy every day and night of the week, and everything else tourists might ask for. Mind you, though, that NZ is far from an affordable place to vacation these days - pricing for all activities ranges between 130 and 280 Kiwi dollars a pop, hardly encouraging me to do something every day. I did go for an all-day trip out to milford sound, though, and what a spectacular experience this turned out to be... can you say "The Perfect Storm"?!? I didn't get to see most of the amazing scenery other than on postcards but how about getting stuck in the outer reaches of the sound in gale-force 180 km/h winds with rainfalls turning all sheer rock walls left and right into countless waterfalls? We couldn't get back into the harbor for several hours due to high waves and visibility blocked by huge drifting waterfall mist! Nature's power at its best, this being the second wettest spot on earth (after a central area in the Amazon rain forest), we even had snow coming down on us at the Homer tunnel entrance. Imagine - over 8,000 millimeters of rain per year (that's over 315 inches for you metrically challenged), rain on over 300 days of every year! Back in Queenstown, we saw snow-capped mountain tops of The Remarkables range and read about the floods on the northern NZ island... what a summer! Time for me to get back onto some Pacific islands... so here I go to the Cooks.

Hey Mr. KJ - Kia Ora, Aotearoa (Hello and Welcome from the Land of the Long White Cloud - a.k.a. New Zealand) - whoa, those three days in Sydney blew right past me! I just love that place, even though most of my time on this first stop-over was spent doing administrative leg work, struggling with all sorts of airline bookings. More on that later, if you care; for now it's Hobbit land for me!!! Flew into Christchurch (no, this name doesn't sit well with me) and went on a day trip to Akaroa today, the only kind-of-French settlement in New Zealand. Very beautiful, very quiet, not as chic as it should be for claiming to be francais. One more day around here, then going via Arthur's Pass across the Southern Alps for a night at Lake Mahinapua, on to Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, and then via Haast and Wanaka to Queenstown, self-declared adventure capital of the world.

Bula, KJ! One last flash-like stop-over in Nadi on my way to 3 super-busy days in Sydney. Just returned today from Taveuni - just on the opposite side of this island, on a little peninsula extending from Vanua Levu, I have spent a few wonderful days in typical tropical paradise fashion. There, in Vanaira Bay, I took the plunge with the Dolphin Bay Divers Retreat to witness one of nature's hidden spectacles: The breath-taking Rainbow Reef and its spectacular Great White Wall dive. Oh, by the way, there were sharks and sea snakes and all other sorts of impressive creatures - but that reef sure is something else. A small tunnel takes you down to the beginning of this seemingly snow-covered sheer wall, which begins to drop into the abyss at about 25 meters of depth, then you drift along the wall's upper edge until rising through another tunnel that is one joyful aquarium full of every kind of colorful fish minding their business between poisonous anemones and countless other soft corals. All in all, I ended up with 16 new dives in my log book during these past few weeks here! Of course, all the other fun stuff came along with these, too - awesome pictures of sunrises and sunsets, and I cannot remember just how many photos I have taken so far of coconut palm trees hanging over snow-white beaches lapped by azure-colored warm waters. I sure will be back here one day - but for now I can look forward to my little jet-excourse from New Zealand to Rarotonga and Aitutaki of the Cook Islands two weeks from now. If you ever wanted to know where they take all these pictures - find the Aitutaki atoll in your favorite atlas. Gotta run, as usual, but I am signing off for now well-tanned and happy!

[Mr. Junior adding an auto entry] He did it again!!! Ba-na-nas!!! My boss thought that yet another few additions to the itinerary were appropriate, so let me share them with you:

02/03-02/07 Taveuni, Fiji As said earlier, a little more white beaches, palm trees and even more diving!
02/08-02/11 Sydney, Australia Gotta love this.
02/12-02/20 New Zealand It's a deal! Christchurch to Auckland by car - Frodo, here I come to Middle-Earth!
02/19-02/26 Cook Islands Yup, had to do another dateline jump - can't leave the south-pac without visiting the number-one atolls.
02/27-03/04 Melbourne, Australia Parking for a few days before...
03/05-03/13 Austria Snowboarding and fun - St. Anton?
03/14-03/21 Spain Back to Madrid!
03/22-03/29 Norway More snowboarding and fun at Hafjell in Lillehammer.
03/30-05/03 Perth, Australia Sailing, diving and wind surfing.
05/03-[open] Africa Lions, giraffes, all that stuff.

Last hello from Samoa, Junior! After a long day in Apia, the slightly Americanized main town on Upolu, I took off on my Green Turtle adventure around both islands. Went past stunning damage areas by cyclone Heta three weeks ago; entire forests shredded to green mulch with only the palm trees rising again after the storm is over (did you know they actually bend all the way to the floor, if necessary?). A few waterfalls, some freshwater pools in the rain forest, more and more awesome white beaches - never can seem to get enough of those it seems. Spent a night in a wonderful beach fale, one of these traditional open houses here on Samoa, and went on two dives the next day out of Senalei Reef Resort, the ritziest place around. Over to Savaii island by scary huge and old ferry to spend the next night in one of Lusia's Lagoon Chalets - awesome over-the-water high fale. Interestingly, I had a great all-evening discussion with the husband of the owner, who kept on selling me his biggest pride - Miss Samoa 2003, currently on duty in Auckland. Very funny! Did the famous rainforest canopy walkway, a fairly safe suspension bridge high up into a banyan tree, and went to shoot coconuts out of the greatest blowholes in the South Pacific, where huge waves crash unrestrained by a barrier reef into hardened lava. Big scare... no more ferries today ("mechanical trouble"), I would have to miss my flights!!! Fortunately, I remembered a few greenbacks in my wallet for just these emergencies (there *is* something good about the U.S.!), and after a little greasing I mysteriously received boarding pass 1-A for the last Polynesian island hopper back to Apia. Here I am, enjoying the service at Aggie Grey's one more evening, before flying back to Fiji and on to Taveuni this night at 3:50am... and another date switch!

Malo e Leilei from the Kingdom of Tonga, Junior! I just arrived on Samoa last night, after quite the turbulent flight from Tongatapu to Apia, but I did want to drop a few notes on my stay on the Ha'apai islands. Visisted the royal palace gardens in Nuku'alofa before taking a Royal Tongan Airlines DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter plane for the hop over to Pangai on Lifuka island. More and more blue hues than one can possibly imagine, isolated archipelagos with snow-white beaches, coconut palm-tree forests, and the most amazing coral reefs shining through the water surface. Spent an afternoon on the rugged eastern coast to watch hermit crabs and jelly fish, took a bike up north to cross via the causeway to Foa, an even more secluded gem of an island with the smallest (12 fale) of all luxury resorts in the entire kingdom, to visit Herbert and his Happy Ha'apai Divers shop. Got stuck in Pangai because Royal Tongan had cancelled all flights to the islands for a while due to mechanical problems on one of their two aircraft - even more time to relax and to watch sunsets. Visited the famous Aggie Grey's hotel in Apia this morning, paradise home for wounded American soldiers of the Pacific Circus during WW-II, and booked all my stuff through Green Turtle eco tours for the next few days here on Upolu and Savaii.

Bula! Yowza KJ... Resurfacing today for half a day on Fiji's mainland, Viti Levu. Fiji time rocks! Went to Tai Island (aka Beachcomber) for a few days to live it up and go diving - awesome! Checked out Gotham City and its amazing bat fish, circled Charlie's Reef, explored Sherwood Forest and Yadua, where we also went ashore to analyze seasnake trails and learn how to pick and crack coconuts, with a final highlight at The Supermarket with all its sharks (white and black-tip reef sharks, gray sharks, bronze whalers, etc.) and Pleasure Point, a stunner of a group of smaller reefs. On by Yasawa Flyer to Tavewa Island for the postcard shots of white beaches with dangling palm trees and over to Nanuya Lailai for a few days in Brooke Shields' Blue Lagoon. Life has been rough! Today I treated myself to something special - a floatplane ride back over all these islands and reefs aboard a Turtle Airways De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver. Your jaws will drop once you can see the pictures with the views from the plane! Jetting to Tonga tomorrow, with another fun plane ride to a remote island group coming up there.

Bula Kermit! Just a few *minor* (hahaha!!!) additions to my short-term schedule with some serious dateline hopping (check out the date overlaps or gaps):

01/14-01/21 Mamanuca and Yasawa island groups, Fiji White beaches, palm trees and diving.
01/22-01/27 Tonga White beaches, palm trees, diving. You get the idea.
01/26-01/30 Samoa Let me think... Aah, yes - white beaches, palm trees, even more diving.
02/01-02/02 Coral Coast, Fiji Hmmm... oh yeah, white beaches, palm trees, maybe no diving.
02/03-02/07 Taveuni, Fiji Yeah, let's round this thing off with a little more white beaches, palm trees and even more diving!
02/08-02/11 Sydney, Australia Gotta love this.
02/12-02/19 New Zealand Well, the planning, as they say.
02/20-02/26 Melbourne-Tasmania-Adelaide, Australia Or so goes the route.
02/27-[open] Perth, Australia Details later. I've heard those rumors about inserting a second, counter-rotating RTW ticket via Caribbean, Europe, and the Emirates...

Konnichiwa, Junior! One more time from Tokyo. So many places to see, so many things to do! Went for the all-day Hakone circuit to see imposing volcano Mt. Fuji one more time (and took about every ride known to man along the way - ropeway, cablecar, funicular, toy train, etc.), cruising across Lake Ashi aboard a funny pirate ship replica and visiting Hell's Canyon with its volcanic sulphor springs. Then, I had my kid-in-a-candy-store day: In the western Tokyo area of Shinjuku are countless skyscrapers and 6 of them have free observation decks; you guessed it, I had to do them all!!! Hiked along ritzy Omotesando Avenue, checked out the Goth chicks at Harajuku station, visited the famous Meji Shrine, and enjoyed some more nightlife on the east side of Shinjuku. Mega highlight yesterday: I got super-lucky as I was in town for the opening day of the first and greatest of only three annual Grand Sumo tournaments. It felt like stripping naked ($50 for a nosebleed section seat, about $8,000 for spots next to the doyho on all 15 days) but it was a spectacle not to be missed. I entered the amazing Ryogoku Kokugikan Sumo Arena with about three hours of the day's events to go; there were thousands and thousands of people screaming and shouting the names of their superstars. Things really heated up with the introduction of the yokozuna, the highest-ranked and most successful sumo wrestlers of their time (only about 70 total existed in present-day Sumo so far) - a colorful spectacle of ceremonies and flying one's colors. During the last several fights of the night, when the ozeki and yokozuna duke it out, it's absolutely feverish mayhem - everybody jumps up, flashbulbs like thunderstorms everywhere, screaming and ooohhs and aaahhs, and within 5 to 30 seconds the fights are over. Oh yeah, some folks asked about the original sushi... well, I resisted the urge for 10 days, as the prices in restaurants will knock you unconscious upon entering. I did use the common tourist's argument eventually ("well, while I am here and on vacation - who cares, gotta do it once") and took the plunge in a decent mid-level Sushi restaurant in the Shibuya district - what an overwhelming attack on the taste buds and the wallet! Don't you think you've done Sushi with a bite of tuna or salmon... I left about US$80 in that plce and, of the things that I can actually name, I've had mooray's eyes, squid head, electric eel, shark fin tips (those were US$30 alone), and ray tail. Plus a few things, most of them yummy, that I couldn't even describe, much less name. Of course, after this experience, I begun seeing cheap Sushi shops left and right at every street corner. So, last night after the Sumo fest, I went into this dive right next to the stadium and for less than US$18 I have had more regular Sushi fare (sea urchin, yellow tail, salmon, tuna, mackarel, etc.) but it was very tasty, many many plates, and came with some Godo Hi-Boy, kind of a Red Bull on steroids based on sochu booze. I also checked out the Tsukiji fish market, the largest of its kind in the world, which was quite another experience in itself. In front of one of the neighboring Sushi joints, to the cheers of a knowledgeable Japanese audience, I witnessed a chef (assisted by about 4 other dudes) artfully cutting up a 400-pound (!!!) tuna using knives that looked more like 5-foot samurai swords. All the while, the restaurant owner was inviting folks on the street to get into his shop - with success, as it worked with me. Can't complain - haven't had any better (or cheaper) fatty tuna in my life!

Heya Mr. KJ - Back in Tokyo today. I absolutely can't stand to see one more temple for now but Kyoto was an inspiring must-see. Can't even remember all the places but the two highlights were the visit to the Imperial Palace (I had to get a special permission the day before but after that it was actually free) and a day in Arashiyama, a suburb of Kyoto, and its lovely Iwatayama Monkey Park - yes, another boink, boink, boink moment in my life. Amazingly funny to watch the human-like social interaction of these animals without a fence between you and them. Never a dull day in their family lives, that's for sure! The view from the park is awesome - all of Kyoto on a clear day. Speaking of clear days, I have been lucky: It was supposed to be wet and gray here in January but, while it is chillingly cold, I have had nothing but blue skies and sunshine! That made the picture of Mt. Fuji turn out great today - the Shinkansen went for an awesome sightseeing turn around it and I had the good fortune to sit at a window on the correct side of the train. Four more days in glitz and neon lights, then back into the summer and to the South Pacific.

Yowza Junior... more on life in the Big Red Dot. My wallet bled to death but I did take the plunge to ride on the top version of the three Shinkansen bullet trains: I took the Nozomi Tokaido Shinkansen super express from Tokyo to Kyoto - what a rush! Not quite as comfortable as a third-generation ICE back in Germany but, since the Japanese don't care too much for environment and neighbors when it comes to implementing technology, they ride exclusively on purpose-built tracks and, thus, fly from A to Z and not just sporadically like the ICEs. Kyoto is one amazing place... I am getting close to TOS (temple overkill syndrome) but you just have to enjoy all the beauty there is. Highlights today were the visits to the Golden Pavilion with its Mirror Lake (Wait 'till you see my picture - you can flip it upside-down and won't notice the difference!) and to Nijo Castle (Remember my birthday dinner 2 years ago? That's the place!). Topping it all off was a stroll through a shopping palace of superlatives: JR Isetan at Kyoto Station. A futuristic glass and glitz oasis of immense proportions (about two football fields in size, each of the 11-above and 3-below earth levels), nothing but ritzy brand-name apparel for men and women (no fluff stuff like electronics, household items, etc.) - and, most amazingly, that place was packed with people actually buying all that expensive crap! I went for the architectural eye-candy... a grand staircase over 7 levels, an atrium that would make NYC skyscrapers blush with waterfall-like escalators over 9 levels (no zig-zag stuff here), and for good measure you can watch the Shinkansen zip by, right from the glass escalators between levels 2 and 3. Two more days here, then back to Tokyo.

Short-term schedule:

01/04-01/08 Kyoto, Japan The historic side of the Rising Sun.
01/08-01/12 Tokyo, Japan Back for more glitz and a trip to Hakone and Mt. Fuji.
01/12-02/03 Fiji Back to the South Pacific. Details on island-hopping to follow.
02/03-05/01 Australia Including New Zealand, trips to Tazzie, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and a longer stay in Perth.

Happy New Year, little frog!!! - Just a quick hello from this jet-lagged soul, now in Tokyo. Meeting the crew in Madrid on x-mas eve was as fun as always; the flight via Miami to Cancun was another reminder why it is nice not to be in the US these days - ridiculously excessive immigration, customs and security processing, all of this not even the tiniest bit perceivable to be helping the situation at all. Whatever! At least Cancun was a jolly good Washbear time - mostly hotels hotels hotels but a nice day trip to Playa del Carmen and even some diving, even though the waves were high and the visibility comparably poor. Processing at DFW was as annoying as at MIA, so I enjoyed my luck even more having been upgraded from business to first class - woohoo!!! Two bottles of Heidsieck Monopole Brut champagne (that is a lofty 87-point Wine Spectator bubbly, for those of you who care), sushi a-la-carte, a mountain of snow-crab legs, and a good 10 hours of 180-degree sleep during the 14 hours total flight time. Narita is way outside Tokyo; took about two hours to get to my hotel. SSS, then I hooked up with a Canadian travel buddy -whom I had met in Rio de Janeiro 6 weeks ago- and his friends for the New Years night out in Roppongi, the expat party zone. Today I followed Japanese tradition and visited the Asakusa Shrine, the Five-story Pagoda, and the Senso-Ji Temple, alongside about a million or so Japanese folks. Gotta see those awesome ladies in their prime-time kimonos!!! Quiet night tonight, for a change - sleep...