Krabi, Thailand (Originally posted March 04, 2011)

Forgive a lack of updates; the internet in China has been ridiculously 'choppy' thanks to some testpro-ays in the iddlemeast-ay. Unfortunately I can't upload any pictures to my flikr album, so I'll have to point you to this alternate album and wish you the best of luck.

China is a pain some days. Anyway...

Krabi, Thailand is a beautiful southwestern province with more beaches and limestone cliffs than you can shake a stick at. Krabi Town itself has no beaches, but that means that lodging is significantly cheaper here than other places. And it's easy to catch a truck to one of the neighboring beaches for cheap, or do an island-hopping tour. Sometimes, if you arrange the tour through your guest house, you can get a bit of a discount. I went on the Barracuda Tours boat and had a great time. Also, I took a ferry to Ko Phi Phi of 'The Beach' fame. It's overrun by tourists in the center town, but on the outskirts it's nice and quiet with plenty of scuba diving trips and beaches.

If you like to stay on the shore, however, the neighboring beaches around Railay can be reached pretty easily by truck or longtail boat--a boat that has a long, uncovered motor. The noise and air pollution it causes make it a bit annoying for long trips, though.



All in all, I don't think a trip to Thailand is complete without some beach time. Different beaches have different rainy seasons, but generally it's May-October. However, the rain shouldn't last more than two hours or shorter spurts, so if you can put up with that, the cheap 'low season' prices may be right up your alley.





I'll try to do a less lame update when the internet is being less lame as well...

Kamakura (Originally posted March 23, 2009)

About an hour from Tokyo is the little beach town of Kamakura. It's not a place you'd really want to go swimming, and you shouldn't walk and eat at the same time--or else the hawks will get your food.








There were vendors selling grape lollipops at the first temple we visited.






We fed some giant koi fish. I was told that koi never really stop growing, so you can imagine there were a few biggies in the pond.



Getting ready to hit the beach.

THE MIGHTY PACIFIC. It was the first time a few people had ever seen it.













Don't let it fool you; there was so much glass all over the beach that I didn't bother to take my shoes off.









Then we hit another temple which was the most beautiful one I've ever seen. It's called Hase-dera, and it's amazing.
















Then off to the Daibutsu, a giant Buddha statue. The temple around it got burned down a long time ago, so now he just chills out in the open.







Supposedly those are his sandals.

And my favorite picture I took that day: