The misuse of English in Korea and Japan was, as expected, truely superb. I've never seen English abused in such a comical and consistant manner. At first one had the urge to photograph every single amusing notice, but after a while it became apparent that there would have been hundreds of such photographs. After a while one just stops noticing... For more examples be sure to visit www.engrish.com.

Kamakura is a delighful town only an hour's train ride from Tokyo. We did a day trip there. Kyoto is around 2:20 away by high speed train, and was also a fantastic city - not as busy as Tokyo, and therefore a more relaxed atmosphere. We stayed in truely superb accomodation for only USD26 per night!

Tokyo is truely an amazing city. Despite its sheer size space is used intelligently. Restaurants and public areas had ample space, people were polite and friendly, good quality food was abundant, transportation easy. Apart from a few minor points everything was very well organised and ran smoothly. Other smaller cities would do well to take of Tokyo when making excuses for their own failings! The rumours of great expense were partly true. Accomodation was expensive, but we found eating out and food in general to be much cheaper than Switzerland! Japan seems to be a country happy to specialise in high-tech industries, while importing the food they need. Very few countries can boast the trade surplus of Japan!

Okinawa has a tropical climate and is closer to Taiwan than Japan. The modern civilisation of Japan is combined with a relaxed island setting - creating a truely superb atmosphere.

Seoul was a huge city of 21 million residents. Huge 12 lane intersections make some of the US road systems look small. Food was good, taxis were cheaper than trains, overall a very interesting and pleasant place.