Guangzhou grey skies and Tokyo blue ones

Months to catch up on seems, this one is going to require a search through some photos and calendars to remember what we have been up to!

We left you at Chinese New Year way back at the end of January and our trip to Manila (from which I am sure you are all pleased to know Hannah has fully recovered and is back to eating crisps and sweets in copious amounts).  February contained our first ever trip to the mainland.  First we got our visas sorted - because the UK charges Chinese to visit the UK, China very helpfully does the same for UK citizens visiting China, which is fair enough I guess.  Then we bought our train tickets, booked our hotel and headed off to Guangzhou for the weekend.  Guangzhou is in fact the 3rd largest city in China which I guess makes it the Leeds of China.  However, there the similarities probably end.  It's a bit of a hard place to describe really - in some ways there was quite a bit to see, but in other ways it was a big mass of urban grey sprawl that did not really grab you as somewhere to visit.  I'm glad we went, but probably won't be rushing to go back.

Gardens (and grey sky)

Hunger games type crazy performance stages

you don't buy rubber bands in ones in Guangzhou

Church with some colour flags at least

hello kitty cafe

the nicely lit up Guangzhou tower

We were also lucky to have lots of visitors in February, both friends and family.  I'll save you from their photos (am concerned about image rights!) but it was nice to show some more people our current home and have an excuse to visit lots of our favourite places.

In March we then had a long planned trip to Japan.  This has been booked for months (probably in fact nearly a year) and it lived up to all the expectation.  We spent the first few days in Tokyo, then flew up to Sapporo to spend some days skiing in Niseko before spending a night in Sapporo on the way home.  Japan was brilliant fun - friendly people, loads to see and do, tasty food and beer, easy to get around - pretty much everything you could want in a holiday.  If you get the chance then go!

Firstly in Tokyo we stayed on the river and spent 3 days walking around and seeing everything we could.  Its a big list only really slightly captured by photos - but we went into gardens, temples, markets, bars, restaurants.  A couple of highlights were visiting the Gonpachi that is supposed to have inspired one of the big scenes in Kill Bill - food was OK, but for atmosphere and a place to see it was great!  and then also finding great craft beer bars in lots of places.  There are loads more photos here

Kill Bill inspiration?

found some blossom (not sure if I mean Hannah or the tree)

and of course we found the best pizza

and the best beer....

and Hannah found shopping

the hotel view was not bad!

note the blue sky, slight different to our previous trip!  sadly it was too windy when we tried to go up the tower

After Tokyo we flew up to Sapporo - but I think I'll save that for another blog, mainly because its the weekend here and I have a appointment booked with a local beer establishment.  Goodbye till next time :-)