Updates...

Whilst I was living in the UK I managed to get across and do a bit of a whirl-wind tour of Europe.First we went to Belgium, which I was pretty impressed with and probably deserves a bit more credit then it seems to get.

Next was Germany, which was nice, although the people weren't the friendliest. Even getting this photo was a hassle. Next was Vienna, which I really liked. Not somewhere that would have been at the top of my list of places to visit, but definitely somewhere I'd recommend. I had the best cake I think I've ever had there. It was a really mild winter while I was over there, but in Switzerland we got to see some real snow! Venice was definitely one of the best places we went, there's just nowhere else like it.

Florence was a bit of a let down, although in all fairness we didn't get to spend enough time there to get a good feel for the place. This isn't the real David, but it's about as close as you get.

Rome was really amazing, it's crazy to be in the middle of a city and then turn the corner and be looking over ancient ruins. Being there at Christmas we got to get blessed by the pope too, twice! Paris was really cool, but I reckon to you'd need spend at least a few weeks there to really see it. The Eiffel Tower is amazing by night. The Louvre was crazy, the Mona Lisa is surprisingly small, but I reckon managing to find our way out of there was the most impressive part of the visit. When in Rome.... Well, Paris in this case. Only problem was where we were you could only order these snails by the dozen. Frogs legs went down much easier...

On the way back we went though Japan and stopped in Tokyo for the best part of a week. While there we went on a tour up Mt Fuji, shown in photo, but could only get up to about 2000m, which is apparently really good for the time of year we were there. Sydney's like a small country town to Tokyo, even London had nothing on it. Still the strangest place I think I've ever been...